Kate Louetta Buford Peck (1864-1953): A woman shrouded in mystery

 “There was an air of legend and mystery surrounded Kate and survived her but gave no clue to the mystery"  — Granddaughter Mary Louise Schwartz (nee Peck)

Kate Louetta Buford Peck’s life is shrouded in mystery and that’s exactly the way she wanted it.

Kate Buford was born in Kentucky supposedly on 10 March 1864, her father was John Buford and I’m not sure who her mother was. I say supposedly because going through records her birth year was all over the place. The information for census records probably given to the enumerator by the estate manager or her husband but she was likely the source of the misinformation.

In all the record I found on her hardly any of them had the same information on her age, marriage year, where she was from and even where her parents were from:

17 Oct 1883	Marriage to Theodore Gordon Peck in NY City, she was 19 (DOB 1864), he was 35. Information is taken from TGP’s Yale obituary.
1884	NY Index Birth certificate for son Theodore Buford Peck: she is listed as Kitty L. Buford Peck, born in Kentucky
1900	Census: Kate Peck, DOB March 1866 in Kentucky, 5/5 children born, married 19 years (DOM 1881); with that DOB she would have been 15; father born in Kentucky, mother born in Spain (only mention of this anywhere).
1905	NY Census: Listed as Kate, age 38 (DOB 1867)
1915	NY Census: listed as age 54 (DOB 1861)
1910	Census: listed as Katherine, age 46, (DOB 1864), married 27 years (DOM 1883) 5/5 children born; born in New York, father/mother born in New York
1920	Census: listed as Kate L Peck, age 51, (DOB 1869), born in Kentucky, father & mother born in Kentucky
1925	NY Census: listed as Kate, age 61, (DOB 1864)
1930	Census: listed as Kate L, age 65 (DOB 1865), age at marriage 21 (DOM 1886), born in Kentucky, father & mother born in Kentucky
1940	Census: listed Kate L. and Head, age 73 (DOB 1867), widow, grade 8 education, born in New York. (Information given by son Harold).
18 Feb 1953	Death Index, age 88 (DOB 1865), newspaper article has age at 89 (DOB 1864).

 According to her husband’s obituary published by Yale, they were married October 17, 1883, in New York City and she is listed as the daughter of John Buford of Lexington, Kentucky. This is the only reference of a father. This is also the only mention of a marriage date; after an extensive search I found absolutely nothing in the newspapers, even the local paper for Rockland County.

Now here’s the odd part where the timeline just doesn't make sense: Theodore graduated from Yale in 1871 then he went on an expedition to Kansas with Yale right afterwards. His obituary says that he went to work for his father in New York after he came back from the expedition. No mention of being in Covington, KY from 1874-1885 (see ad below). Theodore was in Haverstraw in the 1880 census and his father died the next year, so it would seem strange that he was down in KY that long. It’s just a mystery. Did Kate go up to New York and met Theodore or as the article indicate, he was down there? We probably are never going to know.

And what’s even stranger, Kate had a child around 1883 named Pansy Bailey who later went by Bailey Peck. She was not Theodore’s daughter, even though she took his name, because in newspaper articles she is referenced as a half-sister and a stepdaughter on Theodore G. Peck’s Yale obituary (although his newspaper obituary lists her as a daughter).

Another article written in 1969 it stated that Kate Buford Bailey Peck came into the family after a brief first marriage, from Lexington, KY. I can’t find any record of a marriage. I have ordered Kate and Theodore’s marriage certificate, hopefully it will shed some light.

And to make the story even more farfetched, the wedding announcement for her son states that he’s the paternal grandson of a Sir Herbert Bailey of England. I cannot find any reference to a Sir Herbert Bailey, and what would an English lord be doing in Covington, KY? We do know there was a Herbert Bailey but the Sir part seems a bit much. It may have been a story that Kate passed onto Bailey about her father.

And then there’s the mystery of this article in the Kentucky Post, May 16, 1922. I wonder who was looking for them? It may have been someone from England. Even though the family was known to be private and rarely in the newspaper that can’t be said by the 1922. Their son, Theodore Gordon, Jr. was killed in a famous NYC bombing in 1920 and his widow was a part of high society and was always in the newspapers. Her remarriage to a very wealthy man, Graham Young in 1922 was splashed all over the New York Times and
in every article, she was called Mrs. Theodore G. Peck, Jr.  

On a side note, Bailey wasn’t very truthful about her date and place of birth either.  I do not have an exact date of birth; the KY Archives didn’t have birth records for the county she was born in.

In census records Bailey was born about 1883 in Riverside or Covington, KY, depending on the paperwork. Most of the census records have DOB as 1883 apart from the 1900 census which has DOB Sept 1882 and her name Pansy L Peck. The death index has her DOB abt. 1882.  Her husband’s records at Yale list her as Pansy Bailey, daughter of Theodore G. Peck and her DOB about 1884.

(Her sister Gladys Peck Shepard also has DOB amnesia: passenger arrival records in 1934 have her DOB 23 May 1889 and on her visa for a Brazil trip in 1945 her DOB is 16 July 1890. Both times she was with family members so the trips are accurate.)  

So back to Kate and her cloud of secrecy. At the end of her life, a scandal rocked the family and was splashed across the newspapers — her worst nightmare after a lifetime of secrecy.

At the end of her life her alcoholic son Gordon swindled her out of property and turned into one of the nastiest family probate fights in Rockland Surrogate Court and signaled the end of the Peck Dynasty. His sisters claimed that right after he was released from Rockland State Hospital (a psychiatric hospital) he forced Kate to revoke the power of attorney given to her daughters and write a new will giving him everything.

Also, sometime before her death she fell down the stairs at Samsondale and her son Gordon was too drunk to assist her. It could have been right before her death or long before because she was ill for some time before she died.

The house was in a terrible state, according to the sisters, he told Kate that they were too poor to fix the house and he was paying off her debts, but at the same time he sold her property and kept the funds. The sisters stated that he allowed the house to go into foreclosure and that Gordon stole Kate’s jewels but told Kate that her daughters were stealing them. They also claimed that Gordon said he would poison Kate and burn the house down.

This all started when just before Kate died in 1953. In October of 1952 a cottage on the estate was set afire by arsonists. I’m not sure if anyone was caught. But the interesting note is that Bailey was in the middle of repairing the cottage so she could live there and be close to her mother. We know that Gordon was against this, so the timing of the fire is fishy especially since Gordon had said earlier that he was burn the house down. 

In the end the probate was settled in Gordon’s favor and he inherited a net of $102,000, $1,037,939.78 in 2021 which isn’t a lot of money considering how much money the family was worth when Elias Peck was alive.

When Gordon died in 1959, he left $212,598 to Mary Schwartz and her nephew Theodore G. Peck IV. The property where the house once stood is now a shopping center.

Bailey Peck Molhlan wrote “Such an end to a once proud family. Her shielding her past life all these years and the fact the knowledge is now out — all put together, and no wonder her mind is going.”  The reference to Kate’s past, however, is still a mystery. It sounds like Bailey knew something but took it to her grave.