A part in many stories

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- New Ulm native Kathryn Adams Doty has played a part in many stories throughout her life.

At 19, she left her native Minnesota for Los Angeles for a career in the movies and starred among some of the biggest names of Hollywood's golden era.

On Friday, she was back in town to tell another story, one her mother once told her about one of the most turbulent periods in New Ulm's history.

Doty's first book, 'A Long Year of Silence' is the fictional story of young Emma Altenberg, the daughter of a New Ulm German Methodist minister, who has her world turned upside down by the anti-German sentiment of World War I.

Doty said her book is based largely on family stories and two years of historical research. Her father, Rev. Christian Hohn, was the first pastor of New Ulm's United Methodist Church. Doty said she wrote the book to honor both of her parents.

Doty appeared at the Deutsche Strasse bed and breakfast Friday evening, where she read excerpts from her book, signed autographs and answered questions about her film career and the book.

"This feels like such an honor to my mother and my father, "she said of the party.

Doty said she decided to write 'A Long Year Of Silence' after she became interested in New Ulm during World War I. She used historical records in Brown County to verify her mother's stories and the book was proofread by historian Dan Hoisington, Prof. Don Heinrich Tolzmann of the University of Cincinnati and LaVern Ripley at St. Olaf College for historical accuracy. She also interviewed the late Dr. Ted Fritsche, whose father was removed from the mayor's office for criticizing World War I, about what New Ulm was like during that area.

Doty said she remembered the house where the Deutsche Strasse is now located because it was owned by some friends of her family during the area in which the book takes place. She has written two books and is currently working on her memoirs, in which she plans to include the anecdote about the time when her mother, the wife of a German Methodist pastor from Minnesota, met film star W.C. Fields.

While her career as a book author is just beginning, Doty still remembers her days in Hollywood. Her career as a film actress began somewhat unexpectedly. She was a student at Hamline University at the time she entered a Hollywood talent contest at the encouragement of her college drama teacher.

"I got a call from RKO Pictures saying I won and I was to leave in the morning," she remembered. "I lost the contest, but this big deal director, Gregory La Cava, called me in to his office. I found out the contest had been rigged."

La Cava cast Kathryn Hohn, who was known then as Kathryn Adams, in one of his films, '5th Ave. Girl', as a supporting actress to Ginger Rogers in 1939. In that same year, she was cast in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', which starred Peter Laughton and Maureen O'Hara. She also appeared in 'If I Had My Way' with Bing Crosby in 1940.

She also appeared in several b-movies in the early 1940s like 'Black Diamonds', 'Argentine Nights' with The Andrews Sisters, 'Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie' and 'Arizona Cyclone' with silent Western legend Johnny Mack Brown and played a part in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Saboteur' in 1942.

She starred in her last film, La Cava's 'Blonde For A Day', in 1946 with actor Hugh Beaumont, whom she married and had three children with. Beaumont later starred in the hit television series 'Leave It To Beaver' as father Ward Cleaver.

Doty retired from Hollywood after she married to raise her children. She later taught school in Moorpark, Calif., and wrote a number of magazine stories for children. She also went back to school and received a master's degree in psychology and worked as a licensed psychologist.

She came back to Minnesota in the 1970s, where she and Beaumont lived near the Twin Cities. Beaumont died in 1982. She married Fred Doty following Beaumont's death. They have seven children, eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren between them. The Dotys presently live in Mankato.