Katherine Fulton Tompkins Early (18 February 1899–23 March 1973), civic leader and Democratic Party primary candidate for the House of Delegates, was born in Hillsville and was the daughter of Sallie Kincannon Green Johnson Tompkins and her second husband, William Daniel Tompkins, an attorney. She attended Carroll County public schools and Mary Baldwin Seminary (later Mary Baldwin College). On 16 June 1920 she married James Kent Early, a Hillsville native. They settled in Charlotte Court House, where her husband served as commonwealth's attorney during the 1920s and 1930s and mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the Senate of Virginia in 1935. With two other special commissioners, in 1944 he oversaw the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation's purchase of Red Hill, Patrick Henry's plantation in Campbell and Charlotte Counties, from the estate of the last private owner.

As a member of Village Presbyterian Church for more than fifty years, Early grew into a community advocate and activist. In 1938 she helped organize and became founding president of the Charlotte Court House Woman's Club. While raising two daughters and one son, Early took special interest in educational issues. At various times she served as president of the local Randolph-Henry High School Parent-Teacher Association, chaired the Staunton River District PTA, and sat on the Virginia State Board of the PTA.

In April 1945, at a time when no woman sat in the General Assembly, members of the Charlotte County and Prince Edward County school boards encouraged Early to challenge the incumbent, John Hannah Daniel, in the Democratic primary for the two counties' seat in the House of Delegates. Emphasizing her lifelong work for "Better Health, Better Homes, Better Schools, Better Community life," Early attacked Daniel's lack of support for increased educational funding, especially raising the base pay of public school teachers, and his apparent disregard of his constituents' desires. In a ten-page pamphlet entitled The Fight for the Children Must Continue (1945), she mustered figures and the voting records of House members to decry Virginia's place as last among the forty-eight states in its proportional support for public education. Early argued that only through adequate funding of public schools could citizens perpetuate democracy and that the General Assembly's rejection of several funding measures during its 1944 session would force the best teachers to leave Virginia or to abandon their profession for jobs in the wartime defense industry in order to earn a living wage. She also advocated construction and maintenance of secondary and farm-to-market roads and improvement in agriculture and public health programs. Daniel considered the challenge Early posed serious enough that he published a circular letter on the front page of the Charlotte Gazette defending his legislative record on appropriations for public education. Despite her vigorous campaigning in person and in the press, Early carried only one precinct in the August primary and received 28 percent of the overall vote. Daniel completed thirteen terms in the House until Early's son-in-law Reginald Hoffman Pettus unseated him in 1969.

Early served on the Charlotte County Democratic Committee (which her former rival Daniel chaired until 1962) and on the Charlotte County Planning Board. She also worked as a special field representative of the American Red Cross in dozens of Virginia and North Carolina counties. In 1953 she became chair of the Synodical Committee on Stewardship, and in that capacity she also sat ex officio through March 1955 on the board of the Presbyterian Home, in Lynchburg, which sheltered orphans and provided services for other disadvantaged children.

In October 1952 Early persuaded the Third District (later the Alice Kyle District) of the Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs to adopt as its district project the planned Patrick Henry Boys Plantation, a residential ministry located at the Red Hill estate and modeled on Boys Town to educate, train, and rehabilitate disadvantaged young men. She served as treasurer of the project committee that raised more than $7,500 for the construction of the ministry's first building, completed and dedicated in 1959. Early became a trustee of the boys plantation (later Patrick Henry Family Services) in 1964 and served until her death. For the 1962–1963 and 1963–1964 terms she served as president of the Alice Kyle District and by virtue of that position sat on the executive committee of the Virginia Federation of Women's Clubs. She encouraged members of her district to have yearly physical examinations, including screenings to detect cervical cancer, and to vote in every election.

Early indulged her love of antiques, collecting silver, gardening, and landscaping at Kentwood, a 160-acre Charlotte County estate she and her husband purchased in 1953. J. Kent Early died on 13 January 1959. Katherine Fulton Tompkins Early died of cancer in a Farmville hospital on 23 March 1973 and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, in Charlotte Court House.

Sources Consulted:
Biography in Virginia Club Woman 35 (Feb. 1963): 10 (portrait), 14; Katherine Kent Early Holden (daughter), The Earlys of Southwest Virginia (1981), 90–91, 96; personal and family information, including copy of campaign booklet The Fight for the Children Must Continue (1945), provided by daughter Anne Howard Early Pettus (1990), in Dictionary of Virginia Biography Files, Library of Virginia; Carroll Co. Marriage Register, 2:41; Drakes Branch Charlotte Gazette, 19 (portrait), 26 Apr., 14, 21 June, 19 July (quotation), 9, 16 Aug. 1945; Farmville Herald and Farmer-Leader, 3, 10 Aug. 1945, 1 Jan. 1963; obituaries in Richmond News Leader, 24 Mar. 1973, and Drakes Branch Charlotte Gazette, 29 Mar. 1973.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Sara B. Bearss.

How to cite this page:
Sara B. Bearss,"Katherine Fulton Tompkins Early (1899–1973)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Early_Katherine_Fulton_Tompkins, accessed [today's date]).

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