According to a story told to Fr. Benedict Neenan in 1974 by (daughters) Letty Thomas and Lavinia Morrow about the mother, Katy, she was supposedly of royal Dutch descent. She spread the story that her ancestors were of royal blood but banished from Holland by Cromwell or some equally villainous tyrant. The family settled in New York, very affluent and somehow connected to Trinity Hospital or Cathedral in New York.

Katy began to take her roots (or at least her own stories of her roots) so seriously that she announced once
that henceforth she would be known as Katherine. The relatives apparently never took her that seriously
and continued to call her Katy.2