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Viola Katherine Clemmons

American stage actress

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ54868848 ↗
Source-derived summary

Viola Katherine Clemmons, stage name Katherine Dayan, (17 November 1874 – 24 December 1930) was an actress, best known for her romantic relationship with Buffalo Bill and for her marriage to Howard Gould, which ended in a highly publicized divorce.

Early life

Viola Katherine Clemmons was born in Scott County, Illinois. Her parents were Seldon Perry Clemmons and Martha Isabell (née) Kilpatrick. Seldon worked in retail running his own company called "S. P. Clemmons" and her mother Martha was a homemaker. In Katherine's first years of life, she was raised in Montezuma, Illinois. Katherine was the couple's third child. Their oldest daughter was named Ella May (1861–1935). Seldon and Martha later had Ida Susan (1864–1871). Katherine's parents later divorced when she was still young. After the divorce, the two surviving children (Ella May and Katherine) went to live with their father.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Viola Katherine Clemmons” is american stage actress. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Viola, Katherine and Clemmons, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1874, 1930, 1861, 1935—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1874-11-17. For this dossier, Viola, Katherine and Clemmons is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american stage actress” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q54868848. VIAF identifies the subject as 121775091. The Library of Congress control number is no2014164688. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1874, 1930, 1861 and 1935.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Viola Katherine Clemmons”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Viola Katherine Clemmons primary sources, Viola Katherine Clemmons archive and Viola research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Viola Katherine Clemmons”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Viola Katherine Clemmons” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.