Katherine Winthrop McKean Biography

Katherine or Kathrine "Kay" Winthrop McKean (July 17, 1914 - February 12, 1997) was an amateur tennis player, a doubles partner of Alice Marble at Wimbledon in 1936. She was active from 1931 to 1957.

Early life and family

Kay Winthrop was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a direct descendant of John Winthrop, English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony: the descendant line is Gov. John Winthrop, Gov. John Winthrop II, Magistrate Wait Still Winthrop, John F. R. S Winthrop, John Still Winthrop, Francis Bayard Winthrop, Thomas Charles Winthrop, Robert Winthrop, Frederic Bayard Winthrop. Kay Winthrop's parents were Frederic Bayard Winthrop (November 15, 1868 - May 6, 1932) and Sarah Barroll Thayer (born February 18, 1885). She had 5 siblings: Robert Winthrop; Dorothy Winthrop; Frederic Bayard Winthrop, Jr; John Winthrop; Nathaniel Thayer Winthrop.

In 1932 Winthrop attended Foxcroft School.

Career

Kay Winthrop entered U.S. Championships tournament every year from 1931 to 1947. She interrupted in 1948 since she was pregnant, and returned in 1952.

Winthrop entered Wimbledon in 1937, a doubles partner of Alice Marble, and 1946. She toured South America before World War II with Sarah Palfrey, Jack Kramer and Bobby Riggs.

Her titles are 1944 US Indoors, and RU in 1938, 1943, and 1945. She was #9 in the US Rankings in 1936 and 1939.

Winthrop won four national junior girls' tennis titles, playing out of Boston, and five national women's titles, in indoors singles and doubles.

Winthrop gave up competitive tennis in 1970, aged 56, but continued to play socially for many years later.

US Indoor Championships

Singles

Year	Champion	Runner-up	Score
1938	Virginia Hollinger	Katherine Winthrop McKean 1/3	6-1, 2-6, 6-3
1943	Pauline Betz 3/4	Katherine Winthrop McKean 2/3	6-4, 6-1
1944	Katherine Winthrop McKean	Helen Pedersen Rihbany 3/3	6-0, 7-5
1945	Helen Pedersen Rihbany 1/2	Katherine Winthrop McKean 3/3	4-6, 6-2, 6-3

Doubles

Year	Champions	Runners-up	Score
1938	Virginia Rice Johnson 1/4 Katherine Winthrop McKean 1/4	Norma Taubele Barber 4/5 Grace Surber	4-6, 6-4, 6-4
1941	Pauline Betz 1/2 Dorothy Bundy Cheney	Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman 4/5 Katherine Winthrop McKean 1/2	6-4, 6-3
1942	Virginia Rice Johnson 2/4 Katherine Winthrop McKean 2/4	Mrs. Philip Theopold Virginia Ellis	6-2, 6-0
1944	Virginia Rice Johnson 3/4 Katherine Winthrop McKean 3/4	Norma Taubele Barber 5/5 Mary Jane Donnalley	3-6, 8-6, 6-0
1945	Virginia Rice Johnson 4/4 Katherine Winthrop McKean 4/4	Helen Pedersen Rihbany 1/4 Betty Grimes Stokum	6-4, 7-5
1947	Doris Hart 1/2 Barbara Scofield Davidson 1/3	Helen Pedersen Rihbany 2/4 Katherine Winthrop McKean 2/2	6-1, 6-1

Personal life

On November 21, 1947, Katharine Winthrop married Quincy Adams Shawn Mckean (November 1, 1891 - August 1971), a polo-playing, dog-breeding Boston aristocrat and owner of an estate called Prides. They met at a cocktail party while Mckean was still married to his first wife. In 1920 Shawn Mckean bought the Samuel Corning House in Beverly, Massachusetts, and made it a part of Prides, a Colonial Revival complex he and his wife had built on their 54-acre (22 ha) estate. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. Shawn Mckean's first wife was painter Margarett Sargent (1892-1978).

Kay and Shawn Mckean had 5 children: the first being John McKean, born on August 7, 1948, the last being David McKean, born in 1956. In 1988 David married Kathleen Mary Kaye, a former model with the Ford Modeling Agency, daughter of Charles Forbes Kaye, chairman and chief executive officer of the Xtra Corporation, a shipping container company in Boston. On March 14, 2016, David McKean was sworn in as the Ambassador to Luxembourg.

The McKeans were also active in golf and horse racing, they owned thoroughbred horses.

Kay Winthrop Mckean died on February 12, 1997, at her home in Hamilton, Massachusetts, her final years overshadowed by Alzheimer's disease.

Kay Winthrop was named to the New England Tennis Hall of Fame in 1990.