Porter was born Callie Russell Porter on May 15, 1890, in a two-room log cabin in the Texas frontier community of Indian Creek. Porter's mother died when she was two and her father brought his five children to live with his mother, Catherine Anne. Later, Porter took her grandmother's name. When the grandmother died in 1901 the family suffered from emotional and financial instability. Porter and her sister helped support the family by giving singing and acting lessons, and she aspired to be an actress.

After the family resettled in San Antonio, Porter attended a private Methodist school for two years, which comprised her only formal education. The Porters were Methodists, though Porter later claimed that she had been raised Catholic. She converted to Catholicism upon her marriage, at age sixteen, to a Catholic man.

Porter was a free spirit who defied convention. At age 25 she left her husband...