Although she claimed that her father was a prince and that her mother was related to Queen Victoria , Kitty would say that her father was the prince of a small state called Westphalia [ 1 ] in Germany. Her mother was, in fact, a cousin of Wilhelm Keitel , who later became a field marshal in the German Army during World War II , and was hanged in Her father, a metallurgical engineer , had invented a new kind of blast furnace , and had gained employment with a steel company in Pittsburgh , and the family settled in the suburb of Aspinwall, Pennsylvania.
Although her first language was German, she soon became fluent in English, speaking both languages without accent. Her parents regularly took her with them on summer visits to Germany. Her father now worked for Koppers , and held patents for the design of blast furnaces. It is doubtful that she took any classes, but she did meet Frank Ramseyer, an American studying music in Paris under Nadia Boulanger , before sailing for home on May Puening completed the first year of her degree, and married Ramseyer before a Justice of the Peace in Pittsburgh on December 24, The couple moved to an apartment near Harvard University , where Ramseyer hoped to pursue a master's degree in music.
She re-enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh in January , and returned to her parents' home in Aspinwall. In June , she sailed to Europe again with her husband. After returning, she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin , although there is no record of her completing any courses there.
Puening obtained an annulment of her marriage from the Superior Court of Wisconsin on December 20, She later told friends that she had discovered evidence that Ramseyer was a homosexual and a drug addict. Puening also had an abortion. He had been involved in the International Unemployment Day protest in Chicago on March 6, , that was brutally repressed by the authorities, and worked as a union organizer with the steel workers in Youngstown, Ohio.
At one point Dallet unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Youngstown on the Communist Party ticket. Puening's parents had moved to Claygate , southwest of London, where her father represented a Chicago-based firm.
