Eudora Welty was born on April 13, 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi. She was the daughter of Christian Webb Welty and Chestina Andrews Welty. Eudora Welty grew up in a close-knit and loving family. She inherited a love for instruments that instruct and fascinate from her father. She inherited a passion for reading and language from her mother. She had two brothers with which she shared bonds of support, companionship, and humor. She became the most recognized graduate of the Jackson Public School system. She graduated from Jackson’s Central High School in 1925. She attended Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus and then at the University of Wisconsin which is where she received her bachelor’s degree. She went on to graduate from the Columbia University School of business. She worked at WJDX radio station, wrote society columns for the Memphis Commercial Appeal and served as a Junior Publicity Agent for the Works Progress Administration. Welty produced seven unique books in fourteen years. Then the rate of her production came to a startling halt. For more than a decade her writing was placed on the back burner because of personal tragedies. She had to care for her two brothers with severe arthritis and her mother who had suffered from a stroke. After her mother died in 1966, she returned to writing. In 1936 her first short story appeared and she gradually began to be published in small, then regional and general circulation magazines. She had many rewards such as the National Medal for Literature, the American Book Award, and an 6-time winner of the O. Henry Award for Short Stories and in 1969, a Pulitzer Prize. She is known as the first Lady of Southern Literature because her fiction was usually set in the rural South. She was also a talented and published photographer. She died on July 23, 2001 in Jackson, Mississippi, her lifelong home, after a short illness and as the result of cardio-pulmonary failure. She was buried in Jackson, Mississippi.
"About Eudora Welty." Women's History - Comprehensive Women's History Research Guide. Web. 27 Mar. 2011.
Marrs, Suzanne. Eudora Welty Foundation | Home. Web. 27 Mar. 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment