Tennessee Williams was Born

 

English: Tennessee Williams, American playwright; cropped from photo of Williams with cake for 20th anniversary of “The Glass Menagerie” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams III was born on March 26, 1911 to Edwina (née Dakin) and Cornelius Coffin (C.C.) Williams in Columbus, Mississippi. His father was a salesman and a drinker, his mother a music teacher and a southern belle, and his grandfather, local Episcopal priest. His was the middle child, the second of three children.

 

When Tennessee was eight they moved to Missouri because his father was promoted to a position at the home office. He showed a gift for writing even at a young age with essays which he wrote in high school which was published entitled “Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport?” Soon he entered in contests for writing and sport, looking to make extra money. In August of 1928 he had a short story published in Weird Tales.
He attended University of Missouri, in Columbia, where he majored in journalism. He was still more interested in writing short stories, poetry, and essays and entering in contests. He tried joining a fraternity, but still was not that interested in college as much as he was interested in entering in writing contests. He even tried joining the military; soon his father pulled him out of school. Tennessee ended working for his father’s company, selling shoes at the International Shoe Company. Life at the shoe company wasn’t much better. It was the monotony and the drudgery. So Tennessee did the only thing he could think of doing, he sat down at his typewriter and wrote A Street Car Named Desire.

By 1936, he was ready to go back to college and enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis and then he went to the University of Iowa and graduated with a degree in English. In 1939, Tennessee Williams officially took on the name Tennessee Williams. Dramatics became his next interest.
Tennessee did many odd jobs between then and when he graduated where obviously he was also writing. In 1940 he was able to get a grant to put on his first play Battle of Angels in 1940 in Boston. The Glass Menagerie was produced on stage between 1944 and 1945. In 1947 A Street Car Named Desire was produced on stage.
Many of the stories he wrote were created around characters of his life growing up and of his family.
Tennessee William passed away in 1983.

But for many of u he is remembered through his works of art, when produced in the theater, on television, or in the movies. Many high school students in the 1980s were reading his works as part of class study. He found his way by constantly writing and entering in contests, and following his hearts’ desire.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Williams

Cassandra

 

 

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Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder was Born

Author Laura Ingalls Wilder used her experiences growing up near De Smet as the basis for four of her novels. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder was born February 7, 1867 to Charles Phillip Ingalls and Caroline Lake (Quiner) Ingalls. She was the second of five children, the eldest Mary Amelia, who became blind as a teenager, Caroline Celestia; Charles Frederick, who died when he was an infant; and Grace Pearl.

Laura documented her life in Missouri, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota. Living the life on the prairie they ran into Indians and other settlers. Her father took odd jobs when possible. As a young girl I read the books she was to have published, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silvery Lake, The Long Winter, and These Happy Golden Years.

Laura studied and became a teacher. She later met her love, Almanzo Wilder or Manly as she called him. They married on August 25, 1885 in De Smet, South Dakota.

On December 5, 1886, she gave birth to Rose. After a severe drought and debt along with illness that left Manly walking with a cane. Laura took a paid position as a columnist for the Missouri Ruralist in 1911. She wrote a column called, “As a Farm Woman Thinks,” capturing many farmers in the area and gaining regular readership. In the 1920s she started working for the Farm Loan Association on the side. In 1929 they were wiped out with the stock market crash, but thankful Laura was writing. In 1932 her first book was published.

Cover of These Happy Golden Years (Little House)

More books were published about her life, an autobiography. Her life was later televised by Michael Landon in the series, Little House on the Prairie. Melissa Gilbert played Laura Ingalls. There was a more detailed movie of her life named, Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder (but parts were still fictional).

Her life touched ours for many years. For me this show was a constant. I grew up reading the books. She lead a hard life, but times were definitely different. It was a time of discovery. Laura became a teacher because she knew she may be needed to help bring money into the home. She had to be able to survive if she were by herself or be able to take care of her family. She took odd jobs just as her father did. But when she was able to take a chance to do what she loved, she took it, and if she hadn’t when the stock market crashed, maybe they not have survived. I can’t really say, it was a different time. She managed.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Ingalls_Wilder

Cassandra

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Lewis Carroll was Born

Description: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson better known as Lewis Carroll was born January 27, 1832 to Charles Dodgson and Frances Jane Lutwidge. His father was a country parson and mathematician at Croft-on-Tees in North Yorkshire. Carroll was born in Daresbury in Cheshire near the towns of Warrington and Runcorn. He was the eldest of three brothers. Carroll was influenced by

his father, and very intelligent, following the religious views of the time which were dividing Anglo-Catholicism.

Carroll loved to read and often had reading lists. He read such books as The Pilgrim’s Progress. He and his siblings suffered from a vocal stutter. He was also deaf in one year. At age 17 he had developed a whooping cough that made his chest very weak. Later on it is said he also suffered from migraines and epilepsy. He attended Oxford College in 1850 He was able to obtain first-class honors in Mathematics Moderations and nominated to a Studentship as well as various other awards because he was exceptionally gifted.

While he was at Oxford in 1854 he had started submitted some of his writing to be published. He worked to prefect his writing. He submitted his writing under the name of Charles Lutwidge which his name translated in Latin. In 1856 his first poem was published under the name of Lewis Carroll.

He also met Alice Liddell, Henry Liddell’s daughter and dean of the Christ Church who was the influence for his published in 1865 after numerous rejections, with the help of George MacDonald, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published under the name of Lewis Carroll.

There is much talk of the relationships that Carroll had with little girls, since he wrote about them in books. In some ways I think he had a hard time connecting with adults as opposed to children or he liked the wonderment of children. He was so intelligent, and so sickly, dealing with his stutter, that he probably met more time with himself that with other adults. Children were then easier to reach out and talk to.

Français : Illustration d’origine (1865), par John Tenniel (28 février 1820 – 25 février 1914), du roman de Lewis Carroll, Alice au pays des merveilles. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 1876 The Hunting of the Snark, a poem was published.

When Carroll was writing he was doing work in the field of math. He worked in geometry, matrix algebra, mathematical logic and recreational mathematics.

When he wasn’t writing books of fiction he was writing books on math.

In 1889 he published his last novel, Sylvia and Bruno. This book did not do as well as Alice in Wonderland.

Carroll is one of my favorite writers and Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There are one of my favorite books. I love the poems he wrote. I recently found the poem Rhyme? And Reason? And a Tangled Tale and they have such imagination. He is indeed one of my all time favorites.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll

Cassandra

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Edith Wharton was Born

English: Photograph of writer Edith Wharton, taken by E. F. Cooper, at Newport, Rhode Island. Cabinet photograph. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Edith Wharton was born nee Edith Newbold Jones on January 24, 1862 in New York City to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander. She was related to the Rensselaer family who were thought of to be of high class and prestige. Have you ever heard the saying “Keeping up with the Joneses“? That was based on her family. She met many public figures like Theodore Roosevelt.

She married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton in 1885 and they lived in Philadelphia, at his estate, The Mount. She married into the same social class; Edith loved to be creative and designed the gardens around the estate and well as the interior design of the house. Teddy Wharton was twelve years older then she, and a regular sportsman. In 1897 she co-authored and wrote her first book with Ogden Codman called The Decoration of Houses. In 1905 she wrote The House of Mirth. She had been writing many short stories during this time including ghost stories. Unfortunately in 1908 her husband suffered from depression which was discovered to be incurable. She divorced him in 1913.

In her spare time when she wasn’t working on the house or gardens she was writing. Sometimes she would write short stories, other times, books on design. She wrote about the world and society she knew about. She moved to Paris, France after the divorce.

She assisted in the war effort with the relief effort. She was a supporter of French imperialism. In 1920 she wrote The Age of Innocence which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1921.

In 1923 she received an honorary doctorate degree from Yale University. That was the only time she returned to the states.She returned to France. In 1937 she died of a stroke. She died leaving over 85 stories and many books for us to read. She found the irony in life. 

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wharton

Cassandra

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