Eudora Welty: 1909-2001

Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Mississippi on April 13, 1909. She was educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Columbia University's business school. While at Columbia University, she also was the captain of the women's polo team.

During the 1930s, Welty worked as a photographer, but her true love was literature. Her first short story, Death of a Traveling Salesman, appeared in 1936. Her first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, established Welty as one of American literature's leading lights.

She also took full-time for her family for fifteen years: for two brothers with severe arthritis and her mother who had had a stroke.

Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

In her later life, she lived near Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi. Despite her fame, she was still a common sight among the people of Jackson.

Eudora Welty died of pneumonia in Jackson, Mississippi on July 23, 2001.