Monday, June 24, 2019
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Texas History Minute The next year, she moved to Denver to write for the Rocky Mountain News. But 1918 was also the year of the Spanish Flu Epidemic. More than 500,000 Americans died from the flu that year, including Porter. After her recovery, she spent most of the next decade travelling, living mostly in Mexico and New York City. Her first published short story, “Maria Concepcion,” (1922) was inspired by her experiences in Mexico.
Katherine Anne Porter was one of the most noted of Texas novelists. Her career spanned decades, and though her output was Dr. Ken limited, it had a Bridges profound impact on many aspiring writers from the 1930s through the 1970s. She was born Callie Russel Porter in May 1890 in Indian Creek, a small, unincorporated community in Brown County in Central Texas. Her father was a cousin to Texas writer William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name O. Henry. Brown County also happened to be the home of noted western and horror novelist Robert E. Howard. Porter was the fourth of five children, but tragedy followed her for much of her early life. An older brother had died while still an infant. When she was two, her mother died shortly after giving birth to her youngest sister.
She married three and divorced three more times between 1926 and 1942. As talented as she was, she found writing very frustrating. She once said, “I have written and destroyed manuscripts quite literally by the trunkful. I spent fifteen years wandering about, weighted horribly by masses of paper and little else.” She published a widely acclaimed and influential collection of short stories in 1930, “Flowering Judas and Other Stories.”
Among her most famous story was the award-winning “Pale Distraught and left with four young Horse, Pale Rider” (1939). This was a collection of three novellas children to raise, Harrison Porter took his children and moved in with which took place during the 1918 his mother, Catherine Anne Porter. flu pandemic, inspired by her own The family spent the next few years illness. The story was adapted living in the modest house in Kyle, into several television movies in the 1950s and 1960s. This was a small community just south of Austin. From a young age in Kyle, followed up by another short story collection, “The Leaning Tower” she began writing stories. The (1944). future writer became very close to her grandmother in those years. But in 1901, her grandmother died She spent many of her years from the 1930s onward travelling the while taking her on a trip to see relatives in West Texas. Afterward, world, writing essays for The Nation and The New Republic her father moved the family and writing short stories. She met sporadically across Texas and prominent writers, celebrities, and Louisiana. Porter’s education became increasingly sporadic, and world leaders in her travels. However, she only wrote one she never attended high school. novel. Ship of Fools (1962) took twenty years to write. The tale of In 1906, she married John Henry misfits sailing to Europe in the Koontz, a Lufkin-area rancher. It would be the first of five marriages early 1930s became instantly famous and was adapted into a for Porter. The marriage was a movie in 1965. disaster from the beginning, wrecked by Koontz’s alcoholism. In 1965, she published The Porter reported later that he flew Collected Stories, her latest into horrible rages fueled by his drinking. She alleged at one point anthology. This earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1966 as well as that he threw her down a flight of the National Book Award. She stairs, resulting in a broken ankle. would continue to write for many more years. Porter died at her She left for Chicago in 1914 and home in Maryland at the age of 90 filed for divorce, asking that her in 1980. name be legally changed to Katherine Anne Porter in the Her birthplace in Brown County process. She also picked up a writing job at the Chicago Tribune. was recognized by the state as a state historic landmark in 1990. She even began appearing a few In Kyle, the family home silent film roles as extras while continued to stand years after writing a story for Chicago film Porter’s death. In 1997, the city, companies, with one company along with several local charities paying her $12 per day. After her divorce was finalized, she married and benefactors, bought the old homestead and began renovating Otto Taskett, a marriage that fell it. In 2000, it was declared a apart within months. national landmark and the city At that same time in 1915, she was established the Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center at the diagnosed with tuberculosis and home. Operating today through a sent to a sanatorium. While partnership with Texas State hospitalized, she began writing University in San Marcos, the stories full time. Her fortune changed when she learned she had organization invites noted writers to speak at symposiums and offers been misdiagnosed, and she programs to help aspiring writers. returned to Texas in 1917 as a society writer for the Fort Worth Critic. Dr. Bridges is a Texas native, writer, and history professor. He
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