Flannery O’Connor. Photo courtesy of: Emory University.
Mary Flannery is the first and
only child born to Edward Francis
and Regina O'Connor in
Savannah, Georgia. Pathé News film features O'Connor and the
chicken that she taught to walk backwards. O'Connor’s family moves to Milledgeville, Georgia
where she attends Peabody Girls High School.
O’Connor creates funny picture books, such as
“Mistaken Identity” about geese and gender
confusion. Edward O’Connor dies from lupus
complications. Mary Flannery is 15 years old. Mary Flannery O’Connor attends Georgia
State College for Women where she draws
cartoons while editing the campus
newspaper and the literary magazine.
She shortens her name to simply Flannery. O’Connor begins graduate school in journalism at the
University of Iowa, but quickly shifts to the Iowa
Writers’ Workshop, receiving an MFA supervised by
Professor Paul Engle. In 1946 she publishes her first
piece of fiction, "The Geranium,"
in Accent magazine. O'Connor is invited to the artist's
colony, "Yaddo" in Sarasota
Springs, New York, where she
continues work on her first novel,
Wise Blood. Due to controversy,
she moves briefly to New York City
and then to Robert and Sally
Fitzgerald’s home in Ridgefield,
CT. Not feeling well, O'Connor returns to
Georgia where she is diagnosed
with disseminated lupus erythematosus.
Because of her illness, O'Connor and her mother
Regina move to the family farm north of Milledgeville,
that she names "Andalusia." O'Connor's first novel, "Wise Blood," is published by
Harcourt, Brace & Co. and met with tough reviews.
She completes "The River” and "The Life You Save May
Be Your Own," which is published in "Prize Stories 1954:
The O. Henry Awards." Flannery O'Connor's
collection, "A Good
Man Is Hard To Find
and Other Stories" is
published to great
acclaim. O’Connor is
interviewed on NBC’s
Galley Proof by Harvey
Breit. A film adaptation of O'Connor's
story "The Life You Save May Be
Your Own" starring Gene Kelly is
released for television. O'Connor travels to Europe as part of a Lourdes
Pilgrimage. She has a personal audience with
Pope Pius XII in Rome. Doctors inform O'Connor her anemia is caused by a fibroid tumor
and needs surgery. She continues to revise "Revelation" while in the
hospital, hiding drafts under her pillow. The surgery reactivates her
lupus. She grows weaker from post-surgery infections. O’Connor is
readmitted to Baldwin County Hospital, falls into a coma, and dies
early on Aug. 3rd. At age 39, O’Connor is buried next to her father in
Milledgeville on Aug. 4th. O'Connor's second published
short story collection,
entitled "Everything That
Rises Must Converge" is
released by Farrar, Strauss
and Giroux in April. "The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor" is
published and is posthumously awarded the
National Book Award. John Huston directs an
adaptation of "Wise Blood,"
written and produced by the
Fitzgerald sons, Michael and
Benedict.
