March is Women's History Month

Since March is Women's History Month, I decided that I would write a short post about a Mississippi woman that I have always admired - the writer, Eudora Welty. Thanks to my paternal grandmother, an avid reader who enjoyed books more than anyone I have ever known, I knew Miss Welty's name before I ever started school. Since Eudora Welty was one of my grandmother's favorite authors, her book collection at the time included "Delta Wedding," and "The Optimist's Daughter." By junior high, I had read both books, although I did not yet fully understand nor appreciate how well-known Miss Welty was at the time, in Mississippi or elsewhere in the country. I did know that she was a resident of Jackson and lived in the Belhaven area of the city, since my parents pointed out her house to me once when we were driving down the street where she lived.

On an occasion almost a decade after I first read "Delta Wedding," I met its author at Millsaps College in Jackson. Miss Welty was kind enough to sign the book, which my grandmother had given to me a few years earlier. Inscribed "Fondly, Eudora Welty," the book is one of my most prized possessions and a reminder of both my grandmother and of one of Mississippi's finest writers.