Who is Flannery O'Connor?

- April 04, 2018

Mary Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia on March 25^th in the year 1925. Her parents were devout Catholics, Regina Cline and Edward F. Connor. Flannery attended a private Catholic school until her parents moved to Milledgeville in 1938 due to her father's health. There Flannery went to school at the Peabody Laboratory School. When she was fifteen, her father died of lupus, which was devastating to her. She stayed in Milledgeville and attended Georgia State College for Women in a three-year program, became editor for their literary magazine the Corinthian. Flannery earned a scholarship to the State University of Iowa for journalism, but she eventually changed to creative writing where she found her strong suit.

Things were looking good for her. She met many other important writers and developed as a creator. In 1947, after earning her master degree in fine arts, won the Rinehart-Iowa Fiction Award for her first novel, which she submitted a portion to. Flannery was also accepted to spend several months on an artists' retreat in Yaddo, a Saratoga Springs, New York where she continued to write the novel, Wise Blood. She eventually moved into an apartment with Sally and Robert Fitzgerald in Ridgefield, Connecticut, who were good friends and devout Catholics. Unfortunately, it all come quickly to a close.

In 1950, Flannery was diagnosed with lupus, the same disease her father died of. “Lupis is a chronic autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs).” explains the National Resource Center on Lupus. Essentially, the immune system doesn't work properly and causes the body to overreact and hurt itself. It is incurable, and treated in the 1950's with steroid drugs. Having contracted this fatal and painful disease, Flannery moved back to Milledgeville where she lived the rest of her days. She continued to write and took up raising peacocks, and even found time to write to young writers and correspond with friends and other authors.

She died on August 3^rd, 1964 in Baldwin County Hospital not long after a surgery reactivated her lupus which had been in remission. Flannery O'Connor was buried beside her father and her name and significance continued to live on. Her book The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor won the National Book Award in 1972, even though it was given to living authors, the judges felt she deserved it. Both the secular and religious communities loved and adored her works. It was unfortunate to have lost such a talented and genius author such as herself, but she was likely very relieved and joyful to have left the pain and misery of her earthly body, and meet her Savior in Heaven, and left the world with her literary works to be read, enjoyed, and still significant today.