Decision to become a writer
Ethridge explains why she became a writer. Ultimately, Ethridge recalls that she decided to become a writer after meeting her future husband, Mark Ethridge, who was a newspaper reporter during the 1910s. Shortly after meeting Mark, Ethridge became a student at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, where she decided to major in journalism so she could better understand his work. World War I gave her the opportunity to work as a reporter. From then on, Ethridge worked as a writer in one capacity or another.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Willie Snow Ethridge, December 15, 1975. Interview G-0024. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- LEE KESSLER:
-
Well now, I've read some things by other people who write, and
frequently they say that, "I knew I wanted to write; and I
always knew I wanted to write." But if you didn't
start writing until after your children were at school, it's
sort of like, you know, the legend of the birth of
Venus—sort of springing full-blown.
- WILLIE SNOW ETHRIDGE:
-
No, no, no. I starting writing, you see, when I was only fifteen years
old. I met my husband, and he was a newspaper
reporter—I think as I said in this last book,
Side By Each. I started wanting to write. I never had
thought about writing before that; I had very
little leaning towards it. But he was so excited over being a reporter.
And then the First World War came along and he went
away. I was a senior in high school when I met him, and I fell
desperately in love with him right away—and never
changed, and never let go. And so when I went to college my freshman
year, he was still around … he hadn't gone away to
war at that time. My freshman year I decided to take journalism.
- LEE KESSLER:
-
What college was this you're talking about?
- WILLIE SNOW ETHRIDGE:
-
Wesleyan, in Macon, Georgia. There's one in every state, you
know
[laughter]
, practically, but this was in Macon. And it's the
oldest women's college to give A.B. degrees in the world. I
put that in for my college's sake—I
started going, and I took journalism so I could be more knowledgable
when he talked about his work and his writing.
- LEE KESSLER:
-
So it was really on account of Mark?
- WILLIE SNOW ETHRIDGE:
-
Absolutely and completely. And then the war came along and he went away
to the war that spring. And so I continued studying what little
journalism they had; they only had one or two years at Wesleyan. And
then I began working in the afternoons writing at the paper, because I
had gotten very much involved in journalism. So I used to go down to the
Macon Telegraph after college every afternoon and
do, usually, one feature (which I think I have told about) that I had to
think up myself, a human interest
story——which was
wonderful training.
- LEE KESSLER:
-
How did you happen to get that job?
- WILLIE SNOW ETHRIDGE:
-
Well, because all the men had gone to war
[laughter]
. It was real war.
