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O. Henry Early Life O O. HENRY EARLY LIFE O . Henry was born William Sydney Porter on September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was an American short-story writer, who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry. He often wrote about the lives of lower and middle class New Yorkers. William’s father, Algernon, was a physician. His mother was Mary Jane Virginia Swaim. William had two brothers, but they both died in early childhood. Mary was a graduate of Greensboro Female College, (founded in 1838) now Greensboro College. She wrote poetry and had a natural eye for drawing and painting. William inherited many of these talents. She ran their home with a firm, but loving hand. William’s mother tragically died at the age of thirty when Will was only three years old. His father, Sidney, was a gentle and good humored man. He was friendly, generous to a fault, and often absent-minded. He traveled Guilford County visiting his patients. As was the custom of the time, he never sent invoices to his patients. They were expected to settle once a year. Without his wife, Mary, to stay on top of their accounts, their finances decreased. EDUCATION Will and his father moved to his mother’s farm, that of Will’s paternal grandmother Ruth Coffyn Worth Porter. Sidney became increasing occupied with his various inventions. Will’s aunt, Evalina Maria Porter or “Miss Lina” also lived on the farm. She became the most influential person in the first 20 years of Will’s life. She became a parent, teacher, and mentor to him. She started a school where Will learned the basics- writing, arithmetic, and classic literature and poetry. Will was very clever with a pencil and loved to draw caricatures. WORK At fifteen, Will began working as a clerk in his uncle Clark’s store. It was a combined pharmacy, soda fountain, tobacco shop, newsstand, and local gathering spot. Will became occupied in the social scene, entertaining customers with his stories and drawing caricatures of them, for which he became well known. Will saw the humor in the everyday and made notes of all the colorful characters he encountered, which became fodder for his future stories. He obtained a pharmacist license in 1881, but was tired of the small town life and had developed a persistent cough. TEXAS Will thought a change in climate would do him well so he moved to Texas at the age of eighteen. In 1884, he settled in Austin and was already writing short stories and holding a number of jobs, including pharmacist, and working with the Texas Land Office. Around this time he met Athol Estes Roach and they married in 1887. In 1889, they had a daughter they named Margaret Worth. Will now had a steady income so he was able to focus on his writing. In 1891 he started working as a bank teller with the First National Bank. The family was living in a house which is now the O. Henry House Museum. In 1894 he launched a humorous weekly magazine The Rolling Stone (no ©Teaching to the Middle relation to the current magazine that was founded in 1967). Will’s magazine featured political and everyday satirical articles and cartoons, but failed. In 1895 the Porters moved to Houston, Texas, where Will started a column in the Houston Post. LEGAL TROUBLE Porter was indicted in 1896 for embezzling bank funds, which was actually a result of technical mismanagement. Porter fled to a reporting job in New Orleans, then to Honduras. When news of his wife’s serious illness of tuberculosis reached him, he rushed back to Texas. After she died in 1897, he was imprisoned in Columbus, Ohio. During his three-year incarceration, he wrote adventure stories set in Texas and Central America. Selling the stories under his pseudonym of O. Henry helped him earn money to support his daughter, Margaret, who was living with his late wife’s parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. These stories became popular and were collected in Cabbages and Kings, published 1904. PUBLICATIONS Porter was released from prison in 1902 and went to New York City, which became the setting of the majority of his fiction for the remainder of his life. He completed one story a week for a newspaper, in addition to other stories for magazines. Some of the popular collections of his stories included The Four Million (1906), Heart of the West and The Trimmed Lamp (both 1907); The Gentle Grafter and The Voice of the City (both 1908); Options (1909); and Whirligigs and Strictly Business (both 1910). O. Henry’s most representative collection was probably The Four Million. The title and the stories answered the snobbish claim of socialite Ward McAllister that only 400 people in New York “were really worth noticing” by detailing events in the lives of everyday Manhattaniites. His most famous story, “The Gift of the Magi” shows how this obsession with materiality can be problematic. O. Henry’s short stories were written in a dry, humorous style and frequently used coincidences and surprise endings to emphasize ironies. LATER LIFE Despite his popularity, O. Henry’s final years were marred by ill health, financial struggle, and alcoholism. He married his childhood sweetheart from Greensboro, Sara (Sallie) Lindsey Coleman, in 1907. He was living an extravagant lifestyle amid increasing pressure to keep his commitments for publishers and for more and more stories. This stress, plus added financial problems led to Sara leaving him I 1909. O. Henry died on June 5, 1910 of cirrhosis in New York City. He was buried at Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter was later buried beside him. LEGACY Even though he died, his stories continued to be collected in the following books: Sixes and Sevens (1911); Rolling Stones (1912); Waifs and Strays (1917); O. Henryana (1920); Letters to Lithopolis (1922); Postscripts (1923); and O. Henry Encore (1939). His work has been translated into many foreign languages and adapted into other art forms, including films and television. This is a testament to his universal application and appeal as a writer. The O. Henry Museum in Austin, Texas is open to the public and serves to preserve artifacts and archival materials related to O. Henry. ©Teaching to the Middle.
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