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John Ehle

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For the United States Navy sailor and Medal of Honor recipient, see John Walter Ehle.
John Ehle
BornJohn Marsden Ehle, Jr.
(1925-12-13)December 13, 1925
Asheville, North Carolina, U.S.
DiedMarch 24, 2018(2018-03-24) (aged 92)
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.
OccupationWriter
Alma materUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Period1957–2018
GenreHistorical fiction, Southern literature, Non-fiction
Spouse
​
(m. 1967)​
ChildrenJennifer Ehle

John Marsden Ehle, Jr. (December 13, 1925 – March 24, 2018)[1] was an American writer known best for his fiction set in the Appalachian Mountains of the American South. He has been described as "the father of Appalachian literature".[2]

Life and career

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John Ehle was born in Asheville, North Carolina, the oldest of five children of Gladys (née Starnes) and John Marsden Ehle, an insurance company division director.[3] His paternal grandparents emigrated from Germany and England.[4]

He enlisted in the United States Army during World War II, serving as a rifleman with the 97th Infantry Division.[5] Following his military service, he went on to study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures in 1949 and later a Master of Arts in Dramatic Arts (1953). He also served on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1951 to 1963.[3] During his tenure at UNC-Chapel Hill, he wrote plays for the American Adventure series that played on NBC Radio and began writing his first novel.

Move Over Mountain, Ehle's first novel, was published by Hodder & Stoughton of London in 1957. The following year, he returned with a biography The Survivor: The Story of Eddy Hukov. In 1964, Harper & Row published The Land Breakers, perhaps his most well-known book.[6] The book is a fictional account set in the late 18th century that traces the story of the first White pioneers to settle in the Appalachian wilderness of the mountains of Western North Carolina. The Land Breakers, out of print for several decades, was republished in 2006 by Press 53, a small imprint in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

With The Land Breakers, he started a seven-part series of historical fiction about the Appalachian region.[7] Two of his 11 novels have been adapted as films: The Winter People and The Journey of August King.

Among his six works of non-fiction is the 1965 book The Free Men, which is a first-person chronicle of the desegregation struggle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at the height of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.[3]

Personal life

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Ehle was married to British actress Rosemary Harris until his death; their daughter is actress Jennifer Ehle.

Ehle was active in a number of social, educational, and anti-poverty projects in the state of North Carolina. From 1963 to 1964, Ehle served as special assistant to North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford, an appointment Sanford often called his "one man think tank."[8] Sanford credits Ehle for the idea behind the statewide initiative The North Carolina Fund (a non-profit organization funded primarily by grants from the Ford Foundation to fight poverty in North Carolina).[9] As an extension of Governor Sanford's focus on education, Ehle was instrumental in the founding of both the North Carolina School of the Arts,[10] and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, among the first such state-supported high schools for the gifted and talented in the United States.[11] He was also responsible for the founding of the North Carolina Governor's School, the first summer program of its kind for gifted students in North Carolina.

From 1964 to 1966, Ehle served as an adviser on President Lyndon B. Johnson's White House Group for Domestic Affairs. From 1965 to 1968, Ehle was a member of the United States National Committee for UNESCO. He also served on the National Council for the Humanities (1966–1970).

In the late 1960s, Ehle took over management of the Stouffer Foundation.[12] The heiress Anne Forsyth had created this organization to provide full scholarships for Black students to attend some of the all-White "Seg academies." These private schools had sprung up around the South to help White parents keep their children out of legally mandated racially integrated public schools. Forsyth's goals were to benefit the few selected Black students and to open the minds of White students. Ehle and his wife Rosemary Harris can be heard interviewing prospective candidates, Black public school students, on surviving recordings.[13]

Legacy and honors

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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Manuscripts Department, maintains the John Ehle Papers,[14] an archive which contains drafts, notes, correspondence, and other materials pertaining to Ehle's many books. The collection also includes a large collection of audio recordings of interviews, video, and photographs which document the civil rights activities observed by Ehle while he was writing The Free Men.

Ehle was elected to the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. He has received awards, including the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, the Lillian Smith Book Award, the John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities, and the Mayflower Award.[15]

Bibliography

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Novels

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  • Move Over Mountain (1957).[16] ISBN 0-9793049-8-9
  • Kingstree Island (1959)
  • Lion on the Hearth (1961) ISBN 1941209300
  • The Land Breakers New York : Harper & Row, 1964. ISBN 9780060111700, OCLC 774094
  • The Road New York, Harper & Row, 1967. ISBN 1572330163, OCLC 1090449
  • Time of Drums New York, Harper & Row, 1970. ISBN 9780060111748, OCLC 93792
  • The Journey of August King (1971). ISBN 0060111666
  • The Changing of the Guard (1974)
  • The Winter People (1982). ISBN 1941209696
  • Last One Home (1984). ISBN 0982441681
  • The Widow's Trial (1989)

Non-fiction

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  • The Survivor: The Story of Eddy Hukov (1958)
  • Shepherd of the streets; the story of the Reverend James A. Gusweller and his crusade on the New York West Side (1960)
  • The Free Men (1965)
  • John Ehle; James J Spanfeller, The cheeses and wines of England and France : with notes on Irish whiskey, New York; London: Harper and Row, 1972. ISBN 9780060111670, OCLC 1045048947
  • Trail of Tears (1988)
  • Dr. Frank: Life with Frank Porter Graham (1993)

References

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  1. ^ Correspondent, PAUL GARBER Special. "John Ehle, celebrated writer and founder of the N.C. School of Arts, dies at age 92". Winston-Salem Journal. Retrieved August 25, 2019. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  2. ^ Wadington, Katie (March 27, 2018). "Appalachian novelist John Ehle dies at 92". Asheville Citizen-Times. Retrieved March 27, 2018.
  3. ^ a b c "Biography of John Ehle". The North Carolina Writers' Network. Archived from the original on October 4, 2006.
  4. ^ "Ehle family". freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. 2013. Archived from the original on September 5, 2012. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
  5. ^ Sandomir, Richard (April 13, 2018). "John Ehle, Who Rooted His Novels in Appalachia, Is Dead at 92". The New York Times. p. A24. Retrieved April 16, 2018.
  6. ^ "John Ehle Papers (#4555) Inventory". www.lib.unc.edu. Archived from the original on November 17, 2005.
  7. ^ "Finding Harper Lee". Greensboro News & Record. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved February 6, 2020.
  8. ^ Monks, Sheryl (2013). "Biography of John Ehle". Forsyth County Public Library. Archived from the original on February 6, 2012. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
  9. ^ "North Carolina Fund Records, 1962-1971". UNC-Chapel Hill. 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
  10. ^ "UNCSA mourns the loss of founder John Ehle". www.uncsa.edu. Retrieved August 27, 2018.
  11. ^ "NC School of the Arts". UNC-TV. Archived from the original on September 13, 2015. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
  12. ^ Secret, Mosi (September 7, 2017). "The Way to Survive It Was to Make A's". The New York Times Magazine. The New York Times Company. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
  13. ^ Glass, Ira; Secret, Mosi (September 8, 2017). "Essay B". This American Life. WBEZ. Retrieved January 24, 2021. A transcript is also available.
  14. ^ "John Ehle Papers, 1918-1993". University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
  15. ^ "Biography: John Ehle". Press 53. Archived from the original on September 10, 2014. Retrieved October 31, 2015.,
  16. ^ "Ehle works". OCLC WorldCat. 2015. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
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