Mary Flannery O'Connor was born March 25th, 1925 in Savannah, Georgia. She was the only child of Regina Cline and Edward F. O'Connor. In 1938, the O'Connor family moved to Milledgeville, Georgia, a rural town in Baldwin County that was deeply proud of its roots. O'Connor once wrote that its unofficial motto was, "When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville."6
By that logic, Flannery would've been training chickens outside of the Colosseum.
...That wasn't a dumb Shmoop joke. That's actually what she would've been doing.
From an early age, she had a fondness for fowl. She sewed outfits for her favorite chickens, and once taught one to walk backward. When the bird finally mastered the stunt, a camera crew filmed the event.
No one said life in Milledgeville was a thrill-a-minute.
In 1941, Edward F. O'Connor died of systemic lupus erythematosus, a chronic autoimmune disease that attacks otherwise healthy tissues and organs. O'Connor was devastated by the loss of her father. At the time, there was no effective treatment for lupus, and there's still no cure.
In 1942, seventeen-year-old Flannery O'Connor enrolled at Georgia State College for Women (GSCW), now Georgia College and State University. She was an active member of campus life, working as a writer and editor for the school literary magazine, the Corinthian. She also was a cartoonist for the yearbook, newspaper, and other campus publications.
Impressive. All we did in college was study how long one could wear sweatpants before they melded to one's body.
O'Connor entered GSCW on an accelerated three-year program and graduated with a degree in social studies in 1945. The twenty-year-old then enrolled at the University of Iowa, intending to pursue a graduate degree in journalism. She soon realized that the profession didn't suit her and approached Paul Engle, the director of the school's prestigious creative writing program. She asked him if she might transfer into his department, and he said yes.
Engle became her first mentor, as well as a strong editor and advocate for her work. He said later that O'Connor was one of the most gifted writers he had ever instructed.7
Rumor has it he also said, "but man, was she super into chicken. Like, weirdly into chicken..."