William Sydney Porter



I was excited to learn that William Sydney Porter was born in Greensboro in 1862. The son of a physician, he was only three when his mother died from tuberculosis. In that same year of 1865, the Civil War drew to a close and as a lad, he watched rioting taking place in the streets of Greensboro. Raised in his mother's former home with his dad and his grandmother, he received the opportunity to read everything available in print at the time. I knew that he had lived in Texas, where I was born, but I was surprised to learn that he had been a working hand on a ranch in south Texas. He played many roles throughout his life, but he will always be remembered as the prolific writer that he became. Master of the short story, he wrote stories of the common people whom he had lived with in all genre's of life. He loved the old dime western stories and he later wrote many of his own western stories that were flavored by his personal experiences. As a child I used to watch movies of the Cisco Kid and I had no idea that he had created the character in one of his short stories, "The Cabellero's Way". He eventually settled in New York City where he wrote many popular stories like "Full House" that shared the life of the ordinary person in the big city. He penned such classics as "The Gift of the Magi" there, which still remains a Christmas classic in contemporary times. His birth city honors him with streets and hotels named after him, but not by his real name. For you see, his pen name was O.Henry, and he was born in Greensboro, NC. You can learn of his works and see his life story portrayed at the Greensboro Historical Museum in the downtown area of the city.

                 Self Drawn Image                                                        Near his birth site in Greensboro