Betty Hester
Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image Hazel Elizabeth Hester (June 1, 1923 – December 26, 1998)[1] was an American correspondent of influential twentieth-century writers, including Flannery O'Connor and Iris Murdoch.[2]Template:R/superscript Hester wrote several short stories, poems, diaries, and philosophical essays, none of which were published.[3]Template:R/superscript
Life
Hester was born in Rome, Georgia, and attended Young Harris College.[2]Template:R/superscript She lived and worked in Atlanta before joining the U.S. Air Force in 1948.[4]Template:R/superscript After five years in the service she had risen to the rank of technical sergeant[4]Template:R/superscript and was stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany, after World War II (c.Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". 1948–53).[4]Template:R/superscript She was discharged as "undesirable" for being a lesbian.[4]Template:R/superscript After her discharge from the Air Force,[5]Template:R/superscript she returned to Georgia.[4]Template:R/superscript Hester spent most of her life in a small Midtown Atlanta apartment.[3]Template:R/superscript She worked for an Atlanta-based retail credit company (Equifax), commuting every day by bus.[2]Template:R/superscript[4]Template:R/superscript She struggled with alcoholism and bouts of depression[4]Template:R/superscript but kept her sexual orientation a secret except to her closest friends.[4]Template:R/superscript
Hester is best known for her nine-year correspondence and friendship with Southern fiction writer Flannery O'Connor.[5]Template:R/superscript From 1955 to 1964, Hester and O'Connor exchanged nearly 300 letters, some of which are published in Sally Fitzgerald's 1979 compilation of O'Connor's correspondence, The Habit of Being.[3]Template:R/superscript Hester, a very private and reclusive woman, asked that her identity be kept secret in the published letters; thus, she appears as "A".[3]Template:R/superscriptScript error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Hester first wrote to O'Connor in July 1955,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". when O'Connor was working on her second novel, The Violent Bear it Away.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[3]Template:R/superscript Eager to exchange thoughts and ideas with someone of equal intellectual caliber, O'Connor wrote back: "I would like to know who this is who understands my stories."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". O'Connor felt that she and Hester shared a spiritual kinship,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". and O'Connor would later become Hester's confirmation sponsor in the Catholic Church.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Hester left the Church in 1961Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". and turned to agnosticism.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". This news was a grave disappointment for O'Connor,[6] who had engaged Hester in theological dialogues and tried to sustain her friend's faith.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
Death and legacy
Hester gave her letters to Emory University in 1987 on the condition that they be sealed for twenty years.[3]Template:R/superscript They were released to the public on May 12, 2007.[2]Template:R/superscript
Like her mother, Hester died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on December 26, 1998, in Atlanta, at the age of 75.[4]Template:R/superscript
Notes
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- ↑ U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–2007.
- ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Footnotes".: "I don't know anything that could grieve us here like this news. I know that what you do you do because you think it is right, and I don't think any the less of you outside the Church than in it, but what is painful is the realization that this means a narrowing of life for you and a lessening of the desire for life."
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Works cited
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Further reading
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- Pages with script errors
- 1923 births
- 1998 deaths
- 20th-century American letter writers
- 20th-century American LGBTQ people
- 20th-century American women writers
- 1998 suicides
- American lesbian writers
- American military personnel discharged for homosexuality
- American women letter writers
- Catholics from Georgia (U.S. state)
- Former Roman Catholics
- LGBTQ people from Georgia (U.S. state)
- Military personnel from Georgia (U.S. state)
- People from Rome, Georgia
- Suicides by firearm in Georgia (U.S. state)
- United States Air Force airmen
- Writers from Georgia (U.S. state)
- Young Harris College alumni