The
Life of Zora Neale Hurston
By
Kathleen Syvrud
Zora Neale Hurston
reached the pinnacle of her career after publishing Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1937, but this success had come
after many years of struggles and hard work. She was born January 7th, 1891,
she was the fifth out of eight children to John Hurston and Lucy Potts Hurston.
Her mom had been a school teacher and her dad was a carpenter and Baptist
preacher. She was born in Notasulga, Alabama and lived there until she was a
toddler, but then moved to Eatonville Florida. Eatonville was the place Hurston
would remember as home, and would later even include the name in her most well
know book Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Eatonville was the nation’s first integrated black and white town and, because
of this she was able to grow up without the discrimination she and her family
might have faced in other places at this time. She lived there until the death
of her loving mother in 1904. Hurston was only thirteen years old when her
mother died. Her dad remarried quickly after her death, but his new wife hardly
filled the gap that her mother's death had left. In fact, she once got into a
fight with her step-mother and nearly killed her, not surprisingly, it was
sometime after this that she left home.
She
had many lowly jobs after she left home, one of which was being a maid for
Gilbert and Sullivan(who were performers during this time). After this, she
ended up in Baltimore. She wanted to finish the requirements she had missed to
graduate from high school, but she was now 26 years old and was no longer
eligible for a free education that was provided through the state. She pretended
to be 10 years younger and enrolled at Morgan Academy as a 16 year old. She was
surprisingly able to pull this off, and was able to finish the requirements
necessary for graduation. After graduating she never went by anything less than
10 years younger than her actual age.
After
completing her high school requirements she went on to further education at both
Howard Prep School and University and earned an associate’s degree in 1920. In
1921 she published her first story "John Redding Goes to Sea" in the
literary society's magazine that was on campus. After this she also attended
Barnard College to study anthropology from 1925-1927. Later, she even spent
some time at Columbia University. She continued her interest in anthropology, which,
is the study of culture, while traveling in The British West Indies and Haiti. In
the next ten years she published many stories, essays, and even a play. It was
in 1937 that her career reached its peak with her most well-known novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. She wrote
her most well known book while traveling in Haiti. She wrote the whole book in
just seven weeks. After this, she continued writing right up until a fatal
stroke in 1960. She died at age 69 on January 28th. Though she was a great
writer and published many great works, she still remained relatively poor,
never receiving many royalties from her books. Because she had so little she
was not able to have a proper head stone until years after her death when a fan
of hers ventured into the snake-infested cemetery where she was buried to place
a proper head stone by her grave. Though she passed away fifty years ago, her
writing has stood the test of time and is still impacting lives today.
This article came from
notablebiographies.com, and did not have a listed author. http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ho-Jo/Hurston-Zora-Neale.html
This article is from
zoranealehurston.com her official website, and was written by Valerie Boyd. http://www.zoranealehurston.com/biography.html