Carolyn Curry pens bio of Civil War-era Augusta woman

9:30 a.m. Sunday, March 30, Fellowship Hall, Peachtree Road United Methodist Church 3180 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, 404-266-2373

For more events, go to http://www.carolyncurry.net

As a graduate student some 30 years ago, Carolyn Curry embarked on a journey to find a dissertation topic that would hold her interest for several years.

She wanted to focus on a Southern woman of the 19th century, but she remembers while there was all kind of talk about women’s rights at the time, there were no women’s studies or women’s history classes.

“In every course I took I remember thinking, ‘Where are the women?’” said Curry.

Curry’s adviser suggested she trek to a special library at Duke University to examine the Civil War-era diary of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, who lived in Augusta. As she pored over the words in fading ink on yellowed pages, Curry realized she had found a compelling piece of history that would not only keep her engaged but inspire her throughout her life.

The diary spans 41 years. It contains 450,000 words and fills 13 volumes. Thomas started the diary in 1848 at age 14, and she kept it before, during and after the Civil War.

Curry, who lives in Atlanta, decided Thomas’s life — based on her diary as well as the woman’s newspaper clippings, scrapbooks and court documents — had the makings of a great biography.

But life lept getting in the way for Curry, whose husband is former football coach Bill Curry. Still, Thomas continued to inspire Curry, who, in 2012, founded Women Alone Together, a local nonprofit offering seminars, life lessons and fellowship for women who are on their own for any reason.

Now 71, Curry has finally finished the book.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution spoke with Curry about “Suffer and Grow Strong: The Life of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas 1834 -1907.” (Mercer University Press, $29)

Q: What makes Gertrude’s diary and story so compelling?

A: Her candor. She always had a way of expressing herself… she talks about her children dying and she is crying. It’s so honest. Today counselors will say “talk it out, cry it out or write it out.” She didn’t realize that she was doing something very therapeutic. (The diary) became so important to her that she personified it, addressing it “Dear Friend.” It was so important to her that when Gen. William Sherman and his troops neared Augusta, she starts to pack her silver but decides to take her diary instead.

Q: Talk about the transformation of Gertrude.

A: As a child, Gertrude lived in a 24-room mansion that was probably the finest house in Augusta. She and her family went to one of their plantations during the summer where it was cooler. They had many slaves who did all of the cooking and all of the chores. She lived a charmed life. She was very intelligent and all she wanted to do was read and write. And then she got married and some of her babies started to die, the reality of the war and tough economic times set in. They lost everything and went bankrupt. Her life changed forever.

She examined what was happening, asked questions and strived to find ways to improve her family’s dire economic straits. She started a school in her home and later ran a boarding house out of the old family mansion.

Her views on slavery changed. She shared the suffering in childbirth with slaves, and the help from wet nurses made her more sensitive. By the end of war, she could see that slavery had been wrong.

She became devoted to women’s causes and was active in the suffrage movement. Late in life, when it was radical for a woman to speak about suffrage, she stood before hundreds in the Georgia House of Representatives and said not only that women should get the vote, but they should be equal to men ‘in the work of the world.’ It was in that moment in 1899, that Gertrude had come full circle. She was no longer a Southern Lady of the Old South. She was a New Woman of the New South.

Q: The diaries describe life during the Civil War? What surprised you?

A: She sent her husband to war and worried he wouldn’t come back. He ended up buying a substitute (a common practice among wealthy men of the time) and served in the militia to be closer to home. She believed in the war effort and was bothered that he was in the militia and not on active duty. She did what women could do to help. She took food to the train station to feed the troops. She sewed uniforms and made balls for ammo. She visited the wounded in the hospitals and was horrified by the gaping wounds and missing limbs. The filth made her think the soldiers needed to be cleaned up more than anything else. There was the fear of people dying and also the fear of facing poverty. There was so much anxiety. It is horrifying thinking about women trying to protect their children while also being so weak and sick themselves. But she does regain her strength and go on and that’s what is inspiring.

Q: What do you hope people take away?

A: She had grit and determination. So many people were destroyed by the war but she survived and found a new way. She went through periods of depression but she always found a way to get through it. This is what we all have to do. She was a woman of faith but she kept examining her faith. She would sometimes question it. But she always wanted to do the right thing, the moral thing. She wanted her life to have meaning.