Tula Pendleton was a short story writer and playwright from Hartford, born in 1872 to a prominent family in the historic house known as Hillside. Her great-niece Dr. Barbara Pendleton Jones, starting with scraps of information before eventually uncovering unpublished works, has published a biography of Tula and will hold a book signing at the Daviess County Public Library on September 15.
Jones lives in Markham, Virginia, but her family’s roots trace back to Hartford and include seven generations of orthopedic surgeons.
Jones said she grew up hearing only the barest accounts of Pendleton’s career as a writer and her death. When Jones set out to learn more about her great-aunt, she had only two of Pendleton’s letters and fragments of her family history. She pieced together genealogy, found Pendleton’s published stories, located letters and newspaper articles in archives, and retraced Pendleton’s steps across much of the South in order to write the book.
Titled “Tula Pendleton: The Life and Work of a Forgotten Southern Writer,” Jones said the books is “a moving and illuminating portrait of her extraordinary relative.
“Tula Pendleton was the belle of her small Kentucky hometown when she married Holmes Cummins Jr., a rising young insurance executive, in 1894,” Jones says in the book description. “When the expected children never came, Tula turned her hand to writing short fiction, publishing stories in popular American magazines. Her range as an author was impressive, from romances and medical dramas to truly haunting tales of the uncanny.”
Jones said Pendleton also wrote charming stories of small-town life that addressed the pleasures, comforts, and stings of life in a rural community.
“Tula’s stories were well received, but as her writing career blossomed, the couple struggled with family, health, and financial troubles,” the book description reads. “In 1924, they carried out a suicide pact, an event covered by more than 120 American newspapers at the time. Soon after, though, both Tula and her work were forgotten.”
Jones said the book “relates with empathy and insight the remarkable story of Tula’s life. It also collects, for the first time, all of her extant stories, giving new generations the chance to discover the work of this extraordinary Southern writer.”
The book was published by Butler Books and retails for $32.95. It is available at Butler Books here and can be found in several other online stores.
