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John Marsden Ehle 1925 - 2018

John Marsden Ehle was born on December 13, 1925 in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina United States, and died at age 92 years old on March 24, 2018. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember John Marsden Ehle.

John Marsden Ehle
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December 13, 1925
Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States
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March 24, 2018
North Carolina, United States
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John Marsden Ehle John Ehle (1925 - 2018)
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John Marsden Ehle's History: 1925 - 2018

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  • Introduction

    John Marsden Ehle, Jr. (December 13, 1925 – March 24, 2018) was an American writer known best for his fiction set in the Appalachian Mountains of the American South. He has been described as "the father of Appalachian literature". Life and career John Ehle was born in Asheville, North Carolina, the oldest of five children of Gladys (née Starnes) and John Marsden Ehle, an insurance company division director. His paternal grandparents emigrated from Wales and England. He enlisted in the United States Army during World War II, serving as a rifleman with the 97th Infantry Division. Following his military service, he went on to study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures in 1949 and later a Master of Arts degree in Dramatic Arts (1953). He also served on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1951 to 1963. During his tenure at UNC-Chapel Hill, he wrote plays for the American Adventure series that played on NBC Radio and began writing his first novel. Ehle's first novel, Move Over Mountain, was published by Hodder & Stoughton of London in 1957. The following year, he returned with a biography The Survivor: The Story of Eddy Hukov. In 1964, Harper & Row published perhaps his most well-known book, The Land Breakers. The book is a fictional account set in the late 18th century that traces the story of the first white pioneers to settle in the Appalachian wilderness of the mountains of Western North Carolina. The Land Breakers, out of print for several decades, was republished in 2006 by Press 53, a small imprint in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. With The Land Breakers, he started a seven-part series of historical fiction about the Appalachian region. Two of his eleven novels, The Winter People and The Journey of August King, have been adapted as films. Among his six works of non-fiction is the 1965 book, The Free Men, which is a first-person chronicle of the desegregation struggle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Personal life Ehle was married to English actress Rosemary Harris and was the father of actress Jennifer Ehle. Ehle was active in a number of social, educational, and anti-poverty projects in the state of North Carolina. From 1963-1964, Ehle served as special assistant to North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford, an appointment Sanford often called his "one-man think tank." Sanford credits Ehle for the idea behind the statewide initiative The North Carolina Fund (a non-profit organization funded primarily by grants from the Ford Foundation to fight poverty in North Carolina). As an extension of Governor Sanford's focus on education, Ehle was instrumental in the founding of both the North Carolina School of the Arts and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, among the first such state-supported high schools for the gifted and talented in the United States. He was also responsible for the founding of the North Carolina Governor's School, the first summer program of its kind for gifted students in North Carolina. From 1964 to 1966, Ehle served as an adviser on President Lyndon B. Johnson's White House Group for Domestic Affairs. From 1965 to 1968, Ehle was a member of the United States National Committee for UNESCO. He also served on the National Council for Humanities (1966–1970). In the late 1960s, Ehle took over management of the Stouffer Foundation.[12] The heiress Anne Forsyth had created this organization to provide full scholarships for Black students to attend some of the all-white "Seg academies." These private schools had sprung up around the South to help white parents keep their children out of legally mandated racially integrated public schools. Forsyth's goal was not only to benefit the few selected Black students but also to open the minds of white students. Ehle and his wife Rosemary Harris can be heard interviewing prospective candidates, Black public school students, on surviving recordings. Legacy and honors The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Manuscripts Department, maintains the John Ehle Papers, an archive which contains drafts, notes, correspondence, and other materials pertaining to Ehle's many books. The collection also includes a large collection of audio recordings of interviews, videos, and photographs that document the civil rights activities observed by Ehle while he was writing The Free Men. Ehle was elected to the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. He has also received awards including the Thomas Wolfe Prize, the Lillian Smith Book Award, the John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities, and the Mayflower Award. Bibliography Novels Move Over Mountain (1957).[16] ISBN 0-9793049-8-9 Kingstree Island (1959) Lion on the Hearth (1961) ISBN 1941209300 The Land Breakers New York : Harper & Row, 1964. ISBN 9780060111700, OCLC 774094 The Road New York, Harper & Row, 1967. ISBN 1572330163, OCLC 1090449 Time of Drums New York, Harper & Row, 1970. ISBN 9780060111748, OCLC 93792 The Journey of August King (1971). ISBN 0060111666 The Changing of the Guard (1974) The Winter People (1982). ISBN 1941209696 Last One Home (1984). ISBN 0982441681 The Widow's Trial (1989)
  • 12/13
    1925

    Birthday

    December 13, 1925
    Birthdate
    Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina United States
    Birthplace
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  • Early Life & Education

    Following his military service, he went on to study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures in 1949 and later a Master of Arts degree in Dramatic Arts (1953).

  • Military Service

    He enlisted in the United States Army during World War II, serving in Europe and Asia as a rifleman with the 97th Infantry Division.

  • Professional Career

    Published author. Novels Move Over Mountain (1957).[16] ISBN 0-9793049-8-9 Kingstree Island (1959) Lion on the Hearth (1961) ISBN 1941209300 The Land Breakers New York : Harper & Row, 1964. ISBN 9780060111700, OCLC 774094 The Road New York, Harper & Row, 1967. ISBN 1572330163, OCLC 1090449 Time of Drums New York, Harper & Row, 1970. ISBN 9780060111748, OCLC 93792 The Journey of August King (1971). ISBN 0060111666 The Changing of the Guard (1974) The Winter People (1982). ISBN 1941209696 Last One Home (1984). ISBN 0982441681 The Widow's Trial (1989)

  • Personal Life & Family

    By Kate Rauhauser-Smith Born: Dec. 13, 1925, in Asheville, North Carolina. Died: March 24, 2018, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Known for: Founding North Carolina School of the Arts amidst a successful writing and humanities career. John Ehle was eulogized in an obituary as one of the state’s “greatest writers and a formidable promoter of the humanities.” A member of the state Literary Hall of Fame, he authored 17 books, many award-winning. His more enduring legacy, however, may be seen in the institutions he had a hand in creating, a long list that includes the North Carolina School of the Arts, the North Carolina Governor’s School for gifted children, and the North Carolina School of Science and Math. The eldest of Gladys Starnes and John Ehle’s five children, he was born in the southern Appalachian Mountains during the Great Depression. Though his family seems to have avoided many of the challenges of that time and place, he spent a great deal of his professional life working to improve opportunities for the disadvantaged communities he became familiar with there. Through his maternal family, he had deep roots in Appalachian history, roots he said gave him a love of storytelling. He worked as a radio announcer at WISE in Asheville before serving in the U.S. Army during WWII. Afterward, he studied at UNC-Chapel Hill where he earned both a bachelor’s in radio, television and motion pictures in 1949, followed by a master’s in dramatic arts in 1953. At the same time, he was a professor at the school (1951-1963) and wrote radio plays and his first novel. Beginning in 1963, Ehle served on a series of social, educational, and anti-poverty committees at the state and national levels. In the 18 months, Ehle worked with then-Gov. Terry Sanford, he helped bring the School of the Arts to Winston-Salem and create the Governor’s School, a summer school for gifted students. In 1964, he was part of President Lyndon Johnson’s White House Group for Domestic Affairs and was on the first National Council of the Humanities. He moved to Winston-Salem with his wife, actress Rosemary Harris, in 1965 and, while continuing to write North Carolina historical fiction and non-fictional works on a wide range of topics including desegregation and the Trail of Tears, Ehle helped establish the state’s film board and Institute of Outdoor Drama. Mayor Allen Joines called Ehle a city treasure, but UNCSA Chancellor Lindsay Bierman went a step further: “The School of the Arts was born … out of John Ehle’s clear vision and tenacious advocacy. With his courage, intellect, doggedness, creativity, and incomparable voice he fought to enrich the culture of this state and our nation.”
  • 03/24
    2018

    Death

    March 24, 2018
    Death date
    Old Age.
    Cause of death
    North Carolina United States
    Death location
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  • Obituary

    John Ehle, Who Rooted His Novels in Appalachia, Is Dead at 92 His novels were praised in part for the dignity he gave his fictional mountain people. By Richard Sandomir April 12, 2018 John Ehle, whose historical novels set in the Appalachian Mountains were acclaimed for the authenticity of the characters’ lives, and whose work for the governor of North Carolina in the 1960s led to significant changes in arts education, died on March 24 at his home in Winston-Salem, N.C. He was 92. His death was announced by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, which he attended and where he taught for a dozen years. Mr. Ehle, who had been married to the British actress Rosemary Harris since 1967, wrote radio dramas, biographies, a nonfiction account of student civil rights protests at Chapel Hill, a history of the Cherokee Nation, and a guide to French and British wines and cheeses. But he is best known for his seven Appalachian novels, which were partly inspired by stories he heard from his mother’s family, whose roots in the mountains went back several generations. Mr. Ehle’s cycle began with “The Land Breakers” (1964), which takes place in the late 18th century, and ended with “Last One Home” (1984), which brought his characters into the Great Depression. Critics praised Mr. Ehle (pronounced EE-lee) for the epic sweep of his stories, their vivid detail, realistic dialogue, and the dignity with which he invested mountain people who have often been stereotyped as hillbillies. Kirkus Reviews called “The Land Breakers” — whose main character, Mooney Wright, settles land in the Appalachian wilderness in 1779 — a “full novel of birth, death, laughter, and sadness spun out by a storyteller with a rare ability to convey ‘the way it must have been.’ ” Mr. Ehle’s books were usually well-reviewed and earned him a place in the canon of Appalachian literature. But he did not find a vast readership in the United States. One fan, though, was Harper Lee, who lauded “The Land Breakers” when it was republished in 2006 by Press 53, a small Winston-Salem publisher. “John Ehle’s meld of historical fact with ineluctable plot-weaving makes ‘The Land Breakers’ an exciting sample of masterful storytelling,” Ms. Lee wrote. And, three years later, the Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje told The Globe and Mail that “The Land Breakers” was “a great American novel, way beyond anything most New York literary icons have produced.” But, he lamented, Mr. Ehle remained “shockingly unknown.” Kevin Morgan Watson, the publisher and editor in chief of Press 53, had been unaware of Mr. Ehle before he reprinted “The Land Breakers.” “I had just started the press four months prior and then I met with John and read his bio,” he said in a telephone interview. “I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of this man. From the first chapter, I knew I was dealing with a masterful writer.” Press 53 has republished six other books by Mr. Ehle. The next book in his Appalachian cycle was “The Road” (1967), a Reconstruction-era novel about Weatherby Wright, a white mountaineer who uses inventive engineering methods and convict labor to build a railroad from the lowlands to an isolated mountain region near Asheville, N.C. In a review in The Chicago Tribune, the author James Stokely described “The Road” as an “epic” that brought to life “the minutiae of everyday events” and “the physical ordeal of mud-stained animals” and “men blasting, cutting and bleeding the mountainside.” John Marsden Ehle Jr. was born in Asheville on Dec. 13, 1925, to John Sr., an insurance salesman, and the former Gladys Starnes. He grew up in West Asheville. “The Bible was the main book, the only book, that my mother really wanted in the house,” Mr. Ehle told The Appalachian Journal in 2005. “She suspected that the others contained materials that, had she read them, she would not have approved.” After serving as an Army rifleman in Europe and Asia with the 97th Infantry Division during World War II, Mr. Ehle received a bachelor’s degree in radio, television, and motion pictures and a master’s in dramatic arts at U.N.C. He taught there from 1951 to 1963. His reputation as an advocate for the arts got a public airing in May 1961, when he wrote a two-part article in The Raleigh News and Observer saying that the university was failing to inspire its students of creative writing, dramatic art, and music and languages. “The University hasn’t been doing very well of late — I hear that wherever I go,” he wrote. “State College booms along. Raleigh has a good spirit. Not this place, just 27 miles away.” He and his wife, the actress Rosemary Harris, sought to integrate white prep schools. Joel Fleishman, a legal assistant to Terry Sanford, the Democratic governor of North Carolina at the time, recalled in an email that at the time he had already known Mr. Ehle and his concerns about the arts at the school and invited him to the governor’s mansion in 1962 to talk about improving the state on many fronts as Mr. Sanford headed into his last two years in office. Mr. Ehle said the governor had asked the 10 or 12 invitees what they thought should be done. “Well, sir, there were various views expressed,” Mr. Ehle said to an interviewer in 1995 for the Southern Oral History Program at U.N.C., “Somebody thought he should do something about highway safety. Somebody said we should do something about pig farms, that if we could get more pig farms and we all agree on the same kind of pigs, we could rival Denmark or somewhere, with their pigs. I didn’t have any ideas when he came to me.” Mr. Fleishman, now a professor at the Duke University School of Law, said in an email that Mr. Ehle may have been modest in his recollection. Nonetheless, Mr. Ehle soon after joined the Sanford administration as a special consultant despite his concern that the position would deprive him of the time he needed to finish a novel. As an adviser he became a font of ideas that led to the creation of what is now the University of North Carolina School of the Arts; summer Governor’s Schools for the state’s brightest high school students; a state-run Learning Institute to provide research on improving education; and a state film board. He also helped develop an antipoverty program called the North Carolina Fund. “John definitely was the quarterback who drove the development” of those initiatives, Mr. Fleishman said. Mr. Ehle left Gov. Sanford’s office in May 1964, after about 18 months, and told U.S. News & World Report: “With a creative state government you can start tremendous educational and cultural programs almost beyond the imagination.” He soon began to write “The Free Men” (1965), his civil rights book. But he continued to do educational work. At the Anne C. Stouffer Foundation, which was dedicated to finding qualified black students to integrate white preparatory schools, he and Ms. Harris traveled together and audiotaped their interviews with candidates. In one recording, Mr. Ehle asked one student about his experience with integration. “Well, several summers ago, I went to a camp that was integrated,” the student said. “But other than that I haven’t been in contact very much with, um, many white boys and girls.” “You don’t really have any dislike for them, though, do ya?” Mr. Ehle asked. “No,” the student responded. “I don’t understand why Negroes and whites can’t get along.” Besides Ms. Harris — who has won Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe Awards — Mr. Ehle’s survivors include a daughter, Jennifer Ehle, a two-time Tony Award-winning actress, and two grandchildren. His marriage to Gail Oliver ended in divorce. “When we got married,” Ms. Harris told The New York Times in 1986, “John and I had a fantasy that we would sit on either side of the fireplace in the evenings and he would read me what he’d written during the day and I would make helpful comments. But the first time that happened, we had an argument. So we decided that, since we had managed to get so far in our careers without each others’ advice, we would continue that way.”
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9 Memories, Stories & Photos about John

John Marsden Ehle
Photo of Amanda S. Stevenson Amanda S. Stevenson
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09/04/2021
John Marsden Ehle
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John Marsden Ehle's wife, Rosemary Harris.
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John Marsden Ehle's wife, Rosemary Harris.
She is a movie star. A theatre star and a television star. I met her and she was incredibly lovely to meet.
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John Marsden Ehle and his daughter Jennifer Ehle.
Photo of Amanda S. Stevenson Amanda S. Stevenson
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John Marsden Ehle and his daughter Jennifer Ehle.
That baby is an award-winning actress now.
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Portrait of John Marsden Ehle - Restored.
Photo of Amanda S. Stevenson Amanda S. Stevenson
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Portrait of John Marsden Ehle - Restored.
Famous author, a wonderful husband, and a loving father.
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Jennifer Ehle.
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Jennifer Ehle.
Actress in England and the United States.
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Rosemary Harris and John Marsden Ehle - married for 50 years.
Photo of Amanda S. Stevenson Amanda S. Stevenson
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Rosemary Harris and John Marsden Ehle - married for 50 years.
Rosemary Harris and John Marsden Ehle.
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Jennifer Ehle and Rosemary Harris.
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Jennifer Ehle and Rosemary Harris.
Daughter and Mother.
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John Marsden Ehle.
Photo of Amanda S. Stevenson Amanda S. Stevenson
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John Marsden Ehle.
Well-loved Author.
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Photo of Amanda S. Stevenson Amanda S. Stevenson
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John Marsden Ehle married Rosemary Harris.
They were married for a very long time and had a daughter Jennifer Ehle.
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Other John Ehle Biographies

Ehle, John (Feb 14, 1915 - Oct 24, 1992) Ehle, John (Oct 7, 1897 - Jun 1971) Ehle, John (Nov 28, 1910 - Oct 15, 1989) Ehle, John (Mar 17, 1909 - Feb 27, 1998) Ehle, John (May 13, 1929 - Jan 15, 1991)
Ehle, John (Aug 20, 1937 - Nov 29, 2009) Ehle, John (Apr 1, 1905 - May 1985) Ehle, John (Oct 26, 1928 - Aug 11, 1997) Ehle, John (Aug 24, 1905 - Dec 1981) Ehle, John (May 5, 1904 - Oct 1978)

Other Ehle Family Biographies

Ehle, Leo (Nov 22, 1896 - May 1971) Ehle, Ann (Dec 27, 1901 - Oct 1987) Ehle, Pearl (Aug 23, 1898 - May 1977) Ehle, Ernest (Jun 24, 1896 - Jan 8, 1996) Ehle, Herman (Mar 3, 1885 - Jan 1970) Ehle, Minnie (May 12, 1891 - Jan 26, 1993) Ehle, David (Mar 8, 1957 - Apr 9, 2000) Ehle, Edward (Oct 2, 1888 - Nov 12, 1987) Ehle, Randall (Dec 15, 1920 - Jun 10, 1991) Ehle, Ernest (May 16, 1940 - Apr 6, 1996)
Ehle, Helen (Jul 24, 1902 - Jan 6, 1998) Ehle, Ernest (Oct 13, 1923 - Jul 27, 2008) Ehle, Doris (Apr 6, 1924 - Nov 5, 2008) Ehle, Catherine (Dec 26, 1900 - Nov 18, 1997) Ehle, Robert (Apr 28, 1928 - Apr 3, 2005) Ehle, Joy Ann (May 11, 1931 - Sep 21, 2000) Ehle, Ralph (Dec 6, 1926 - Jul 12, 1976) Ehle, Beryl (May 11, 1909 - Sep 1990) Ehle, Stanley (Oct 5, 1896 - Feb 1976) Ehle, Charles (Died Aug 1956)
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