A WRITER’S LIFE
A Brief Glance at the Life of William Sydney Porter, a.k.a. O Henry
“It ain’t the roads we take; it’s what’s inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.”
He was born on September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. For some reason he didn’t like the spelling of his middle name, Sidney, and at age 36 changed it to Sydney. It hardly matters today how he spelled it since most of us have only known him by his pen name, O. Henry, and his trademark stories with surprise endings.
Who among us doesn’t remember his sentimental Christmas story The Gift of the Magi or his hilarious The Ransom of Red Chief, in which two bad guys kidnap a ten year old boy, the only child of a prominent citizen, and live to regret it.
Like most of us who write, Porter was an avid reader in his youth, drinking in everything from dime store novels to classics. He also had some artistic skills as well. The career to which he initially applied himself was the pharmacy trade at age 19.
For health reasons he moved to Texas when he was 20 where he became a shepherd…
