Born 3 Oct 1900 in Asheville, North Carolina, United States

Ancestors

Died 15 Sep 1938 at age 37 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA

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Biography

Thomas Wolfe is Notable.

Thomas Wolfe was born in Asheville, North Carolina, the youngest child of William Oliver Wolfe and Julia Elizabeth Westall . ^[1] His siblings were sister Leslie E. Wolfe , Effie Nelson Wolfe , Frank Cecil Wolfe , Mabel Elizabeth Wolfe, Grover Cleveland Wolfe , Benjamin Harrison Wolfe , and Frederick William Wolfe .

The family lived at 92 Woodfin Street in Asheville, North Carolina where Tom was born. His father, a successful stone carver who ran a gravestone business. His mother took in boarders and bought and sold real estate.

In 1906 Julia bought a boarding house named "Old Kentucky Home" at nearby 48 Spruce Street in Asheville, taking up residence there with Thomas while the rest of the family remained at the Woodfin Street residence. Thomas lived in the boarding house on Spruce Street until he went to college in 1916.

Wolfe began to study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when he was 15 years old. He was a member of the Dialectic Society and Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. Thomas was interested in becoming a playwright and in 1919 he enrolled in a playwriting course. Some plays he wrote in his life were "The Return of Buck Gavin" ,"The Third Night" and "The Mountains". He also edited UNC's student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel and won the Worth Prize for Philosophy for an essay titled "The Crisis in Industry". In June of 1920 Wolfe graduated from UNC with a B.A. He entered Graduate School for Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in September of the same year, where he studied playwriting under George Pierce Baker. In 1922, Wolfe received his master's degree from Harvard.

His father died in Asheville in June of that year, an event that would strongly influence his writing. Wolfe continued to study for another year with Baker in the 47 Workshop, which produced his ten-scene play "Welcome to Our City". In February 1924, he began teaching English as an instructor at New York University , a position he occupied periodically for over six years.

During his short life Thomas Clayton Wolfe wrote several lengthy novels, "Look Homeward, Angel", "Of Time and the River", "The October Fair", "The Web and the Rock" and "You Can't Go Home Again" plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. His last writing, a journal of his two-week trip through the national parks, was found in his belongings hours after his death.

He died in 1938 andwas buried in Riverside Cemetery, Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, USA GPS (lat/lon): 35.60163, -82.56985 ^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MLSY-35H  : accessed 13 May 2019), Tom C Wolfe in household of Wm O Wolfe, Asheville Ward 2, Buncombe, North Carolina, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 8, sheet 4A, family 74, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 1099; FHL microfilm 1,375,112.
2. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1120

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wolfe