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Denver native becomes published author By DIANE TURBYFILL, LTN Staff Writer Jan. 2, 2002 - Panthy Shipp Anderson never dreamed when she was a young girl growing up in Denver that she would become a published author late in life. But her experiences as a child of the Great Depression were bound to be told. “I’ve been around,” the 82-year-old says modestly. So, when Anderson’s friend, Alberta Harris, told her of a call for authors, Anderson responded. She submitted a story about her father’s emotional response to poverty during the Great Depression. “I just wanted to see if it’d be published,” she said. And it was. “My Father’s Tears” is included in “The Great Depression - How We Coped, Worked and Played; Life-Experience Stories From the Carolinas’ Piedmont.” The soft-cover book, a joint project of the Levine Museum of the New South and A. Borough Books, includes the work of 65 authors. Anderson’s three page contribution describes seeing her father, William Union Shipp, cry for the first time when she was 9-years-old. The money in the bank was gone, and the bills were due. Though the memories are tough, Anderson admits that it’s a thrill being a published author. She has even attended a book signing. “It was exciting,” she said, “because wherever you see your name it says ‘author.’” Anderson once wrote as a hobby, but this is her first time being published. Now living in Charlotte, she remembers fondly her relationship with her father, and growing up in Lincoln County. Anderson recalls how hard her father worked to provide for his family, and to become an educated man. “He went to Biltmore and helped build the railroad to earn money to go to school.” Anderson, too, strove for an education and had to walk about two miles each way to attend Denver-Rosenwald School. “We didn’t have a car until I was about 12-years-old.” Though times were tough, Anderson reflects on the camaraderie and unity of the time. “Those days everybody shared,” she says. “Back in those days there was more of a friendship. We were all struggling together.” Anderson says things were less superficial in the 1920s and 30s. “I remember when people wore the same dress for three days before they took it off to wash it. They didn’t have but two.” As a young woman, Anderson recalls that wages eventually improved. She made $25 a week in domestic work, but later moved to New York where she could double her salary. She lived in many states along the eastern shore. “I’m a very independent person,” she says. Now in her golden years, the salt-and-pepper haired writer is slowing down a bit. She lives in a modest apartment in Charlotte and is in a wheelchair, having had a leg amputated several years ago. “I’m not handicapped,” she says. “I’m settled down.” But Anderson still takes the bus to visit friends regularly and attends Victory Christian Center. “I’m a very outgoing person,” she says. “You’ve heard life is what you make it, and that is what it’s all about.” ————— “The Great Depression - How We Coped, Worked and Played; Life-Experience Stories From the Carolinas’ Piedmont” is available in many public libraries and area bookstores.
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© 2001 Lincoln Times-News |
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