Influential American writer had roots in Camden and Springfield

Although often brooding and odd, in many ways, these stories are prototypically All-American, which make Anderson, and his book, worth remembering and thinking about as we wrap up a week of July 4 celebrations. Not only that, but many consider his writing style and work to have had a major influence on major American writers such as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe and many others. Anderson’s style was more character driven, and concerned with psychological insights, and developed more languidly than many of the clever, plot-driven literary writers who preceded him (think O. Henry).

Also, Anderson is worth noting in our area for another reason: he was born Sept. 13, 1876, the third of seven children, to Irwin M. and Emma Smith Anderson in Camden, which is just 30 miles west of Dayton. (To visit the village, head south on State Route 4, then west on State Route 725.) He didn’t live there long; his father lost his business, and the family travelled around a bit before finally settling in Clyde, which is in Sandusky County in northern Ohio. Anderson reputedly used Clyde as the basis for Winesburg, Ohio.

After spending most of his formative years in Clyde, Anderson lived briefly in Chicago with his brother; he was in the military during the Spanish-American war but did not see combat. Shortly after that, he returned to Ohio, again to a Dayton-area location, this time Springfield. There, at age 23 in 1900, he lived with a brother and sister while attending Wittenberg Academy, a preparatory school associated with Wittenberg University, and after three terms graduated with the equivalent of a high school diploma.

Anderson gave traditional life a try for a while, marrying, managing a mail-order business, living again in Chicago, and then Cleveland and Elyria, and having three children with his first wife. But in 1912, he suffered what was termed a nervous breakdown, literally walking out of his job and finding himself, in a sort of fugue state, in a drugstore 30 miles from home. Several years later, he divorced his wife. His first book, “Windy McPherson’s Son,” was published in 1916. Anderson had two more marriages, and lived in various places, before ultimately settling in Virginia. He died in 1941 at the age of 64, when he became ill on a cruise in South America he was taking with his third wife; he is buried in Round Hill Cemetery in Marion, Va. His epitaph: “Life, Not Death, is the Great Adventure.” His full bibliography may be found at sherwoodandersonfoundation.org

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