Storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham Passes at age 93
Written by:
Alvin Benn
Montgomery Advertiser A Gannett Company
Photos by Teresa
Todd/AthensPlus.com
SELMA — Kathryn Tucker Windham, a trailblazing female police
reporter who became known later for her books, storytelling
abilities, radio commentaries, photography and one-woman play about
an Alabama legend, died Sunday.
Windham, who died at 5 p.m. at her home in Selma at
the age of 93, had been ill for some time, and her relatives were by
her side at the end. Her family will announce a memorial service at
a later time.
Honored around the world for her stories about life
in America’s South, Windham refused to accept discriminatory
treatment by her first newspaper editors and proved that she could
cover assignments as well as any of the male reporters at the
Alabama Journal in 1940.
Windham’s dream as a young girl was to become a
newspaper reporter and she began writing movie reviews for her
uncle’s weekly paper in Thomasville, where she grew up.
She realized that dream in 1940 when she became what
is believed to be the first female police reporter at a large
Alabama newspaper.
Windham showed her spunk when assigned to cover
difficult murder stories, many involving graphic evidence that she
got to see. It did not deter her from her efforts.
Windham’s critics quickly realized that her
aggressiveness and persistence as a reporter helped the Journal put
out a quality newspaper — one that made her popular in homes
throughout Montgomery.
Gaining the respect of Montgomery’s men in blue was
a different story, but she handled that with ease, too, when she
went along with them to a ravine where a child’s body was recovered.
“When they saw me stay with them on that one, they
accepted me,” Windham said. “They knew I could do a good job, just
like our male reporters.”
After a stint selling bonds during World War II, she
went to work for the Birmingham News and met the love of her life —
Amasa Benjamin Windham, who captured her heart the moment he stepped
off the elevator and walked into the newsroom in his dashing white
Navy uniform.
The two moved to Selma, where they had three
children during a 10 year marriage. He died in her arms as they
watched their favorite television program on the couch.
Left a widow with two girls and a boy to raise,
Windham had little time to grieve. She went to work for the Selma
Times Journal, where she wrote a syndicated column and freelance
articles to bring in more money for her growing family.
Jamie Wallace, one of Windham’s reporting colleagues
at the Selma paper and a lifelong friend, called her “a national
treasure, a woman of remarkable talents who paved the way for others
in the pursuit of journalistic excellence.”
“She will forever be remembered for her love of
life, family, friends, community and preservation of stories,” said
Wallace, a former president of the Selma-Dallas County Chamber of
Commerce.
Windham honed her book writing skills by focusing on
Southern stories with a supernatural slant, frequently mentioning
“Jeffrey,” the resident “ghost” at her Selma house.
The “ghost” books made a lot of money for the
Windham family and son Ben, who would become an editor at the
Tuscaloosa News, once quipped: “Well, I can say one thing about
Jeffrey and that is he paid my way through college.”
When Windham became a regular contributor to
National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” program, her
five-minute stories about Dixie, delivered in her unforgettable
drawn-out Southern accent, made her one of its most popular
performers.
Her books sold by the thousands and she mixed that
magic with storytelling abilities passed on to her by her banker
father, who held sway on the front porch of the family house in
Thomasville.
James Tucker would have his porch crowd hanging on
every word by stopping to light his pipe. His daughter picked up his
tendency to pause at that moment and used it effectively during her
storytelling swings around the country and, at times, before
European audiences.
Windham discovered that the more she paused in her
storytelling, the more her fame would grow — quite unintentionally.
“I didn’t realize what was happening until I started
doing commentaries on the radio,” she once said. “Some people
thought that their radios broke. One man said he even went over and
started banging on it to get it going again.”
She helped Selma become the Storytelling Capital of
Alabama, but her pride and joy was appearing each year at the
National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tenn. It’s the
largest of its kind in the country and Windham was the star every
year.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harper Lee, who was
one of Windham’s many admirers through the years, called her “a
person of great gifts.”
“She uses those gifts with wisdom and love,” Lee
said a few years ago. “I am proud to say that she is my friend.”
One of Windham’s most cherished performances was her
one-woman play about Alabama reformer Julia Tutwiler.
It began with an invitation to address the Alabama
Federation of Women’s Clubs in Tuscaloosa. She didn’t have a topic,
but thought a speech about Tutwiler would be ideal because of what
she had meant to the state during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
To prepare for future appearances as “Miss Julia,”
Windham even dressed the part, wearing a black period dress complete
with bonnet. Audiences loved it and showered her with applause at
the end of each performance.
Windham loved to shift gears now and then and her
friends never knew what she’d do next.
Several years ago, she created a “Rabbit, Rabbit
Breakfast Club” at Selma’s Pancake House Restaurant on the first day
of each month.
She told friends to make sure that, on that day,
they got out of bed at the foot, planted their feet firmly on the
floor and yelled “Rabbit, Rabbit” as a sign of good luck. Then they
met at the restaurant at 7 a.m. for breakfast.
Old-fashioned comb music was a personal favorite
and, on her 90th birthday in 2008, she led more than 100 friends
from the balcony of the Selma-Dallas County Public Library in a
series of songs — played through wax paper. At times the tunes were
in tune.
New Year’s Day morning became a tradition at
Windham’s house. She spent the days before making big pots of
black-eyed peas and trays of delicious cornbread. Everybody in town
was invited and it seemed most came to her house.
Her photographs won numerous awards, especially
those taken in the Gees Bend area of Wilcox County and other parts
of Alabama’s Black Belt.
Windham, who once broke her pelvis when she tumbled
from a stage during a speaking tour in Germany, even commissioned
the construction of her own casket and kept it in a shed behind her
house. She would say it was well made, just right for her eternal
resting place.
Honors poured in throughout her twilight years. One
of her favorites was the naming of a museum for her in Thomasville.
It’s filled with Kathryn Windham memorabilia.
Two years ago, the Alabama State Council on the Arts
presented her with the Alabama Living Legacy Award. It was just the
latest in long line of honors.
The Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame at Judson College
in Marion considers inductees two years after their passing.
Those who know Windham said she’s pretty much a lock
on that honor, but they’d rather have had her with them a few more
years.
As it turned out, she lived to observe her 93rd
birthday on June 2.
