SOURCE: Wolfe, Margaret Ripley. “Sherwood Anderson and the Southern Highlands: A Sense of Place and the Sustenance of Women.” Southern Studies 3, no. 4 (winter 1992): 253-75.

In the following essay, Wolfe discusses the influence of the women in Anderson's life on his writings.

Sherwood Anderson hailed from the Buckeye State, and the Midwest claims him as one of its literary giants; Anderson himself, however, ultimately identified with the South and chose to be a Southerner. Although a native of Ohio and an aficionado of Chicago, he spent a critical portion of his later life, some sixteen years, in the Southern Appalachians. Well in advance of his premature demise in 1941, he had also selected a hillside cemetery in southwestern Virginia as his resting place for all eternity.¹ During this phase of Anderson's life, he drew strength and support from women, four in particular: Caroline Greear of rural Troutdale, Virginia, first his...