Gone With The Wind’s Offaly connection

MUCH has been made of President Obama’s link to County Offaly and Moneygall but there are other noted Americans with strong ties to the county. One such is Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With The Wind.

 

It is possible that the use of names such as O’Hara and Tara might have reflected the influence of Irish settlers to the area but they might also reflect Mitchell’s own Irish heritage.

Mitchell was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1900 and as a child heard many Civil War stories from neighbours and veterans. Her grandfather, who had fought in the war, died when she was six but her grandmother, who lived through those times, lived until Mitchell was in her 30s.

She entered college at 18 but following the sudden death of her mother, returned home to run the household. She had an unsuccessful marriage, which ended in divorce and during this time began writing for the Atlanta Journal magazine. Within a year of her divorce, she married the editor of the paper but a series of injuries forced her to leave her job to convalesce at home. This gave her the time to devote to writing and she produced the book, which made her famous.

She sold the film rights to Gone With The Wind for €50,000, an unheard of amount for anybody’s first novel.

However, it proved a very shrewd investment by David O’Selznick. To boost interest in the film, he organised a series of competitions to find the perfect Scarlett O’Hara and then confounded everyone by giving the role to a virtual unknown, Vivien Leigh. When it opened, it broke all box office records, was nominated for 13 Oscars and won 10. These included Best Supporting Actress, which went to Hattie McDaniel, who played the role of Scarlett’s maid and became the first African American to win an Oscar.
Even now, more than 70 years later, it remains one of the great American novels. It sold one million copies within six months, has been translated into more than 40 languages and won the Pulitzer Prize for its author.

Following these successes, Mitchell devoted much of her time and wealth to supporting charities and social causes. In 1949, as she and her husband were going to a production of The Canterbury Tales, she was hit by a speeding taxi while crossing the street and died of her injuries a short time later.

Mitchell’s grandfather, John Stephens, was born in Birr, County Offaly, in August 1833. He emigrated to America, where he joined another brother in Augusta. He went to college and worked as a postmaster in Tennessee. When the Civil War started, he returned to Atlanta and joined the 9th Georgia Infantry, where he rose to the rank of captain. During the war, he married Annie Fitzgerald and afterwards they settled in Atlanta, where Stephens became a successful businessman and real estate developer.

They had 12 children, four boys and eight girls. The fifth girl, Mary Stephens, married Eugene Mitchell. They had three children, Russell born in 1894, Alexander born in 1896 and Margaret, the author of Gone With the Wind, born 1900.

Margaret’s grandfather John Stephens, civil war veteran and native of Birr, died when she was six, on January 26, 1906 – 107 years ago this week.