Eugenia Price has died

[Joyce E. Dixon]

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The following is the obituary of Eugenia Price, who died May 28.
This is copied without permission from The Savannah Morning News,
Thursday, May 30, 1996.
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EUGENIA PRICE RECALLED AS 'THE STAR, THE CHAMP'
Popular coastal author, 79, dies of heart failure
by Gene Downs
Savannah News-Press

Eugenia Price, whose historical novels added to the literary legacy of coastal
Georgia, died Tuesday of heart failure. She was 79.

Price, who never married, will be buried at historic Christ Church on St. Simons
Island, the island she fell in love with 30 years ago.

"She was the star, the champ," said Esther Shaver, of E. Shaver Booksellers.
"One time, we needed some books signed and she was flying into the airport. So
we carried books out to the airport, and she signed them on the
hood of the car."

If criticized for writing "popular" fiction, Price proved in nearly 40 books
just how popular "popular" fiction -- and a writer of popular fiction -- can
be.

Born in Charleston, W. Va., on June 22, 1916, she lived in Chicago and other
cities, writing radio dramas and devotional books before moving to St. Simons
in 1963. She had discovered the island two years earlier during a
promotional tour for one of her works.

An interest in St. Simons led to an interest in Savannah, which became the
setting for a series of four novels, "Savannah," "To See Your Face Again,"
"Before Darkness Falls" and "Stranger in Savannah."

A tireless researcher, Price was a fixture at the Georgia Historical Society on
Whitaker Street.

"Her novels were so wonderful because they were so well researched," said
society president Lisa White. "She spent a lot of time doing research from the
archives. She was so meticulous."

But it was her characters, as much as her historical accuracy, that gave Price a
following as devoted as that of any author. More than 700 fans attended one of
Price's signings at Shaver's in 1989.

"She would sit in the store for five or six hours, and all of her fans would
line up with armloads of books. She had time for everybody. She really cared
about readers," Shaver said.

Known to her friends as Genie, Price had an appeal that was more than regional.

Millions of copies of her books -- including her four-part Savannah series --
were sold worldwide. Her words were translated into 18 languages.

Her most recent best-seller was "Beauty for Ashes" (1995), the third part of her
Georgia trilogy. Like Price's other books, it was written on a manual
typewriter.

Even her titles that are no longer in print remain in demand in the used-book
trade.

"I'm always getting wiped out, and I'm always advertising for more," said Anita
Raskin, owner of the Book Lady and a friend of Price's.

"I don't pretend to be a great writer, but I have a tremendous following and I
would lose them if my writing changed in a dramatic fashion," Price told a
News-Press reporter in 1983. "I look for ordinary people whose liv
es make a good story."
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EUGENIA PRICE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nonfiction:
The Eugenia Price Treasury of Faith
Beloved World
No Pat Answers
Share My Pleasant Stories
The Burden Is Light
Discoveries
The Unique World of Women
A Woman's Choice
Leave Yourself Alone

Fiction:
St. Simons Trilogy --
Lighthouse
New Moon Rising
Beloved Invader

Florida Trilogy --
Don Juan McQueen
Maria
Margaret's Story

Savannah Quartet --
Savannah
To See Your Face Again
Before Darkness Falls
Stranger in Savannah

Georgia Trilogy --
Bright Captivity
Where Shadows Go
Beauty for Ashes
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To give you a glimpse of her resting place. From the book, EUGENIA
PRICE'S SOUTH by Mary Bray Wheeler.

Christ Church, Frederica (Georgia's original colony on St. Simon's
Island). Although the original church was founded in the chapel within
the walls of Fort Frederica, the current structure on Frederica Road
was erected in 1884 by Anson Green Phelps Dodge, Jr., as a memorial to
his wife, Ellen. It was on this site that Charles and John Wesley
conducted their first services in the New World under the oak trees in
1736. The original 1820 building was damaged extensively during the
Civil War.
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She will be missed.

Joyce Dixon
joy...@ix.netcom.com

[k.har...@genie.com]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
So sorry to hear this--she was a fantastic writer.

--Karen Harbaugh (k.har...@genie.com)