A Rainy Day in Jackson for Miss Eudora Welty

By Richard Warren

In 2001, my friends all thought I was mad when I drove 12 hours to Jackson, Mississippi, to attend the funeral of a 92-year-old Southern gentlelady.

But this wasn’t just any old lady. She was my hero.

I met Eudora Welty in college when she spent three days with us at the invitation of an organization of English majors I was part of. They were three days that changed my life. Although I never saw her again, I followed her closely, and I’d always longed to visit her in her home — to drop by for tea as so many of her devotees did, and which someone I met at a party had ...