Birth Dates of Notable Kentuckians: February 11, 1856: Eliza Caroline (Calvert) Obenchain

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From The Kentucky Encyclopedia –

Eliza Caroline (Calvert) Obenchain, suffragist and author who wrote under the pen name Eliza Calvert Hall, was born in Bowling Green , Kentucky, on February 11, 1856. She was the eldest child of Thomas Chalmers and Margaret (Younglove) Calvert, and her paternal grandparents, Samuel Wilson and Elizabeth Caroline (Hall) Calvert, were early settlers of Bowling Green. She was educated at private schools there and attended Western College, Cincinnati, for one year. She taught in Bowling Green until her marriage on July 8, 1885, to William Alexander Obenchain.

Eliza Obenchain was the author of poems, essays, and stories about western Kentucky, which appeared in magazines such as Scribner's, Cosmopolitan, Ladies' Home Journal, and the women's page of the New York Times. She was a suffragist who worked for women's rights to property and divorce. Her most popular short story, " Sally Ann's Experience," combined her concern for women's rights with western Kentucky local color. " Sally Ann's Experience" appeared in Obenchain's Aunt Jane of Kentucky (1907), a popular collection of short stories. Obenchain wrote a sequel, The Land of Long Ago (1909), as well as Clover and Bluegrass (1916) and To Love, To Cherish (1911), but none achieved the same popularity. Obenchain also wrote A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets (1912), a nonfiction examination of the folk craft that is considered a classic of its type.

William and Eliza Obenchain had four children -- Margery Winston, Cecilia Reams, William Alexander, and Thomas Hall. After her husband's death in 1916, Obenchain moved to Dallas, Texas, where she died on December 20, 1935.

DANNY MILLER, Entry Author

Selected Sources from UK Libraries:

Obenchain, Eliza Caroline Calvert. A Book of Hand-woven Coverlets. Boston: Little, Brown, 1914. Print.

NK8903 .O3, Fine Arts Library

Obenchain, Eliza Caroline Calvert., Eliza Calvert. Hall, and Harry Russell Ballinger. Clover and Blue Grass. Boston: Little Brown, 1916. Print. SOLINET/ASERL Cooperative Microfilming Project (NEH PS-20317) ; SOL MN02104.07 KUK.

http://purl.oclc.org/KUK/KDL/B92-42-26783481

Hall, Eliza Calvert., G. Patrick. Obenchain, Beulah. Nelson, Eliza Caroline Calvert. Strong, and Strong, Beulah. The Land of Long Ago. New York: A.L. Burt, 1909. Print. SOLINET/ASERL Cooperative Microfilming Project (NEH PS-20317) ; SOL MN02004.01 KUK.

F Ob2L variant, Special Collections Research Center - Fiction Collection