Anne Audubon (Wetzel) Armstrong (1872 - 1958)

Born 20 Sep 1872 in Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan, United States

Descendants

Died 17 Mar 1958 at age 85 in Abingdon, Washington, Virginia, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Appalachia Project WikiTree [send private message]

Anne (Wetzel) Armstrong was associated with Appalachia. Join: Appalachia Project Discuss: Appalachia

Biography

Anne (Wetzel) Armstrong is Notable.

In the 1880s, her family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where her father operated a lumber company. She attended Mount Holyoke College, where she wrote for the school's newspaper, and later attended the University of Chicago. She had returned to Knoxville by 1892, when she married Leonard T. Waldron. They had one son before divorcing in 1894.[1] In 1905, she married Robert F. Armstrong. She renamed her son Roger Franklin Armstrong. He graduated from the Naval Academy in the Class of 1918, and he died in a plane crash in 1922.

Armstrong published her first novel, The Seas of God, in 1915. In 1918, she was hired as a personnel director for the National City Company of New York.[2] She later gave an account of her early days with this company in her article, "A Woman in Wall Street by One," which was published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1925.[5] In 1919, Armstrong was hired as the Assistant Manager for Industrial Relations for Eastman Kodak, and continued in this position until 1923.[2] During the latter half of the decade, she published several articles in Harper's Monthly and The Atlantic Monthly that focused on the emerging role of women in business.

In the late 1920s, Armstrong retired and moved to the Big Creek community in rural Sullivan County, Tennessee, which would provide the inspiration for her 1930 novel, This Day and Time. During this same period, she began a correspondence with author Thomas Wolfe, and began writing her autobiography, Of Time and Knoxville, a portion of which was published as "The Branner House" in The Yale Review in 1938. Three of Wolfe's letters to Armstrong were published in the 1956 collection, The Letters of Thomas Wolfe.

In the 1940s, the Tennessee Valley Authority completed South Holston Dam, effectively inundating the Big Creek community, which straddled the South Fork Holston just upstream from the dam. Armstrong moved to various places around the Southeast before settling in Abingdon, Virginia. She lived in the Barter Inn in Abingdon until her death in 1958.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Anne W Armstrong]
• Anne W Armstrong Collction, Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State University.
• "Michigan Births, 1867-1902," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NQV8-R2N : 20 February 2021), Annie A Wetzell, 20 Sep 1872; citing item 1 p 357 rn 2180, Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan, Department of Vital Records, Lansing; FHL microfilm 2,297,931.
• "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MWSK-CG2 : 14 January 2022), Anna A Wetzell in household of Henry V Wetzell, Grand Rapids, Kent, Michigan, United States; citing enumeration district , sheet , NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm .
• "Illinois, Cook County Marriages, 1871-1968", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N7DK-JL9 : 10 March 2018), Leonard Waldron and Annie Wetzell, 01 Jul 1892.
• 1920 Census: "United States Census, 1920"
  citing Affiliate Publication Number: T625; Affiliate Film Number: 1120; Line: 43; FHL microfilm: 1821120; Record number: 37084;
  FamilySearch Record: MJL1-NF9 (accessed 14 August 2022)
  FamilySearch Image: 33SQ-GRXT-DSJ Image number 00771
  Anna W Armstrong (40), married boarder, in household of Robert F Armstrong (55) in Monroe, New York, United States.
• "Virginia, Death Certificates, 1912-1987," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVR8-T2P9 : 16 August 2019), Anne Wetzel Armstrong, 17 Mar 1958; from "Virginia, Marriage Records, 1700-1850," database and images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2012); citing Abingdon, Washington, Virginia, United States, entry #, Virginia Department of Health, Richmond.