Christian Reid

Frances Christine Fisher Tiernan (July 5, 1846 – March 24, 1920), who used the pen name Christian Reid, was a 19th-century American author who wrote over 50 novels including The Land of the Sky.

Frances Christine Fisher was the daughter of Col. Charles Fisher, who died at the Battle of Manassas.[1] The Fisher family was rich but the Civil War caused the family to lose much of their money. Fisher made the decision to write using the name Christian Reid, though the family did not like the idea.[2]

The family lived at the northwest corner of Fulton and Innes Streets in Salisbury, North Carolina.[1] Fisher donated land for Sacred Heart Catholic Church, dedicated November 19, 1882. She taught cathecism and music.[2]

Some critics described the work of Christian Reid as "a graceful, limpid style", "bland" and "sylvan romances".[3] One biography says "There is in her fiction an over-reliance on the picturesque that was popular in the years following the Civil War. Yet, her work stands apart from the many narratives of travel in Appalachia in its honest and realistic portrait of life in southern society."[3]

Fisher married James Marquis Tiernan in 1887, and they moved to Mexico. Shortly after they came back to Salisbury in 1887, James Tiernan died.[4]

In 1909 Fisher received the Laetare Medal at the University of Notre Dame

The United Daughters of the Confederacy built a monument in 1939 on West Innes Street in Salisbury, which was moved in 1955 and again in 1983, this time to the Rowan Public Library.[2]

The Confederate Monument in Salisbury was paid for partly from the money Fisher made from The Land of the Sky.[1]

She is buried at Chestnut Hill Cemetery in Salisbury. Because a fire destroyed some records in the 1930s, it is not certain which family member is buried where. In 2006 the entire family plot was enclosed by a brick wall, with materials and labor donated by the owners of Taylor Clay Products. A pink granite bench was added and a granite cross was restored.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Other Civil War points of interest," Salisbury Post, May 23, 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Deirdre Parker Smith, "Christian Reid is not forgotten," Salisbury Post, March 25, 2006.
  3. 1 2 "Christian Reid". D. H. Ramsey Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Asheville. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
  4. ↑ "Marker: L-14". North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. Retrieved September 5, 2013.

External links


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