Celestine Sibley
Encyclopedia
Celestine Sibley was a renowned southern
author, journalist, and syndicated columnist. She reported for the Atlanta Constitution from 1941 to 1999. Over her long career, she wrote more than 10,000 columns and many news stories of astonishing range, dealing with such varied topics as politics and key lime pie. Sibley was one of the most popular and long-running columnists for the Constitution, and her essays on southern culture made her an icon in the South. Regarded by her colleagues as a reporting legend, Sibley was also the author of nearly thirty books published between 1958 and 1997.
. Sibley's mother, later known as "Muv" in Sibley's column, left her father (though she never officially divorced him) and married Wesley Reeder Sibley, a lumberman from Creola, Alabama
. Adopted by her stepfather at the age of seven, the young Celestine was given his last name and spent her childhood in Creola, a small town on the outskirts of Mobile. At age fifteen, Sibley, an ambitious student reporter at Murphy High School's Hi Times, was hired as a weekend cub reporter at the Mobile Press Register. When she graduated in 1933, Sibley was offered her first full-time paid position at the Press. Covering everything from welfare to murder, the young journalist earned priceless experience at the Press, while her natural talent and attention to detail established her as a solid writer from the beginning of her career.
In 1936 she and her husband, Press colleague and journalist James W. Little, moved to Pensacola, Florida
. Sibley began writing for the Pensacola News-Journal and continued to cover all aspects of local news. In the summer of 1941, her husband accepted a position with the Associated Press in Atlanta and moved the family there.
, whom she later described as her mentor. Competent yet restless in her newly assigned desk position, Sibley still preferred to be a "member of the ground troops" with a natural inclination to cover the stories on the street.
Sibley was given her first column in 1944, which allowed her more time to be with her children. Both full-time reporter and mother, Sibley was still able to become a front-page news and courtroom reporter, covering the three governors controversy in 1946 as well as many high-profile trials. In 1947 her investigative coverage of police and political corruption surrounding a murder case resulted in the acquittal of convicted murderer Floyd Woodward, and she later received the Hartsfield and Sibley Pall Mall Big Story award, given by NBC
for the best story of the week, for her coverage of the case. The following year she covered the murder trial of John Wallace, which later became nationally known through the publication of Margaret Anne Barnes's best-selling book Murder in Coweta County
(1976), as well as through the adaptation of the book into a television movie in 1983 starring Johnny Cash
and Andy Griffith
.
In the early 1950s, Sibley worked for five years as the Hollywood correspondent for the Sunday Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine, traveling to Los Angeles, California
, and interviewing movie stars and filmmakers. Her profiles, which she later called "fluff stories," included such celebrities as Clark Gable
, Walt Disney
, and Jane Russell
. "Pulp stories" also became an infamous part of Sibley's versatile writing career during this time. As another creative way to support her family, Sibley moonlighted as a True Confession and True Detective reporter, selling stories with such shocking headlines as "I Wanted to Die" and "I Was a Junkie."
Her short-lived pulp career was eventually replaced by a long-term book career, beginning with the publication of The Malignant Heart (1958), the first book in the Kate Mulcay mystery series. For nearly forty years, Sibley continued to publish books in a variety of genres, including Peachtree Street, U.S.A. (1963), a portrait of Atlanta; Dear Store (1967), a history of Rich's
Department Store; A Place Called Sweet Apple (1967), reflections on restoring her log cabin home in Roswell; Jincey (1978), her first novel; Turned Funny (1988), her memoir; and additional installments in the Kate Mulcay series. In 1982 her novel Children, My Children won the first Townsend Prize for children's fiction.
From 1958 to 1978 Sibley covered politics, courts, and the Georgia legislature, including the annual forty-day Georgia General Assembly, which became one of her favorite assignments. Sibley's legislative reporting was considered fair, unbiased, and accessible to the general public. During these years she also reported on the trial of James Earl Ray
, who was convicted of assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and on the 1976 presidential election, in which Jimmy Carter
became the first Georgian elected president of the United States. As a gesture of appreciation for her years of excellent political reporting, the United States House of Representatives
voted in 2000 to name its press gallery at the state capitol in Sibley's honor.
Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism. She also received two honorary degrees during her career, one in 1993 from Spring Hill College
in Mobile, Alabama, and another in 1996 from Emory University
in Atlanta. A few months before her death, Sibley was awarded the National Society of Newspaper Columnists Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sibley died of cancer at the age of eighty-five on August 15, 1999. She continued working until the final weeks before her death, with her last regular Constitution column appearing on July 25, 1999.
Sibley's first husband died at age forty-five; they had three children together. Her second husband, John C. Strong, died in 1988.
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
author, journalist, and syndicated columnist. She reported for the Atlanta Constitution from 1941 to 1999. Over her long career, she wrote more than 10,000 columns and many news stories of astonishing range, dealing with such varied topics as politics and key lime pie. Sibley was one of the most popular and long-running columnists for the Constitution, and her essays on southern culture made her an icon in the South. Regarded by her colleagues as a reporting legend, Sibley was also the author of nearly thirty books published between 1958 and 1997.
Early life and career
Celestine Sibley was born in Holley, Florida, on May 23, 1914, to Evelyn Barber and Henry ColleyHenry Colley
Henry Colley was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician from Dublin.Colley was first elected to Dáil Éireann on his second attempt in the 1944 general election...
. Sibley's mother, later known as "Muv" in Sibley's column, left her father (though she never officially divorced him) and married Wesley Reeder Sibley, a lumberman from Creola, Alabama
Creola, Alabama
Creola is a city in Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 2,002 at the 2000 census, at which time it was still a town. It is included in the Mobile metropolitan statistical area.-Geography:Creola is located at ....
. Adopted by her stepfather at the age of seven, the young Celestine was given his last name and spent her childhood in Creola, a small town on the outskirts of Mobile. At age fifteen, Sibley, an ambitious student reporter at Murphy High School's Hi Times, was hired as a weekend cub reporter at the Mobile Press Register. When she graduated in 1933, Sibley was offered her first full-time paid position at the Press. Covering everything from welfare to murder, the young journalist earned priceless experience at the Press, while her natural talent and attention to detail established her as a solid writer from the beginning of her career.
In 1936 she and her husband, Press colleague and journalist James W. Little, moved to Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
. Sibley began writing for the Pensacola News-Journal and continued to cover all aspects of local news. In the summer of 1941, her husband accepted a position with the Associated Press in Atlanta and moved the family there.
Atlanta years
Sibley began working at the Atlanta Constitution on July 21, 1941, assigned to the federal beat. Less than six months later, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the United States entered World War II (1941–45). The resulting staff depletion provided an unprecedented opportunity for Sibley—she became one of the first female editors at the Constitution, working under the tutelage of Ralph McGillRalph McGill
Ralph Emerson McGill , American journalist, was best known as the anti-segregationist editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. He won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1959....
, whom she later described as her mentor. Competent yet restless in her newly assigned desk position, Sibley still preferred to be a "member of the ground troops" with a natural inclination to cover the stories on the street.
Sibley was given her first column in 1944, which allowed her more time to be with her children. Both full-time reporter and mother, Sibley was still able to become a front-page news and courtroom reporter, covering the three governors controversy in 1946 as well as many high-profile trials. In 1947 her investigative coverage of police and political corruption surrounding a murder case resulted in the acquittal of convicted murderer Floyd Woodward, and she later received the Hartsfield and Sibley Pall Mall Big Story award, given by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
for the best story of the week, for her coverage of the case. The following year she covered the murder trial of John Wallace, which later became nationally known through the publication of Margaret Anne Barnes's best-selling book Murder in Coweta County
Murder in Coweta County
The murder in Coweta County was an April 1948 act of murder committed in Coweta County in the U.S. state of Georgia and involving the sheriff of neighboring Meriwether County...
(1976), as well as through the adaptation of the book into a television movie in 1983 starring Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
and Andy Griffith
Andy Griffith
Andy Samuel Griffith is an American actor, director, producer, Grammy Award-winning Southern-gospel singer, and writer. He gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan's epic film A Face in the Crowd before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead...
.
In the early 1950s, Sibley worked for five years as the Hollywood correspondent for the Sunday Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine, traveling to Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, and interviewing movie stars and filmmakers. Her profiles, which she later called "fluff stories," included such celebrities as Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
, and Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
. "Pulp stories" also became an infamous part of Sibley's versatile writing career during this time. As another creative way to support her family, Sibley moonlighted as a True Confession and True Detective reporter, selling stories with such shocking headlines as "I Wanted to Die" and "I Was a Junkie."
Her short-lived pulp career was eventually replaced by a long-term book career, beginning with the publication of The Malignant Heart (1958), the first book in the Kate Mulcay mystery series. For nearly forty years, Sibley continued to publish books in a variety of genres, including Peachtree Street, U.S.A. (1963), a portrait of Atlanta; Dear Store (1967), a history of Rich's
Rich's
Rich's was a department store retail chain, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, that operated in the southern U.S. from 1867 until March 6, 2005 when the nameplate was eliminated and replaced by Macy's...
Department Store; A Place Called Sweet Apple (1967), reflections on restoring her log cabin home in Roswell; Jincey (1978), her first novel; Turned Funny (1988), her memoir; and additional installments in the Kate Mulcay series. In 1982 her novel Children, My Children won the first Townsend Prize for children's fiction.
From 1958 to 1978 Sibley covered politics, courts, and the Georgia legislature, including the annual forty-day Georgia General Assembly, which became one of her favorite assignments. Sibley's legislative reporting was considered fair, unbiased, and accessible to the general public. During these years she also reported on the trial of James Earl Ray
James Earl Ray
James Earl Ray was an American criminal convicted of the assassination of civil rights and anti-war activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr....
, who was convicted of assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and on the 1976 presidential election, in which Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
became the first Georgian elected president of the United States. As a gesture of appreciation for her years of excellent political reporting, the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
voted in 2000 to name its press gallery at the state capitol in Sibley's honor.
Syndicated columnist
Although Sibley spent the bulk of her career as a reporter, she is perhaps best remembered as a syndicated columnist for the Atlanta Constitution. Even after she retired from reporting in the late 1990s, Celestine Sibley continued to spend the majority of her days writing books, as well as continuing her columns about southern life. In 1990 she received the Ralph McGillRalph McGill
Ralph Emerson McGill , American journalist, was best known as the anti-segregationist editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. He won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1959....
Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism. She also received two honorary degrees during her career, one in 1993 from Spring Hill College
Spring Hill College
Spring Hill College is a private, Roman Catholic Jesuit liberal arts college in the United States. It was founded in 1830 on the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama, by Most Rev. Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile, Alabama...
in Mobile, Alabama, and another in 1996 from Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
in Atlanta. A few months before her death, Sibley was awarded the National Society of Newspaper Columnists Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sibley died of cancer at the age of eighty-five on August 15, 1999. She continued working until the final weeks before her death, with her last regular Constitution column appearing on July 25, 1999.
Sibley's first husband died at age forty-five; they had three children together. Her second husband, John C. Strong, died in 1988.
Turned Funny
Sibley is the subject of a play, Turned Funny, adapted from her 1988 autobiography of the same name by Phillip DePoy. The play premiered at Theatre In the Square in Marietta, Georgia in 2006 and was re-produced from June 17 to July 29, 2007. For both runs Celestine Sibley was played by Linda Stephens.Suggested reading
- Richard L. Eldredge, ed., Celestine Sibley, Reporter (Athens, GaAthens, GeorgiaAthens-Clarke County is a consolidated city–county in U.S. state of Georgia, in the northeastern part of the state, comprising the former City of Athens proper and Clarke County. The University of Georgia is located in this college town and is responsible for the initial growth of the city...
.: Hill Street PressHill Street PressHill Street Press is an independent publisher with a focus college trivia books and 100% thematic crossword puzzle books for enthusiasts. Books published by Hill Street Press are available through National Book Network....
, 2001). - Sibley FlemingSibley FlemingSibley Fleming is an American journalist and writer of children's literature and adult non-fiction. She was named Outstanding Writer of 2000 by the National League of American Pen Women and the Georgia Writer of the Year by Georgia Writers.-Biography:...
, Celestine: A Granddaughter's Reminiscence (Athens, Ga.: Hill Street Press, 2002). - Celestine Sibley, The Celestine Sibley Sampler: Writings and Photographs with Tributes to the Beloved Author and Journalist, ed. Sibley Fleming (Atlanta: Peachtree, 1997).
- Celestine Sibley, Turned Funny (New York: Harper and Row, 1988).
- Margaret T. McGehee, "A Plague of Bulldozers: Celestine Sibley and Suburban Sprawl", Southern Spaces, 9 March 2009.