This Goodly Land

Viola Goode Liddell (December 18, 1901–May 16, 1998)

Other Names Used

• Viola Jefferson Goode: birth name
• Viola Goode Stroud: married name, first husband

Alabama Connections

• Gastonburg, Wilcox County: birthplace, childhood residence
• Marion, Perry County: education
• Demopolis, Marengo County: adult residence
• Linden, Marengo County: brief adult residence
• Camden, Wilcox County: adult residence

Selected Works

• Liddell, Viola Goode. With a Southern Accent. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1948. Rpt. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993.
• Liddell, Viola Goode. A Place of Springs. University: University of Alabama Press, 1979. Rpt. University: University of Alabama Press, 1982.
• Liddell, Viola Goode. Grass Widow: Making My Way in Depression Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.

Biographical Information

Viola Goode Liddell was born and grew up in Gastonburg, Ala. She was the eighth of nine children in a well-to-do family. Liddell finished high school at age sixteen and enrolled in Judson College. She graduated in 1922 and married shortly thereafter. Liddell's oldest son, Oxford Stroud, was born during this marriage. The family lived in Albequerque, N.M., for several years. The marriage ended in divorce, however, and in 1931, Liddell and her son moved to Linden, Ala., where she taught French at the high school. In the fall of 1933, they moved to Camden, Ala., where Liddell’s sister lived. Liddell obtained another teaching position but resigned at the end of the school year to remarry.

After her second marriage, Liddell began writing and publishing short pieces in magazines such as Holland’s Magazine, The Georgia Review, the Southern Literary Messenger, and The Saturday Evening Post. Her first book, With a Southern Accent, a memoir of her childhood in Gastonburg, was published in 1948. In 1979, she published a book about her adopted home of Camden, A Place of Springs. Grass Widow, an account of her coming to Camden and her courtship by her second husband, was published posthumously.

Interests and Themes

Viola Goode Liddell’s autobiographical books describe life in the Black Belt of Alabama in the first half of the twentieth century.

For More Information

Please check your local library for these materials. If items are not available locally, your librarian can help you borrow them through the InterLibrary Loan program. Your librarian can also help you find other information about this author.

There may be more information available through the databases in the Alabama Virtual Library. If you are an Alabama citizen, AVL can be used at your public library or school library media center. You can also get a username and password from your librarian to use AVL at home.

Reference Web Sites

• Duncan, Rebecca Mears. "Viola Goode Liddell". The Encyclopedia of Alabama. 2009. Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2431.

Location of Papers

• University of South Carolina

Photo courtesy of The University of Alabama Press.

Last updated on Nov 07, 2009.