McCorkle, Sarah Tallulah (Lutie) Andrews

By Richard Walser, 1991

1858–20 Apr. 1939

Sarah Tallulah (Lutie) Andrews McCorkle, writer, was born in Charlotte, the fourth child and second daughter of Ezra Harnwood and Sarah Ann Bolton Andrews. She was the sister of Edgar Murchison, Francis (Frank) Harnwood, Oleona M., Thomas W. G., and Mary. Her father, a native of England, was a dentist. She was educated at the Charlotte Female Institute (later Queens College). In 1865 her father died after being released from a Federal prison, where, on his return from a visit to England, he had been confined as a suspected Confederate spy.

On 30 Dec. 1879 Lutie, as she was called, married William Parsons McCorkle, a Methodist clergyman; he became a Presbyterian pastor in 1888. They lived in El Paso, Tex., High Point, Lexington, Shelby, and Graham, N.C., Savannah, Ga., Martinsville, Va., and Burlington, N.C., where he served churches. Following her husband's death in Burlington in 1933, Mrs. McCorkle returned to Charlotte to live with her brother Frank. She was buried in Elmwood Cemetery. There were no children.

Lutie McCorkle's interest in North Carolina history prompted her to write Old Time Stories of the Old North State (1903; reprint, 1921), a series of narratives related with imagined conversation to hold the attention of young readers. It was used as a textbook in the lower grades of the state's schools for many years. The stories are about such figures as Virginia Dare and William Gaston and such events as the Edenton Tea Party. "Was Alamance the First Battle of the Revolution?" published in the November 1903 issue of the North Carolina Booklet , is representative of her other historical writing.