Emily Bealer Calhoun, II

She was married to Willard Janney Wilson on July 7, 1956 in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, but they divorced on June 3, 1976. She went by her maiden name.

Family-Placed Death Notice: CALHOUN, Emily Bealer died on October 1, 2010, of congestive heart failure at Emory Hospital, after a year-long struggle with Parkinson's Disease. She was 84 years old. A native Atlantan, born December 21, 1925, Emily grew up on Peachtree Street and Monroe Drive near the Ansley Park Golf Course. She earned a B.A. from Mercer University in Macon, GA, a M.A. in Political Science from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, and a M.A. in Librarianship from Emory University in Atlanta. She worked for many years as an archivist and librarian at the GA Dept. of Archives and History. After retiring, and weary of city life, she retired to North GA where she lived blissfully for 15 years in an eco-friendly cabin in the Banks County woods, before returning to Atlanta three years ago to once again enjoy life in her hometown. Emily loved her native South, especially its material and folk culture, literature, and spoken word. She was a member of a storytellers group and was known for her gift of reading aloud in dialects from Southern classics, such as Joel Chandler Harris' Tales of Uncle Remus. She often did not agree with Southern politics, however. In 2001 Emily self-published "A Lady of Atlanta", excerpts from the diary of her great-grandmother, Emily Jane Winkler Bealer. In 2008 she self-published the works of her father, "The Poetry of Roy E. Calhoun". At the time of her death, she was working on editing the journal of her mother's brother, Shadrach Winkler, who attended Harvard Law School during the 1850's. Fluent in Spanish, Emily traveled to Mexico and Central and South America and put her Spanish to good purpose as a volunteer with the Georgia literacy program in Cornelia, GA. In travels to Morocco Emily saw henna used to color hair: from that point on her riotously cropped and hennaed red hair became her trademark. She had many interests and hobbies, including reading, writing, studies in world religions, alternative medicine, history, astrology, and ecology. She loved politics, writing letters to the newspaper, nature walks, shape note singing and public radio and TV. She mailed out hundreds of hand-typed post cards to friends every year. Emily Calhoun is survived by her daughter Jeanette Wiedenman, and three grandsons, Will, Daniel, and Michael, of Statham, GA, and by many cousins and countless friends by whom she will be greatly missed. A memorial service will be held at 2pm on Saturday, October 9, in the Pavillion at King's Bridge, the independent living facility where she lived, located at 3055 Briarcliff Road, Atlanta, GA 30329. 404-321-0263. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Emily's name to one of the many organizations she supported: ACLU, Democratic Party of GA, Greenpeace, The Carter Center, the Shambala Center, your local library, Sierra Club or food co-op. Or just recycle this newspaper properly and switch to fluorescent light bulbs in her honor. Published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on October 7, 2010