Edith G. Oldham Papers

Teacher, author, poet, and prolific letter-writer, Edith George Oldham was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on September 3, 1923, the oldest child of Robert Bruce and Lessie May Rogers Oldham. Her father (January 21, 1889 - April 23, 1970) worked for the L & N Railroad and served in World War I. He married Edith's mother (January 16, 1894 - August 13, 1993) who was from Columbus, Ohio, on November 17, 1921. Besides Edith, they had four other children: Robert Bruce II, Roger Lee, Jeanne Elizabeth, and Richard Presley.

Edith Oldham graduated from Southern Junior High School, Louisville Girls High School (1941), Campbellsville Junior College (1944), and the University of Louisville (1946), as well as attending Southern Baptist Seminary from 1948-1954. She became a teacher for the Louisville Public School System in 1946, teaching at Roosevelt, Tingley, Engelhard, Emerson, and Semple elementary schools before retiring due to a medical disability in 1975. She was a member of the National Education Association, Kentucky Education Association, Jefferson County Teachers Association, National Retired Teachers Association, and Highland Baptist Church.

Oldham was a prolific writer, sending over five hundred letters to the editors of various newspapers and periodicals and corresponding with hundreds of pen-pals. She also wrote poetry, essays, articles and short stories. She had a regular column in the Pikeville News-Express, the Senior Citizens East Senior Life & Times. Her work was also published in Wind, Twigs, the Cumberland, Women's Household Magazine, Women's Circle, The Upper Room, The Western Recorder, The Record, Unity Magazine, and Heartland, among others. From 1975 on her disability kept her confined to her small apartment in the Highlands area of Louisville. Her writing then served as both her creative outlet and her connection with the outside world.