Sara Jenkins Cunningham

Sara Jenkins in 1926

Child to a Methodist minister (himself one of 6 brothers who were all ministers), Sara Jenkins (1904-1963) was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, during a mission stay. “But I don’t know a word of Spanish,” she admitted, pointing out that the family moved away when she was eight months old. Her early childhood was spent predominantly in Florida, and her family summered in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, where the family had a cottage, and where she spent a great deal of time throughout her life.

Her future as a writer might have been predicted when she wrote her first novel at age 7. The story, it must be confessed, borrowed very heavily from David Copperfield, which she had just read. “You’ve no idea,” she quipped, “how much better Dickens handled it than I did.”

She attended Wesleyan in Georgia, majoring in English with a minor in journalism, with an eye toward becoming a professional writer, and won awards for her writing while in school. (The school in 1956 bestowed her with a citation for “bringing honor to her alma mater.”) After she graduated in 1926, she returned to Florida with hopes of becoming a journalist, but in the heart of the Great Depression there were not many newspaper jobs to be had. Instead she took a job teaching in a rural school, and remained in that profession for 25 years. In her spare hours she wrote and wrote—but not a word was published. “I guess I should have been discouraged,” she acknowledged, “but I could no more stop writing willingly than I could stop breathing.”

In addition to teaching high school, Sara also taught night classes in English as a second language—which didn’t leave her much time for her writing. Fortunately, she was not someone who required a strictly rigid schedule to get it done. “I guess I’m just not temperamental, for I write summers, mostly, and tag ends of time—between classes, on busses, in restaurants, at the intermission at concerts, anywhere,” she said. “And it doesn’t bother me in the least if I’m interrupted in the middle of a sentence and have to who back and finish it two days later. Writing is no problem—but rewriting is something else.”

In the early 1940s she accepted a position teaching journalism in Miami, and there met other would-be writers. The five formed a group that met twice a week to critique each others’ work—and no puffery was tolerated; the critiques, Sara recalled, were devastating but ultimately helpful. The group advised her that the light short stories she was working on were not the best style for her talents, so she turned to her own history for inspiration—and her novel based on her family, We Gather Together, was sold to the first publisher who saw it, in 1948 when she was 44. She then was able to publish “preacher stories” at the rate of one a year for a while, but also supplemented with romance novels written under two pen names (Joan Sargent and Ann Rush), which she used because, she claimed, one publishing company “owns my name.”

In 1951 Sara married James Cunningham, a real estate and insurance broker, and year or two later she was publishing two to three books a year, a rate she kept up for the next dozen years. She was able to retire as a schoolteacher about that time, and after that, she and her husband lived half the year in Coral Gables, and the remaining time in the family home in Lake Junaluska. By the time of her peak in 1958 she wrote about four books a year, and starting at 9:30 a.m. would write at least five hours a day—though she never learned to spell very well, she admitted. “Recently Sara wrote a whole novel in one week,” her husband declared, and she agreed: “I can beat these out in no time at all,” she stated. “I call them ‘books for tired mothers,’ but they keep me limbered up at the typewriter.” She died of cancer in 1963, at the age of 59.

Described as “a friendly, laughing-eyed little woman with a tendency to plumpness” and “a folksy person who has a lot of fun just being alive,” she encouraged other would-be writers. “Don’t think that becoming a novelist will make you glamorous overnight,” she joked, gently poking fun at her own somewhat plain appearance. She also offered more practical advice: keep a journal, write what you know, and persevere. “I could paper my walls with the rejections slips I received in 20 years,” she says. “And all because I was trying to write a type of pseudointellectual, sophisticated story I was not really suited for.” If ultimately her books were simple love stories, they nonetheless provided her readers a worthwhile and enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, and we are lucky to have known her talent.

NURSE NOVELS
Cruise Nurse, written under the pseudonym Joan Sargent, ©1962
Eve Cameron, M.D., written under the pseudonym Ann Rush, ©1957
Graduate Nurse, written under the pseudonym Ann Rush, ©1956 – also published as Florida Nurse
Hurricane Nurse, written under the pseudonym Joan Sargent, ©1962
My Love an Altar, written under the pseudonym Joan Sargent, ©1963
Nell Shannon, R.N., written under the pseudonym Ann Rush, ©1963
Special Duty Nurse, written under the pseudonym Ann Rush, ©1958
White Cap of Courage, written under the pseudonym Ann Rush, ©1960