Tennessee Williams: Author and Playwright Thomas Lanier Williams was born on March 26, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi. Williams has written fiction and film screenplays, but is acclaimed primarily for his plays. Thomas was the first son and second son of Cornelius Coffin and Edwina Dakin Williams. He was named after his paternal grandfather and insisted on being called Tom at the age of ten. His siblings include an older sister named Rose and a younger brother named Dakin. Williams spent a lot of time with his sister Rose because she wasn't very stable, emotionally and mentally. Daryl E. Haley once said that Rose "was emotionally disturbed and destined to spend much of her life in mental institutions." Tom was raised primarily by his mother because his father was a traveling shoe salesman. Edwina Dakin Williams was the daughter of a minister and was very protective of Thomas. She began to be overly protective after he contracted diphtheria when he was five. His mother was also an aggressive woman, caught up in her fantasies of the genteel Southern life. Amanda Wingfield, a character from his play The Glass Menagerie, was modeled on Williams' mother. Cornelius Coffin Williams, Tom's father, spent most of his time on the road. Cornelius came from a very prestigious family that included Mississippi's first governor and senator. Mr. Haley also claims that Tom's father was "sometimes distant and abusive," that is, when he was actually present. Tom's father also repeatedly favored his younger brother Dakin over both of his older sons. Big Daddy, in Tom's play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, is modeled on his father. Thomas once said, referring to his parents' relationship: "It was just the wrong marriage." From 1923 to 1926 Thomas attended Ben Blewette Junior High, and it was during this time that some of his first stories were published in a local newspaper. Thomas Williams lived in Clarksdale, Mississippi for several years before moving to St. Louis in 1918 at the age of seven. At the age of sixteen Tom had his first contact with the publishing world when he won third place for his essay "Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport?". In addition to winning third place, he also won five dollars from this national essay contest. In 1927, again at the age of sixteen, he published "The Revenge of Nitocris". In the fall of 1929 he attended the University of Missouri to study journalism.