Biography of Tillie Olsen (1912-)

Tillie Olsen

Tillie Lerner was born in either 1912 or 1913 in Omaha, Nebraska. (Her exact birthdate and year remain unknown, as her birth certificate was lost.) Her parents were political refugees from Russia. They fled from Czarist oppression after the 1905 revolution, and were forced to settle for low-wage jobs and a modest life in America.

A bright child, Lerner attended Omaha Central High School, a school well-known for academic rigor. She left school without completing her studies, in order to work various low-wage jobs. This decision was partially based on her family's need and her own failure in a class. She would continue to read avidly in public libraries wherever she moved. Throughout the Great Depression she worked as a tie presser, a meat trimmer, a domestic worker and a waitress.

At the age of nineteen, Lerner began her only novel, Yonnondio. The title is taken from a Walt Whitman poem and means, "a lament for the lost." It......

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Title: Tillir Olsen
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