Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, the only child of a Catholic family. The region was part of the "Christ-infested" Bible Belt of the Southern States. The region's spiritual legacy profoundly shaped O'Connor's writing, as described in his essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South" (1969). O'Connor's father, Edward F. O'Connor, was a real estate broker's owner. He later worked for a construction company and died in 1941. His mother, Regina L. (Cline) O'Connor, came from a prominent family in the state: his father had been mayor of Milledgeville for many years. He was 12 years old, his family moved to Milledgeville, his mother's hometown. She attended Peabody High School and enrolled at Georgia State College for Women. At school he edited the college magazine and graduated in 1945 with an AB O'Connor, then continued his studies at the University of Iowa, where he attended writing seminars conducted by Paul Engle. At the age of 21 he published his first story, "The Geranium", in Accent. The following year he obtained the title of Master of Fine Arts in Letters. In 1947 he lived for seven months in Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY, an estate left by the Trask family to writers, painters and musicians. O'Connor published four chapters of Wise Blood in Mademoiselle, Sewanee Review, and Partisan Review in 1948 and 1949. The complete novel appeared in 1952. It was about a young religious enthusiast, who attempts to found a church without Christ. The paperback version of the Signet book advertised it as "A novel in search of sin and redemption." O'Connor's second novel, The Violent Bear It Away (1960), had a related subject. The protagonist is Francis Marion Tarwater who begins his ministry in his youth. He baptizes and drowns Bishop, his uncle's idiot son. Old Tarwater warns his great-grandson: "'You're the kind of boy,' said the old man, 'that the devil is always offering to assist you, to give you a cigarette or a drink or a ride, and to give you a hand.' ask your bidnis. You'd better watch how you deal with strangers.'" Young Tarwater sets fire to his woods to purify himself and, like his great-uncle, a mad prophet, ultimately becomes a prophet and a madman. O'Connor once he explained that "I can write about Protestant believers better than Catholic believers, because they express their faith in different kinds of dramatic actions, which is quite obvious for me to grasp"..