April 10, 1921

Children’s author Aileen Kilgore Henderson was born in Cedar Cove. Henderson served as an airplane engine mechanic and photo lab technician for the Women’s Army Corp during World War II before becoming an elementary school teacher. In 1995, Henderson published her first novel, The Summer of the Bonepile Monster, at the age of 74. Set during a summer in rural Alabama, the novel won both the Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature and the Alabama Author Award from the Alabama Library Association. Henderson has since published three more children’s books and two memoirs to great acclaim.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.