Garry Wills facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Garry Wills
Wills at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in 2015
Born	(1934-05-22) May 22, 1934 (age 91) Atlanta, Georgia, US
Occupation	Author journalist historian
Alma mater	Saint Louis University (BA) Xavier University (MA) Yale University (PhD)
Period	1961–present
Subject	American politics and political history, the Catholic Church
Notable works	Nixon Agonistes (1970) Inventing America (1978) Lincoln at Gettysburg (1993)
Notable awards	Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (1993) National Medal for the Humanities (1998)
Spouse	Natalie Cavallo ​ ​ (m. 1959; died 2019)​

Garry Wills (born May 22, 1934) is an American author, journalist, and historian. He writes a lot about American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a famous award called the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1993 for his writing.

Wills has written more than fifty books! Since 1973, he has also written many reviews for The New York Review of Books. He became a professor in the history department at Northwestern University in 1980. Now, he is an Emeritus Professor, which means he is retired but still honored by the university.

Early Life and Education

Garry Wills was born on May 22, 1934, in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was from a Protestant family, and his mother was from an Irish Catholic family. Garry grew up as a Catholic in Michigan and Wisconsin. He graduated from Campion High School in 1951, which was a Jesuit school. He even joined the Society of Jesus (a Catholic religious order) for a short time before leaving.

Wills earned his first college degree, a Bachelor of Arts, from Saint Louis University in 1957. He then got a Master of Arts degree from Xavier University in 1958. Both of these degrees were in philosophy. When he was 23, William F. Buckley Jr. hired him to write about plays for National Review magazine. In 1961, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in classics from Yale University. He taught history at Johns Hopkins University from 1962 to 1980. He is also a fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

Personal Life

Garry Wills was married for sixty years (1959–2019) to Natalie Cavallo. Natalie helped him with his work and was also a photographer. They had three children: John, Garry, and Lydia.

Wills is trained in classical studies, which means he knows Ancient Greek and Latin very well. His home in Evanston, Illinois, was "filled with books." He had special rooms and hallways just for his huge collection of books on different subjects like English literature, Latin literature, American politics, economics, religion, and Greek philosophy. After his wife passed away in 2019, he donated most of his books to Loyola University Chicago.

Religion

Garry Wills was raised Catholic and remained so for most of his life. He continued to attend Mass at the Sheil Catholic Center at Northwestern University. He even prayed the Rosary every day and wrote a book about this prayer in 2005 called The Rosary: Prayer Comes Around.

In 2024, Wills shared that he no longer considers himself Catholic or takes communion. Instead, he calls himself an "Augustinian Christian." He said this change was influenced by his late wife, Natalie, who passed away in 2019. She deeply influenced his thinking since they met. Wills is thinking about writing a book about leaving Catholicism.

Wills has also openly discussed his views on many parts of Church history and Church teaching since the early 1960s. In 1961, he created a famous phrase, Mater si, magistra no. This phrase means "mother yes, teacher no." It was a response to a papal encyclical (a letter from the Pope) called Mater et magistra. The phrase shows a strong belief in the Church's faith and traditions, but also a questioning attitude towards its official rules and authority.

Wills wrote a detailed book about the Catholic Church called Bare Ruined Choirs in 1972. He also wrote a strong criticism of the Church's history and current state in Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (2000). He followed this with other books like Why I Am a Catholic (2002), What Jesus Meant (2006), What Paul Meant (2006), and What the Gospels Meant (2008).

Politics

Garry Wills started his career working with William F. Buckley Jr. and was first linked to conservatism. When he began working for National Review, he wasn't sure if he was a conservative. He called himself a distributist. Later, he did consider himself conservative and was even seen as the "token conservative" for the National Catholic Reporter. In 1979, after supporting more liberal ideas for 20 years, he wrote a book called Confessions of a Conservative. In this book, he explained his break from William F. Buckley and the American conservative movement. However, he still kept some of his ethical and cultural conservative beliefs.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Wills became more liberal. This was partly because he covered the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. His book about President Richard M. Nixon, Nixon Agonistes (1970), even put him on a list of Nixon's political opponents. He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. However, two years later, he said Obama's presidency had been a "terrible disappointment."

In 1995, Wills wrote an article for The New York Review of Books about the Second Amendment. The original title was "Why We Have No Right to Bear Arms," but this was not his actual conclusion. He didn't write or approve that title. Instead, Wills argued that the Second Amendment is about the right to keep and bear arms only in a military setting. He believes it does not justify private gun ownership and use.

Public Recognition

John Leonard, a literary critic for The New York Times, said in 1970 that Wills "reads like a combination of H. L. Mencken, John Locke and Albert Camus." John L. Allen Jr., a Catholic journalist, believes Wills is "perhaps the most distinguished Catholic intellectual in America over the last 50 years" (as of 2008).

Awards and Honors

• 1978: Inventing America—National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction (co-winner)
• 1979: Inventing America—Merle Curti Award
• 1982: Honorary degree of L.H.D. by the College of the Holy Cross
• 1992: Lincoln at Gettysburg—National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
• 1993: Lincoln at Gettysburg—Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
• 1995: Honorary degree from Bates College
• 1998: National Medal for the Humanities
• 2001: The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement
• 2003: Inducted to the American Philosophical Society
• 2004: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates
• 2006: Inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois for his work in Communication and Education.

Works