Algonquin BooksColumbia author Carrie Allen McCray died Friday at the age of 94. She had only begun to write seriously in her 70s.

McCray was the author of Freedom's Child, a story about her grandparents: a freed slave and a Confederate General.

The State has an excellent write-up, in part saying:
By the time she was in her 70s, Carrie Allen McCray Nickens had already had a long and productive live. She had taught school and been a social worker, earned a master’s degree and was active in the civil rights moment.

But she still had another career in her.

At 73, she began writing seriously, and during the final two decades of her life published poetry and a book exploring the lives of her grandmother, a freed slave; her grandfather, a Confederate general; and their child, her mother.

McCray was born in 1913 in Lynchburg, Virginia.