Patricia Cornwell

==Early life==
A descendant of [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] and writer [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]],<ref>{{cite web|author=Patricia Cornwell Biography and Notes |url=https://www.biblio.com/cornwell-patricia/author/592?placement=last-name-C |title=Patricia Cornwell Biography and List of Works - Patricia Cornwell Books |publisher=Biblio.com |date=June 9, 1956 |access-date=January 30, 2012}}</ref> Cornwell was born on June 9, 1956, in [[Miami, Florida]], second of three children, to Marilyn (née Zenner) and Sam Daniels. Her father was one of the leading appellate lawyers in the United States and served as a law clerk to [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] Justice [[Hugo Black]]. Cornwell later traced her own motivations in life to the [[emotional abuse]] she says she suffered from her father, who walked out on the family on [[Christmas Day]] 1961. She has said, "He was on his deathbed. We knew it was the last time we were seeing each other; he grabbed my brother's hand and mouthed 'I love you,' but he never touched me. All he did was write on a legal pad 'How's work?'"<ref name = Times/>

In 1961, Marilyn left with three children in tow and moved to [[Montreat, North Carolina|Montreat]], [[North Carolina]]. [[Ruth Graham|Ruth Bell Graham]], wife of the evangelist [[Billy Graham]] took the wayward family in and arranged for Cornwell and her brothers, Jim and John, to be raised by Lenore and Manfred Saunders, who had recently returned from Africa. Marilyn Daniels, suffering from severe depression, was hospitalized. Cornwell turned to [[Ruth Bell Graham]] as an authority figure, and it was she who noticed that Cornwell's talent lay in writing and encouraged her literary efforts. A bright student, a capable cartoonist, and a talented athlete on the tennis court, Cornwell attended [[King University|King College]] in [[Bristol, Tennessee]] briefly before transferring to [[Davidson College]] on a tennis scholarship (which she later rejected), from where she graduated in 1979 with a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] in [[English studies|English]].