Thanks to Wild Writing Women Cathy Miller
www.wildwritingwomen.com/bios_...r.html
for sending along this quote:

"Just as her skills as a writer began to  grow and
      develop, Eudora Welty all but disappeared from the
      literary scene.  When Eudora Welty was forty-six years
     old,  her mother was paralyzed after suffering a stroke.
     In  addition, both of her brothers were badly crippled
     with  arthritis and needed help.  Much of Eudora Welty's
     time  during the next ten years would be spent caring for
     the  ailing members of her family.  She wrote and published
      several short stories, but she did not write any longer  works
     during  this time. . . . In 1972, THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER
     was  published.  The book looked at the subject of grief
      through the eyes of a daughter who returns home to care for
     her  father after he has surgery.  His death a few weeks  later
     brings  a rush of memories to the woman as she examines
     their  relationship.  In 1973, THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER
     earned  a Pulitzer Prize for fiction."
      --Carmen Bredeson, AMERICAN WRITERS OF THE 20TH
      CENTURY, pp. 65-67