The gifted storyteller and former radio broadcaster John Henry Faulk recorded his Christmas story in 1974 for the program Voices in the Wind.
Faulk was born to Methodist parents on August 21, 1913. The fourth of five children, he attended the University of Texas. For his master's thesis, he researched ten sermons in African-American churches and gained insight into the inequity of civil rights for people of color. He later taught English at the University and served as a medic in the Marines during World War II.
Before the John Henry Faulk Show debut in 1951 on WCBS Radio, Faulk hosted numerous radio programs in New York and New Jersey. He was blacklisted in 1957, but with support from Edward R. Murrow, won a libel suit against the corporation that branded him a Communist. Faulk's book, Fear on Trial, published in 1963, chronicles this experience. Later in his career, Faulk appeared on Hee-Haw, wrote and produced the one-man plays Deep in the Heart and Pear Orchard, Texas, and made an unsuccessful bid for a congressional seat in 1983.
In 1990, John Henry Faulk died of cancer in his hometown of Austin. The downtown branch of the public library there now bears his name.
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