Ada Calhoun was born in 1869 in Rome, Georgia. She was the youngest of three daughters born to Samuel Lee Calhoun, a blacksmith, and his wife Martha Jane. Her older sister was named Grace Eliza. Her father died when Ada was only two years old, leaving her family in poverty
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The family moved to Vidalia, Georgia, where Ada lived the majority of her early life.
Ada Calhoun began writing at an early age. Her stories were published in local newspapers and she never forgot how much she loved to write. At the age of 13, when she left school to work at home to help support her family, Ada also began teaching herself how to read and write shorthand by studying at night under the light of her oil lamp.
By the age of 21 she began attending night classes at Atlanta University (now Morehouse College) to further her education. She continued to teach herself how to write, even though she no longer attended school. Ada was eventually able to obtain a teaching certificate in 1892 and become co-owner of a private school for young black women in Atlanta in 1893.
She continued writing after she obtained the teaching certificate until March 1894 when she married Robert H. Ivy who worked as an elevator operator at the Rialto Theater on Peachtree Street in Atlanta.
Ada Ivy published her first book, "The Church Servant", in 1899. It is still considered an African-American classic today because it focused on true stories of working class African-American heroes and heroines living during this period of time when religion and religion-based social reform were prominent issues in African-American literature during this time period.
Her second book was published five years later in 1903 titled "A Mothers Secret".
The story is about a mother's struggle with poverty and disease that results from the absence of fathers from their families that made up most of these families during this time period. The book focuses on how important it is for mothers to take care of themselves before they can take care of their children; showing that most working class African-American families could not afford childcare at this time (because most childcare consisted of what was called "parlour" or "household" work).
Later on Ada Ivy would publish twenty four books throughout her lifetime; all relating one way or another to working class African American families during this long period known as Jim Crow; which lasted until 1954 with the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled that segregation