Henry, O.

O. Henry was born as William Sidney Porter in Greensboro, North Carolina. He later changed the spelling of his middle name to "Sydney". His father, Algernon Sidney Porter, was a physician. When Porter's mother died of tuberculosis in 1865, father and son went to live with William's grandmother where he was chiefly raised by an aunt due to his father's heavy drinking. As a teenager, he trained at his father's pharmacy and at the age of nineteen he got his license to practice. As a child, Porter was an avid reader and a skilled draftsman.