Sarah Van Voorhis Woolfolk Wiggins bore the nickname “Belle,” as in Southern, somewhat ironically.

As the University of Alabama history department’s first woman faculty member, editor of The Alabama Review for 20 years, author and editor of books, monographs and articles, and widow raising a daughter alone, Wiggins may have spoken with a lilt, but her words wielded steel.

The historian, writer, editor, and mom who considered her profession storytelling died Sunday, April 12, at her Tuscaloosa home. Wiggins, born June 29, 1934, in Montgomery, was 85.

Friends and colleagues echoed certain refrains time and again, among them: “She did not suffer fools gladly.”

“If she thought someone was a pretender, a blowhard, she had no problem calling them out,” said Ruth Truss, a professor of history at the University of Montevallo.