Pure Willa Cather
Red Cloud, Nebraska is not your normal farm town. There are giants walking around here. I saw them, and I am just an ordinary guy:
-- your typical Pondering Piggo who thinks Willa Cather is the best writer in the barnyard,
-- who just sinks into her pure visual exact images and deep understanding of human nature with delight,
-- your normal pigsty piggo with big tears rolling down his snout because little sixteen year old Leslie Ferguesson caught pneumonia and died out on Mrs. Somebody's farm when she had her whole life to live in front of her (The Best Years).
-- who gets big crinkles of smiles because the twins came in from the yard to fix up Grandma's sickroom when nobody told them to (Old Mrs. Harris). And, in the same story, when Vickie wins the scholarship to the University of Michigan, what relief! And what subtlety of understanding in that story. How your loyalties shift as Cather reveals the Templeton family first from their neighbor's perspective, then from the mother's perspective, then Grandma's perspective.
-- who is not a sentimental sap (ok, maybe I am a sap), but a pig who lets Cather's true vision translate into his mindscreen and from there percolate into his heart. She took the time to tell it true, folks.
Those stories, plus the pure hometown blues of Song of the Lark (the Red Cloud half, anyway) and the for the ages My Antonia - they all happened in Red Cloud, no matter what name she gives the town in story after story. And Red Cloud, because the railroad's hub moved to another town, kind of got left behind in the mad American scramble for wealth and status.
So it still looks like Willa Cather's 1890 town. Walking through it is the strangest experience.
For instance...
This is Thea Kronborg's house. No, sorry, it's Vickie Templeton's house. No, sorry, it's Willa Cather's childhood home. Walk inside, and Cather readers will recognize the geography right away.
Here's where Dr. Archie visited Thea when she was deathly sick and slept in the parlor. Through the door you can see the Templeton's bedroom, where Victoria locked herself in when she learned she was pregnant for the sixth time.
Thea Kronborg's bedroom where she would lay in bed reading wrapped in blankets with a hot brick at her feet because the air was about minus twenty. No, wait. It's Leslie Ferguesson's bedroom where her parents made her sleep because it was only proper that a budding schoolteacher should have her own room. No, wait a minute - it's Willa Cather's bedroom papered with the very wallpaper she earned when she was thirteen years old working at the dry goods store and taking wallpaper for wages. It's not a reasonable facsimile - it's the same wallpaper she put up about 1886. That's Red Cloud, Nebraska!
Finally, this is the house where Antonia worked as a housemaid when she was nearly raped by that disgusting Wick Cutter.
If you like to read the good stuff, and you've never read Willa Cather (I was probably fifty before I gave her a try), pick up one of her stories. You could be in for a whole lot of pleasure and mental delight.
And, if you are already a Cather fan, well, there's a great B&B in Red Cloud called Cather's Retreat (402-746-2599). The house belonged to the Cather family and Willa stayed there when she came to visit her parents in the Twenties. Hey, go for it. I'm going back as soon as I can.
-- your typical Pondering Piggo who thinks Willa Cather is the best writer in the barnyard,
-- who just sinks into her pure visual exact images and deep understanding of human nature with delight,
-- your normal pigsty piggo with big tears rolling down his snout because little sixteen year old Leslie Ferguesson caught pneumonia and died out on Mrs. Somebody's farm when she had her whole life to live in front of her (The Best Years).
-- who gets big crinkles of smiles because the twins came in from the yard to fix up Grandma's sickroom when nobody told them to (Old Mrs. Harris). And, in the same story, when Vickie wins the scholarship to the University of Michigan, what relief! And what subtlety of understanding in that story. How your loyalties shift as Cather reveals the Templeton family first from their neighbor's perspective, then from the mother's perspective, then Grandma's perspective.
-- who is not a sentimental sap (ok, maybe I am a sap), but a pig who lets Cather's true vision translate into his mindscreen and from there percolate into his heart. She took the time to tell it true, folks.
Those stories, plus the pure hometown blues of Song of the Lark (the Red Cloud half, anyway) and the for the ages My Antonia - they all happened in Red Cloud, no matter what name she gives the town in story after story. And Red Cloud, because the railroad's hub moved to another town, kind of got left behind in the mad American scramble for wealth and status.
So it still looks like Willa Cather's 1890 town. Walking through it is the strangest experience.
For instance...
This is Thea Kronborg's house. No, sorry, it's Vickie Templeton's house. No, sorry, it's Willa Cather's childhood home. Walk inside, and Cather readers will recognize the geography right away.
Here's where Dr. Archie visited Thea when she was deathly sick and slept in the parlor. Through the door you can see the Templeton's bedroom, where Victoria locked herself in when she learned she was pregnant for the sixth time.
Thea Kronborg's bedroom where she would lay in bed reading wrapped in blankets with a hot brick at her feet because the air was about minus twenty. No, wait. It's Leslie Ferguesson's bedroom where her parents made her sleep because it was only proper that a budding schoolteacher should have her own room. No, wait a minute - it's Willa Cather's bedroom papered with the very wallpaper she earned when she was thirteen years old working at the dry goods store and taking wallpaper for wages. It's not a reasonable facsimile - it's the same wallpaper she put up about 1886. That's Red Cloud, Nebraska!
Finally, this is the house where Antonia worked as a housemaid when she was nearly raped by that disgusting Wick Cutter.If you like to read the good stuff, and you've never read Willa Cather (I was probably fifty before I gave her a try), pick up one of her stories. You could be in for a whole lot of pleasure and mental delight.
And, if you are already a Cather fan, well, there's a great B&B in Red Cloud called Cather's Retreat (402-746-2599). The house belonged to the Cather family and Willa stayed there when she came to visit her parents in the Twenties. Hey, go for it. I'm going back as soon as I can.
Labels: Across America, Art Matters, Photos by Patrushka, Willa Cather
posted by Christopher Newton at 8:37 AM
4 Comments:
Hoo Hoo. Willa. What a writer!
I read probably everything she wrote back when High School. Our school in Flint was big on home grown writers and almost all American writers took first place over Euro writers or lit in translation. We kids all would have read Kerouac but he was still on the road in 1950 and not writing yet, I don't think. Correct me Pig, if I'm wrong. Im sure you know the details dontcha? Anyway we liked Cather because it was personal writing and not so stiff. Some of it was sad but you always felt like there was some redemtion just around the corner. I think Willas life was a hard one but she was a glass half full kind of person, if you know what I mean.
Im in Florida, on the road for a few weeks and my mom in law doesn't have internet so I go to to the Coffee Baron where they have wireless. Did you get to California yet Pig? Where are you ending this road? I have people in Palo Alto and Stinson and will be between there and there probably around Christmas I hope.
Yes, Senor Pig. I Believe Willa is required reading in the midwest. At first I thought Theo would have read her before, but he was from Ohio and that's a different time zone.
I Remember reading "My Antonia" when a sophomore in H.S. and I cried a bit. I took a lot of shit for that. Then I realized the chumps razzing me were pretty dew-eyed too.
I absolutely love the photo of the wallpapered bedroom, and the story behind it =) - would love to see that room someday... Hope you and your Patrushka are enjoying your fantastic travels!
Like Foghorn, we're staying with Grandma for a few days in Grover Beach, California and no internet access, so I am hanging in a little place called Higher Groundz (not a bad name!) cause I got so much to tell you all...but first I have to get out of Red Cloud, and I'm not ready to leave till I show you more pictures. See today's post.
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