Copyright © 1986 by the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation ISSN 0197-663X Spring, 1986 Literary Issue Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial Newsletter VOLUME XXX, No. 2 Editor, Mildred R. Bennett RED CLOUD, NEBRASKA Tracing Willa Cather’s Nebraska Willa Cather was an intellectual herself, with the highest standards; Red Cloud Preserves Her Memory -- By A. L. Rowse but she knew the raw facts of life Few Americans seem to realize need saying that, in my wew, Willa as well as any. Her books have what a treasure they have in Red Cather gives a truer picture of poetic sentiment, but no senti- Cloud, a veritable little ville mus~e. Americans and American life than mentality; there is even a vein of How many people know where it is, all the muckrakers of modern fic- iron beneath the poetry. She knew or have ever been there? tion. A picture of the true-hearted, the harshness and hardness of And yet, as Mildred R. E~ennett old and rooted country life of Amer- pioneering life on the unlicked tells us in her excellent book, The ica where you can still leave prairie, the poverty and almost World of Willa Cather: "Red Cloud, your house door unlocked and rely unbearable strain; but also the Nebraska, has probably been de- on your neighbors. This is the bravery and stoicism in that first scribed more often in literature America the outside world knows generation of pioneers who lived in than any other village its size." I little of ~ and would have a better the hutments -- the shelters they think we should say "small town" appreciation and understanding of, constructed out of the sod -- as rather. The marvelous thing about if it did: for one thing the sheer the first menfolk of her family there it is that it has preserved itself generosity of American life, and did. utterly unspoiled, hardly changed the decency you wouldn’t suspect Red Cloud is named for an Indi- since the early days of about 100 from the sensation-mongers and an chief in what was Pawnee coun- years ago. For that we must be many best-sellers, and even intel- try. It began as a pioneering settle- grateful to the public spirit, the lectuals, today. (Continued Next Page) local pride of its townspeople in their great writer b and, yes, to their artistic conscience, in a world Humorous Criticism of Cather’s Work that sees all too much destruction going on around us. By Marilyn Arnold Here is a place with the charm Most students and scholars who particularly purple. Although Work unbroken, the spell still upon it that follow current critical commentary feels that Cather overuses purple, first drew me to it more than 20 on the work of Willa Cather are he grants that she is not the only years ago. Several people have familiar with James Work’s tongue- western writer to do so, and he asked me, slightly puzzled, why I in-cheek approach to The Profes- cites such western titles as am so keen on Nebraska; and I sor’s House published in the "Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, remember even Johnny Carson at Winter of 1984 issue of Western Manfred’s Purple Riders of Judg- Burbank being taken aback by an American Literature. They might ment, Frank Norris’ The Octopur- Englishman knowing who a "corn- not know, however, that at least pie, and Waters’ Purple of the husker" is. (He was one himself b two other writers, both contempor- Valley" to illustrate his point. He and anyway I love these relics of aries of Cather, also employed adds, "1 hardly need mention The old American folklore in almost humor in arguing their positions. Grapes of Wrath." Work chides tribal names, a Georgia "nut- While Work satirizes Cather’s pre- Cather mercilessly for her careless cracker," North Carolina "tar- disposition toward allusion and and excessive use of allusion, but heel," Indiana "whosier," if that is symbolism, and at the same time he is best when he concludes his how it is spelt.) presents a spoof on academic writ- article with two trumped up, won- Red Cloud appears, under differ- ing in general, his predecessors derfully abstruse "quotations" and ent names, in several of Willa Ca- are less sophisticated and more attributes them to two of his col- ther’s novels -- in My ~ntonia, A broadly humorous and folksy in leagues. The footnote for the first Lost Lady, Lucy Gayheart and The their approaches. bit of undecipherable academese Song of the Lark m and in various Work’s article, nevertheless, reports that the quotation is from short stories. It should not need covers a broad spectrum of humor, an article by Richard Etulain titled saying that she was one of the fin- from the clever to the downright "Why John Milton Never Published est of American writers, and that corny. The latter is apparent, for Our Conversations." (Milton has most of her books are to be re- example, when Work discusses published a number of "Conversa- garded as classics. But it does Cather’s symbolic use of color, (Continued on Page 8)

Page 5 ment alongside the Republican about, that are alive in literature, kitchen ~ where their maid- River, about 120 miles southwest brought alive by genius, I should servant lived, whom they brought from Lincoln, capital of the state, love to have penetrated it, savored with them from Virginia. right down on the border with Kan- its atmosphere. For we must remember that sas. The border here is made by Willa was Virginia-born, of good old the Great Divide one looks up to In those days one could not stock that had been in Virginia for from the little town, between the enter what had been the Cather five or six generations. She came streams on their way to the River home from 1884 to 1904. It was to Nebraska with the family at the Platte, famous route of the Oregon still a private house, visitors not age of 9: it was those impression- Trail. welcome. It was, and is, a pretty able years of growing up that Willa Cather’s work always had house on the corner of Third and entered into the lifeblood of her a devoted following in England, Cedar Streets; I viewed it hopefully imagination. Only one of her though her cultural sympathies in vain, recalling its memories a novels, her last, Sapphira and the were markedly French. (These in- little sadly. Willa herself describes Slave Girl (1940), is about Virginia. spired her historical novel about it in an early novel, The Song of the Lark’. "They turned into another All her life she was in love with Quebec, Shadows on the Rock.) So Nebraska, and today we can see when an invitation came my way to street and saw before them lighted windows, a low story-and-a-half the house and home, the un- lecture at the University of Nebras- changed townscape and unspoiled ka at Lincoln, I accepted with alac- house, with a wing built on at the right and a kitchen addition at the countryside, where her dreams rity, with the hope of getting to Red took shape and have become an Cloud. I mean no disrespect to Lin- back, everything a little on the slant B roofs, windows, and abiding bequest of the grown coln, which is a well-designed, woman to our literature. well-laid-out capital city -- it is doors." And somewhere in a story wonderful what the two genera- she describes how the snow would Her little attic bedroom, where tions since Willa’s early years at sift in between the chinks of the she dreamed her dreams -- to be the university there have accom- roof of her attic bedroom in those so richly fulfilled ~ still has the long Nebraska winters. wallpaper of small red and brown plished on the bare prairie, parks roses she put up. And the veranda and waters, avenues of trees Frustrated as I was on my first is where she read and read, pulling planted and grown up. visit, I was yet lucky in meeting the shade to, for she always had an But Red Cloud was my mecca Mildred R. Bennett, the woman instinct for privacy, would never -- nearly a quarter of a century who has made it her life’s mission allow her books to be filmed, and ago, on my first visit B and I was to transform all this and to pre- had all her letters destroyed. not disappointed. I saw it all in the serve Red Cloud as the ville tousle Another contrast with writers light of that writer’s imagination, it is. I will confess that Ithen did today, too much of whose private the spell this girl of genius who had not believe that it was possible to affairs are washed in public. It was grown up there laid upon it .-- just achieve what she has subsequent- the Duke of Wellington who com- as Thomas Hardy laid his spell ly accomplished. Wait till I tell you plained that he had been "much upon Dorchester, or Nathaniel what her devotion and drive, her exposed to authors;" well, Willa Hawthorne upon Salem. scholarship and imagination, have wasn’t one for exposing her per- brought about. All she could show sonal life. I stood on the Indian mound me those years ago were a few above the Republican River, and stray objects and trinkets of Willa All the same, for myself I should looked across where formerly a Cather’s which she had collected, like to see her novels and stories house stood isolated among its and one could not even enter the on television or film, or on the trees, rather grander than the Cather home. Those household ar- stage, now that I expect the time usual, which used to excite Willa’s ticles were the beginning of a limit has expired. curiosity as a girl and ultimately museum, and today it is housed in The coming of the Burlington was the inspiration for the home of the old home, furnished as it was in Railroad was the making of Red Captain Forrester and his wife in A Willa’s girlhood days a century Cloud, and on the southern edge of Lost Lady, one of her most perfect ago. the town is the 1897 depot, deli- works, a novella. Most of her cately restored on the other side of books, by the way, are not long: On subsequent visits to Lincoln I ’the line, a little mecca in itself for they are beautifully proportioned, made the acquaintance of Willa’s railroad buffs. Though I am not ex- unlike the ungainly, 1,000-page- youngest sister, Elsie, who showed pert enough to be one of them, I long best sellers of today, unman- me many of the family treasures, love the romantic names of the old ageable to read. portraits, albums of photographs, railroads, the Chesapeake & Ohio, Alas, the house of A Lost Lady, a china, the tea service we drank tea the Lackawanna, the Atchison, biggish frame house with its own out of. (She gave me my copy of A Topeka & Santa Fe. drive to it, one of the spots marked Lost Lady.) Much ofj all this had Everything is as it should be in out by Willa’s genius, was de- now come to Red Cloud, and the that delicious little depot, just the stroyed by fire in 1925. I missed it Cather home looks today as Willa kind of station that would have sorely; with my passion for seeing knew it: the family furniture in been familiar to Abraham Lincoln: places that have been written the front parlor, dining room and the signals and timetables, the tic-

Page 6 ket office and benches, even the shape of Mildred Bennett and her Turning down Seward Street is oil lamps. The Burlington Railroad faithful flock -- have stood on the little Catholic church in which put Red Cloud on the map, and it guard against the Devil of Destruc- /~ntonia was married; on the south plays a great part in Cather’s tion. side the Baptist church ~ now the books as in her life. Church of Christ ~ the Cather Stand on the front steps, look family attended. At the corner of A Lost Lady begins with the rail- around and see for yourself. Cedar and Sixth is the Episcopal road. "In those days it was enough Across the street is the State Bank church Willa joined in 1922, after to say of a man that he was ’con- building of 1883, the year the Ca- her full career in Pittsburgh and nected with the Burlington.’ There ther family arrived from Virginia m New York. She had noticed as a were the directors, the general one of the first brick buildings in girl how children longed for color in managers, vice presidents, super- the town and made of native brick. the blank church windows; here intendents, whose names we all Among the things I specially no- she put up stained glass windows knew; and their younger brothers ticed were the pretty decorative in memory of her parents ~ the or nephews were auditors, freight brick cornices those early build- Good Shepherd for her father, for agents, departmental assistants. ings have just under the eaves. she remembered how in Virginia Everyone connected with the he kept sheep. Road, even the large cattle- and Next to this on the north is the grain-shippers, had annual passes; Opera House built two years later, The country around Red Cloud they and their families rode about exactly a century ago, where Wil- speaks no less eloquently of Willa over the line a great deal." liam Jennings Bryan spoke at the heig ht of his fame and oratory. The and the Cathers, though one hasn’t And so did Willa herself. Her gist of his message was put more space to do it justice. Nineteenth- brother Douglass worked on the succinctly by a lady than by him- century America, perhaps the railroad in Colorado. Willa several self: "Raise less corn, and more most creative period of the United times visited him out there m un- hell!" In this building Willa grad- States is brought home to one by married, like herself, he was her uated from high school in 1890. the little churches of the different favorite. And thus there came Actually she wrote the most per- religious sects, many of them im- about the most popular of her ceptive account of Bryan ever writ- migrants; and no less by the small books, Death Comes for the Arch- country schools, to which the ten, for o,1 top of everything else people owed so much. So many of bishop m about the missionary she was a brilliant journalist. Bishop Lamy of Santa Fe m which those early primary school teach- became a best seller in Britain as You will find it in the excellent ers were so dedicated to their work well as in the United States. anthology of Nebraska writing, ~ several of the family were published by the discriminating teachers, my friend Elsie Cather all Come with me back to the her life. center of the town, where memo- university press there: Roundup: A ries and associations are thickest. Nebraska Reader, edited by Vir- Up toward the Divide is the big Pivot of the place is the very verti- ginia Faulkner. frame house of Uncle George, a cal, highly decorative red brick and All around in this old heart of the ...... member of the family; it sandstone Willa Cather Historical town are still the houses of the appears in One of Ours. When I Center. This was the former Farm- people she knew, still inhabited for was there it was standing empty, ers’ and Merchants’ Bank Building, me by her characters of them in fast going derelict, echoing and erected in 1889 by Governor Gar- her books, just as they were in life. ghostly in its isolated position, ber, prototype of Captain Forrester At the back of the Royal Hotel is trees growing round the draw by its in A Lost Lady. He had rather the site of the Boys’ Home, Hotel, side, the tulips someone had grand ideas (and I think overspent since demolished, of My Antonia planted still growing for nobody at himself); certainly the most, or the ~ Willa’s own favorite, as was the all. only, grandiose building in the town original of ~ntonia, the spirited m though one dares hardly to ven- Czech girl with whom Willa was Not far is the Catherton ture a word against Victorian archi- more than half in love. (She always cemetery, the first grave that of tecture nowadays. Aunt Alverna (Aunt Vernie), who thought of herself as a boy m and, died a young woman of 33 on Inside I recall a touch of Art for a writer, had the advantage of ambivalence, a double sensibility.) ¯ December 30, 1883, that first hard Nouveau in the tesselated pave- winter when they had to break the ment -- which reminded me of In Franklin Street was the earlier ground with an ax ~ as for Shimer- Mark Twain’s very grand Art brothel ~ the House of the Soiled da’s funeral in My t~ntonia. But in Nouveau house at Hartford, Con- Doves, built by Fannie Fernleigh, Maytime all in Nebraska is beauti- necticut. More important are the prototype of Nell Emerald in A Lost ful: a gentle breeze in the cedars collections within m the library, Lady. Willa certainly knew the planted around the little wayside first editions, books, portraits, facts of life all right, and from both graveyard, open furrows beyond, photographs of things and people sides, without making a song and meadowlarks singing sweet over as they were. dance about them. I suppose if she the vast fields. I could wish that But what is wonderful about Red were writing today she might be a Willa were buried among her Cloud is how little changed it is: bit more outspoken about her people here. But never mind, her some Guardian Angel ~ in the tastes. memory is all around.

Page 7 And every Maytime people from HUMOROUS CRITICISM Claude had but one, which fast- all over the United States make (Continued from Page 5) ened his shirt in front. When he their pilgrimage to Red Cloud m wore a collar he had to fasten it at brought together by the devotion tions With" western writers.) The the back with an old piece of and organizing energy of Mildred article is said to appear in volume string, which Mahailey had given Bennett and her helpers, among 14 of the Journal of the Smooth him." them Prof. Robert Knoll of the uni- Wire Collector’s Society, 31 versity of Nebraska, the faithful February 1951, and to have run Ward dramatizes Claude’s townspeople, properly supported well over a hundred pages. The trauma of the collar button, stating by the capital of the state to which second "quotation" is docu- with mock seriousness, "Claude Willa brought worldwide fame. mented as an article by Max West- would have liked to buy another brook titled "Falling Archetypes" collar-button. He had more than Reprinted by permission of THE N~W enough money, and his father was YORK TIMES, Sunday, April21, 1985 and by that appeared in a journal called Orthopedagogic Quarterly. a rich farmer. He tried to excuse permission of Dr. A, L. Rowse, don of All his cowardice to himself, but in his Souls’ College, Oxford, England. Work obviously enjoys present- heart he knew that it was too diffi- ing his corrective spoof at Cather’s cult for him to do this simple expense. What surprises the read- thing." Claude’s mother also wor- GRANT AWARDED TO er is not that Work would attack ries about the fact that her son is The Professor’s House, but that he short a collar-button, and she CURATOR would write a comically serious ar- offers him a "piece of an old can A $2,975 grant from the Ameri- ticle (read first as a paper at a opener" as a substitute. He tells can Association for State and Rocky Mountain Modern Language her he will use a shingle nail, and Local History has been awarded to Association Conference) and sub- urges her not to worry. mit it to a non-comically serious Ann E. Billesbach, Curator of the journal, and that said journal would Ward does not stop with collar Willa Cather Historical Center. The buttons, however. In his version of grant will support her study of publish it. In Cather’s lifetime the media seemed more disposed than Cather’s story, Nat Wheeler chops some 45 literary biographical today’s media to publish unsophis- down the second story staircase museums. She will assess how ticated humorous criticism, and (instead of the cherry tree) for a they interpret the sense of region public taste seemed more dis- joke, stranding Claude’s mother or locality found in an author’s posed to accept it. whose modesty prevents her from writings. The project will result in descending the ladder that now recommendations on ways in The earlier of the two contem- connects the home’s two stories. which biographical museums can porary pieces, titled "One of Hers: Mahailey sleeps on a shelf in the improve and broaden their inter- Long After," is a parody of One of cellar, and goes about with her pretive programs. Billesbach is Ours. Written by Christopher Ward, apron over her head. When Claude one of only 18 recipients nation- it first appeared 3 February 1923, wants to wash, he uses the kitchen wide to receive a grant through the p. 435, in the Literary Review of the sink because "other people had AASLH program. New York Evening Post, and was used the bathroom before him and reprinted in Ward’s The Triumph of he was very exclusive." Claude’s the Nut and Other Parodies (New .strongest emotional attachment is York: Henry Holt and Co., 1923, to Molly, the cow, who stands pp. 94-104). It pretends to be a re- about on three legs because she DO YOU print of ~two chapters, the first and HAVE YOUR COPY? lost the fourth in the Civil War. The last, of a book called The Young narrator sums up Claude’s situa- The following periodicals are Hamlet of the Prairies. The hero, tion: "The life of a farmer was use- still available from the Cather Claude Wheeler, is afflicted with less, vain, empty, unsatisfying, Foundation Book Store: the same restlessness, inertia, and monotonous, depressing, dreary. despair that afflict Cather’s ¯ Western American Literature, He wasa farmer and he had but Claude, and his circumstances are one collar-button." February, 1984; Three Articles on similar to those of her character. The Professor’s House. Ward, however, assigns his hero’s Ward then jumps to his "book’s" ¯ Western American Literature, discontentment to a different final chapter, set in the war zone in May, 1982; "A Willa Cather Issue." cause. The Claude of The Young France. It is comprised mainly of a ¯ Great Plains Quarterly, Fall~ Hamlet is troubled only over his telephone conversation between 1984; 1983 Seminar. shirt. It is "the same shirt which he Cather and her hero. We hear only ¯ Great Plains Quarterly, Fall, had worn yesterday, would wear Claude’s side of the conversation, tomorrow. But it was not the but it is clear that Cather is urging 1982; 1981 Seminar. monotony of the shirt that deluged him to mount the parapet in the The WAL Journals are $5.00 him with self-pity. It was the fact face of enemy fire and he is resist- each; the Quarterlies are $4.00 that he had only one collar- ing the command. She tries to tell each. Add $1.50 for postage and button." This distresses Claude, him that his life is spoiled anyway, handling for one or two publica- for "other people, the Erlich boys but he says, oh, no, it isn’t; he has tions or $2.25 for three or all four. in Lincoln, his own father, had two. plans. And even if Enid does not

Page 8 return to him, he is not likely to more perfect artist," Cather is "the very last, there seems to have "die of grief." Claude grants that greater genius." When his choice been no argument about her selec- as a serious novelist Cather has to is announced, some approve and tion as one of the top five writers of avoid happy endings, but he fails to some do not. The Algonquin is her time. see why he has to be one of the draped in black. war’s casualties when the percen- Marilyn Arnold, Dean of Grad- As the country awaits the Arbi- uate Studies at Brigham Young tages are actually in his favor. In ter’s final comments on the post- the end, Claude outwits his creator poned but inevitable surrender of University, Provo, Utah, found by hoisting a dummy on the para- these data when she researched Cather, it receives notice that the her forthcoming book which deals pet to take the bullets Cather in- Arbiter has snapped under the tended for him. with critical articles on Cather. strain and taken his own life. Be- This exciting volume should be off Perhaps the most outlandish of side his body is a note indicating the press by the end of summer. the three pieces mentioned here is that he cannot give up Willa Watch for further announcements. by Joseph J. Reilly. It appears as Cather. He urges that Manhattan the lead article in The Bookman, be sacrificed rather than Cather April 1932, under the title, "When surrendered, and confesses to the Japs Beleaguered Manhattan." have secretly offered such a deal The article is, as the title indicates, to the invaders. It was refused, and NEWS FROM VIRGINIA ethnically insensitive and out- he has committed "hara-kiri." CATHER’S BIRTHPLACE dated, but it has a certain degree Clearly, Cather is the Arbiter’s of bald charm. In order to identify favorite, though he has high regard Charter Board member, Jennie the writers whom he believes pop- for Wharton too. His distaste for Reiher has received the following ular taste would elevate to the rank Dreiser’s frank treatment of sex news from her cousin, The Rever- of "top five," and then to dismiss and the biological aspects of mor- end Morris Cather of Winchester, at least three of them, Reilly tal experience is apparent in his Virginia. fabricates a seige on Manhattan by use of humor as a weapon of at- "There’s a fresh coat of paint on the Japanese Navy. As Reilly tells tack. Reilly tells us that the Arbiter Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa it, the invaders bottle up Manhat- went into hiding after giving Cather’s Gore birthplace, and the tan and threaten to destroy it Dreiser to the enemy the first inside is being fixed up too. unless America’s "five most highly week. He continues, "The rumour "The historic site is now the regarded" novelists are surren- got abroad that the Association of home of Mary Baughman. Miss dered to them, one per week for Contaminated Bell-hops had is- Baughman said she learned about five weeks. An "Arbiter Elegan- sued a protest against the surren- some of the things that needed tiae" is appointed to determine der of Mr. Dreiser, but it went un- correcting the hard way -- last who the five are and in what order confirmed. Meanwhile the city’s winter she found snow had melted they are to be surrendered. As luck only newspaper, The Limit (the off- in the yard and run into her kitchen¯ would have it, America’s leading spring of several mergers and She had to scoop out 20 gallons of novelists are all in New York at the celebrated for its slogan ’No news water. time, "attending a convention at that’s fit to print’), went unread into the Algonquin Hotel." Because the "She also would like to renovate the Arbiter’s waste basket." We the woodshed and a separate dictatorial Arbiter still has "a learn further that when the Arbiter lingering interest in the democratic building that once was used for surrendered the three male novel- housing the help and cooking. tradition," he distributes ballots to ists first, he was accused of letting subway patrons before making his his "chivalry" dull his "critical "The historic marker out front choices. The five novelists who are judgment." We also learn, how- sometimes draws in visitors and clearly ranked at the top are ever, that he was "absolved in a Miss Baughman, a former Freder- Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair set of spirited resolutions adopted ick County teacher, said she has Lewis, Edith Wharton, and Thorn- by .the Federated Women’s Clubs shown some around, including the ton Wilder. of the beleaguered island." president of the University of Con- necticut." With the ears of the whole coun- These two pieces of little known try awaiting his decisions, and na- criticism are enjoyable to read be- tional intensity over the matter cause of their humor, but they also growing each week, the Arbiter give strong indication of Cather’s one by one relinquishes Dreiser, reputation in her lifetime. Gener- LETTERS Lewis, and Wilder -- giving de- ally, only works that are very well tailed catalogues of their weak- known can be parodied success- ¯.. upon receiving the photos of nesses in justification for his letting fully, hence Ward’s parody of One Cather from Architectural Digest. them go first. His task grows more of Ours is also something of a tri- From Lo Chi Chang of Shanghai, difficult, however, when he is left bute to Cather. Further, Reilly sug- Peoples Republic of China: to choose between Wharton and gests that although there was "How happy I was to receive the Cather. He finally concludes that some disagreement (mainly among pictures of Willa Cather’s house. Wharton is more dispensible than fellow novelists) with the Arbiter’s How I like the unassuming, clean, Cather, for while Wharton is "the decision to keep Cather for the but simple house. The rooms are

Page 9 pepom~IA[ .~uo!d ~q:le~) elUM

YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE LIFE AND GROWTH AIMS OF THE WCPM OF THE ORGANIZATION ¯ To promote and assist in the development and preservation ¯ By being a Cather Memorial Member and financial contri- of the art, literary, and historical collection relating to the life, butor: time, and work of Willa Cather, in association with the Ne- BENEFACTOR ...... $1,000.00 and over braska State Historical Society. ANN UAL MEMBERSHIPS ¯ To cooperate with the Nebraska State Historical Society in Patron ...... $100.00 continuing to identify, restore to their original condition, and Sustaining ...... 25.00 preserve places made famous by the writing of Willa Cather. Family ...... 15.00 ¯ To provide for Willa Cather a living memorial, through the Individual ...... 10.00 Foundation, by encouraging and assisting scholarship in the WCPM memoers receive: field of the humanities. Newsletter subscription ¯ To perpetuate an interest throughout the world in the work Free guided tour to restored buildings of Willa Cather. ¯ By contributing your Willa Cather artifacts, letters, papers, For Newsletter Donation Only ...... $5.00 and publications to the Museum. Foreign Mailing ...... 6.00 ¯ By contributing your ideas and suggestions to the Board of BOARD OF GOVERNORS Governors, Keith Albers Robert E, Knoll Ronald W. Roskens William Thomas Auld, M.D. Ella Cather Lewis Susan J. Rosowski ALL MEMBERSHIPS, CONTRIBUTIONS AND Bruce P. Baker, II Lucia Woods Lindley David E. Scherman BEQUESTS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE Mildred R. Bennett Catherine Cather Lowell C. Bertrand Schultz W. K. Bennett, M.D. John Mamh Marian Schultz Under Section 170 of the internal Revenue Code of 1965 V1 Borton Dale McDole Margaret Cather Shannon Don E. Connors Miriam Mountford Betty Sherwood Josephine Frisble John J. Murphy Helen Cather Southwick Special group memberships (such as clubs or businesses) are David Garwood Harry Obitz Mamella Van Meter available. Write to the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial for details. non Hull Jennie Reiher tidy and cozy. There is no expen- dered and will be installed in the ANTONIA’S GARDEN sive furniture, They are not pol- near future. As I told you the Ca- luted by cheap and vain decora- ther Reunion is paying for the walk tions. They are just like herself and marker. past "two silvery moth-like trees" the essence of her novels like The The text will read: "This house, a house drowned in hollyhocks Song of the Lark and Death Comesbuilt in 1858, was the childhood into the apple orchard for the Archbishop. From these home of novelist Willa Cather from black trunks pictures I understand the back- 1874 to 1883 when she moved with stained with blue grass ground of her novels more than her family to Nebraska. It was the French pinks ever." setting of the final chapters of her children running novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl. the new wild Willa Cather was born December seeded with the old 7, 1873, one mile south in the com- green Bohemian fingers WILLOW SHADE munity of Gore, then known as talk Back Creek Valley." caught in a cup of sun Reverend Cather also writes: m Robert Schuler "Some great news -- the State (First appeared in POETS ON, Volume 9, Historical marker for Willow Shade Number 2, Summer 1985. Reprinted with has been approved, has been or- thanks.)

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