University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Fall 1982 The Childhood Worlds Of Willa Cather Mildred R. Bennett willa Cather Pioneer Memorial in Red Cloud Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Bennett, Mildred R., "The Childhood Worlds Of Willa Cather" (1982). Great Plains Quarterly. 1623. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1623 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE CHILDHOOD WORLDS OF WILLA CATHER MILDRED R. BENNETT She was a good artist, and all true art is foot, on horseback and in our farm wagons.,,2 provincial in the most realistic sense: To be familiar with Willa Cather's childhood, of the very time and place of its making, then, is to gain a special entry into her art. out of human beings who are so particu­ Willa Cather was born on December 7, larly limited by their situation, whose 1873, in her Grandmother Boak's house in faces and names are real and whose lives Back Creek Valley, Virginia. Her grandfather, begin each one at one individual unique William Cather, a county sheriff and a strong center. Union man, had done much to unify the Katherine Anne Porter divided community after the Civil War, includ­ ing using his Northern money to provide Willa Cather, as Katherine Anne Porter schooling for the young people of the valley. realized, was a provincial or regional writer who Virginia Boak, Willa's mother, was one of the could derive the universal from the specific, as young Confederates whom he helped, and there the best artists do. For Cather, the specifics was little strife between her and her husband to which she returned throughout her career Charles. Virginia Cather combined the qualities were the people, places, and things of her of natural mother and Southern belle that childhood in Back Creek Valley, Virginia, and would distinguish Willa's portrait of her as Red Cloud, Nebraska.1 "The ideas for all my Victoria Templeton in "Old Mrs. Harris." novels have come from things that happened During the Back Creek Valley years, she bore around Red Cloud when I was a child," she three more children, Roscoe, Douglass, and once said. "I was all over the country then, on Jessica, but she always maintained her fine figure and aristocratic role, even while she enjoyed nursing her babies and never, as many Mildred R. Bennett is the founder of the willa Southern ladies did, turned them over to Cather Pioneer Memorial in Red Cloud; Nebras­ former slave wet nurses. ka, and author of The World of Willa Cather Charles Cather and his brother George served (1951). Her numerous articles on Cather in­ as deputy sheriffs to their father and ran the clude a contribution to Prairie Schooner (1959). family sheep business, buying and raising lambs 204 THE CHILDHOOD WORLDS OF WILLA CATHER 205 to sell on the Washington and Baltimore were also Willa's introduction to nature, school, markets. In June, 1873, when George left American history, and the Old World. As soon Back Creek Valley to pioneer in Nebraska with as she could walk, she roamed hills and fields his wife, Frances Smith, his share of the work rich in wildlife and varieties of trees and flowers. passed to Charles. A year later, grandfather Although she was too young to attend regular­ William went to visit George, and Willa and her ly, Willa often went with her father to the parents moved into Willow Shade, the home­ neighborhood school, where she sat and lis­ stead William had built on the side of a moun­ tened-and I dare say asked questions. Charles tain. Through the basement kitchen of the Cather's love of history impelled him to make house of Willa's childhood ran a spring that his oldest child aware of the local heritage and kept the dairy products cool. to impart it to any interested listener.3 He Even before George moved to Nebraska, the undoubtedly took her to the home of Lord Cather men had been interested in the West Fairfax, Greenway Court, which inspired her and had visited Colorado. William Cather early story, "A Night at Greenway Court." wanted to move the whole family to Nebraska, The hired women who worked at Willow Shade because he believed that the humid atmosphere no doubt contributed another kind of history­ of Back Creek encouraged the tuberculosis that family stories, superstitions, and folklore. afflicted so many of the Cathers. When his Willa Cather's interest in France began in the father, James Cather, died, William became house of her friend, Mary Love, whose mother head of the family. He had just returned from was the daughter of a former United States his visit to George, with the four orphaned minister to France. Willa questioned Mrs. Love children of a brother who had lived in Mis­ about her years abroad and admired her many souri. After finding homes for three of the treasures from France.4 Another comrade was orphans among the Virginia Cathers, William Marjorie Anderson, the prototype of Mahailey and his wife moved to Nebraska with their in One of Ours and of Mandy in "Old Mrs. widowed daughter, her little girl, and the fourth Harris." Marjorie's mother, who figured as Mrs. orphan. Two weeks after the group arrived, Ringer in Sapphira, worked in the kitchen at William's daughter died, leaving another orphan Willow Shade. Although Marjorie was retarded with her grandparents. Mobile families and and could not profit from Willa's attempts to orphaned children distributed among relatives teach her how to read, she was a companion on provided the background for Jim Burden in Willa's trips into the hills. My Antonia. Willa Cather's nine years in Virginia were her William, a patriarchal man, wanted to keep preparation for Nebraska. The contrast between his family around him, and his move to Ne­ the two environments could not have been br~ska increased the pressure on Charles and more startling. Climate and surroundings were Virginia to follow, but Virginia did not want to radically different, and friends, doctors, and leave her friends, her home, or the mountain education had, it seemed, been left behind. In countryside. (I doubt that Willa, who always Nebraska, chickens let out of their coops were hated change, did either.) However, Willow lost for good in the never-ending red grass that Shade's large sheep barn, containing a grinding stood as high as the young trees planted by mill for sheep provender, burned down, and hopeful settlers. Willa Cather later emphasized William refused to rebuild, virtually forcing the break that she felt with the past in Jim Charles to join him in Nebraska in 1883. Yet Burden's arrival in Nebraska in My Antonia, but the uprooting did not come before Willa's she was not quite as lost as he. Her household imagination had stored up many experiences that first year in Nebraska included her parents she later drew on in writing. and brothers and sisters, her grandmother The Virginia years are portrayed in most Rachel Boak, Mrs. Boak's granddaughter Bess detail in Sapphira and the Slave Girl, but they Seymour, Bess's half brother, Will Andrews, 206 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1982 and Willa's friend Marjorie Anderson, whose that Willa learned Latin from her two grand­ mother had entrusted her to Mrs. Cather's mothers are probably what Elsie Cather termed personal care. This extended family settled on "Willie's little stories.,,6 Neither grandmother William Cather's homestead, about fifteen miles seems to have been a Latin scholar, and Willa northwest of Red Cloud. It was April, not liked to fictionalize about herself, inventing autumn as it was for Jim Burden, and the spring three birth dates, December 7, 1874, 1875, promised much. During the intense summer, and 1876-the last a biological impossibility, Virginia Cather, pregnant for the fifth time, since her brother Roscoe was born in June, was bed-ridden and eventually lost the baby. 1877. Even if they did not teach her Latin, Willa was left free to explore the new country Willa's grandmothers served her well. Rachel and to meet the neighbors. She had her own Boak became the title character in "Old Mrs. pony and sometimes fetched the mail from the Harris," and Caroline Cather served as the basis farmer who served as postmaster. She also for Grandmother Burden in My Antonia. loved to visit the immigrant women-Swedish, While the people, plants, and animals of the Danish, Czech, Russian, German, and French­ new country charmed Willa, her mother dis­ even though she could not speak their languages. liked the isolated homestead and urged Charles Nothing, she later said, excited her more than to move into Red Cloud, where the schools spending a day with one of them, watching her were supposed to be better. Because he was not churn, make bread, or perform similar tasks. a farmer at heart, he complied, and in the fall She felt then as if she had got inside another's of 1884 he sold his farm equipment and stock skin, the kind of empathy she aimed for in her and moved to a house at Third and Cedar finest fiction.5 streets in Red Cloud. He had arranged to buy, Willa later romanticized that first year in but the deal fell through, and he had to rent Nebraska.