Johnstown, Nebraska

So a little further along Highway 20, I had my second serendipitous encounter with Willa Cather, sort of.  Somewhere back in the blog archives you may remember the humorous little story of how we met up with Willa Cather's great nephew, George (it's just as well that I couldn't remember his last name or I would probably have been stalking him by now), who also lived in New York and who was the only other adult on our 3:00 tour of the capitol building in Lincoln, and about our dinner at Billy's and his Cather related stories, and how I left feeling somehow related and needing to make a pilgrimage to Red Cloud, which we have done more than once, and a lot more.  Your assignment, due next Monday, is to find that blog entry, and any others related to my Willa Cather/Red Cloud experiences, and anything else you might find on Wikipedia or wherever and write a 10 page essay that will bore all of us to death,  suck  the life and joy out of her literature and provide the perfect academic experience that will make you never want to hear her name again.  I jest, of course, but isn't that the job of a high school English teacher, to make you never want to read serious literature again.

So my second Cather encounter was in Johnstown, the town in which they filmed the CBS movie version of O' Pioneers.

As you can tell from the sign, the star has faded on this claim to fame, and the town has receded back into its former anonymity, although there are still signs of its former brush with fame.  Due to the vagaries and vicissitudes that define the circumstances provided to a photographer, I passed the town in the morning and was lucky enough to find the sun shining on the more interesting side of the street, of which this was all of it.

There was a bit more, but I wasn't there for it, but you get the idea.  Unfortunately, the only operating business other than the post office was a bar on the shaded side of the street that didn't look like part of a movie set.  But for closure, I do need to get back.  Interestingly, there no longer seemed to be any effort to capitalize on their fame in terms of tee shirt shops, etc.

                                                                    Pablo

Red Cloud Redux or rather, re-do...

Back on Highway 136 , the road that runs along the southern edge of the Sandhills a few miles north of the border with Kansas.  This photo of the 136 driving east from Red Cloud to Ruskin is so good it looks photoshopped, but it is not!!!

 Ever since our chance encounter with Willa Cather's great nephew George, at the state capitol during our last visit to Nebraska (see blog posting, Red Cloud, 9/26/11), we have developed a certain affinity for Red Cloud and the Cather Family in general.  Like General McArthur, I pledged to return to work on that last Red Cloud blog entry which I found woefully lacking, but then again I feel that way about most of them, but here I am anyway, back in town a year older, no wiser, but hopefully a little more in touch with the Nebraska I am trying to find.

As luck would have it, the Cather Family home, which had been vacant and up for sale last year, was bought by the Society and turned into a bed and breakfast and we were able to spend the night in the very home that Willa grew up in from 1903 on and visited on her returns home over the years.

Inside are views  of the dining room, living room, and the Sweetwater suite the room we stayed in which was said to have been Willa's mother's room, refurnished.  In the upper right hand corner of the first photo is Willa, overseeing things.

Across the street from the house (Stewart Street) are the sad remains of the Baptist church where the Cather family first worshiped until they became Episcopalians in 1922, according to a recent society news letter.  In the most recent news letter highlighting the guest house, a photo of our Sweetwater room was on the cover.

This photo was taken last year.  According to the Cather  Society news letter the Episcopalian church is newly renovated and in wonderful shape and is being used by the society, but the Baptist church remains abandoned and in an increasing state of disrepair, but it is not out of sight given its central location, so hopefully the roof is in good repair and the society will find good use for it before it implodes.  

Got up early the next morning and hit the streets to make the most of what I could see was going to be another mainly overcast day.  This photograph of the State Bank Block seems to have been taken by just about everyone passing through Red Cloud, so why should I be any different, although it does seem more dramatic given the ominous backdrop which worked in my favor for a change, which is all you can hope for in such an oft taken picture...

Regarding unfinished business, last year I took a picture of the post office...

but neglected to go inside where I would have found 3 depression era murals painted as part of the New Deal WPA art project, if I had only known.  I was feeling badly about this, especially give my particular affinity for the USPS, and hoped to get back.   They were painted in 1941 by Arthur Musick, who went on to have a moderately successful career as an artist and teacher.  This is the largest of the 3 and the most accessable to photograph...

Lastly, last year I took a picture of an empty storefront that was reported to have been the place of business of Willa Cather's father after he gave up trying to be a farmer...

One year later it has now become an antique shop...

In conjunction with my earlier 9/26/11 Red Cloud posting,  I think that's an overview Red Cloud, more or less for now.  For more, check it out yourself, and while you are there, become a member of the Willa Cather Society.  Its not expensive and you will become part of something quite important, and very American.

                                                                      Pablo

Red Cloud

May 18,  2011

The end of the line for us on route 136 was Red Cloud, our holy grail, and the last important stop on our pre-Auburn amble.

Sometimes it is the chronology of the spirit that guides us.  It is passion and providence, not time, that provides the guideposts on the road of life.  So it was with Red Cloud, one of our last stops on the road before we ended up in Auburn for cousin Chase's graduation.   It was foremost on our minds from the first day that we arrived in Lincoln after an uneventful and generally uninspiring (Warren Buffet aside) 3 day stay in Omaha, a city flattened, ethnically cleansed, and replaced with 10 square blocks of multi-level parking lots and too many 70's and 80's style utilitarian pre-cast concrete and chrome and glass office buildings of a most undistinguished, and almost Soviet style nature.  If you look hard, there are are a few surprises (building wise), but they are few and far between, and there is the old market area,  partially intact and still charming, that hints of what once was.

But I digress into my usual rant about the decimation of old down towns.  Don't even get me started on Des Moines and Chattanooga et al.

Anyway, Jackie has a thing for state capitols, so after checking into our hotel, we walked down Centennial Avenue to the capitol building, an awe inspiring monument to the rustic, broad shouldered nature of rural Midwest life,

for what was to be the 3:00 tour which included us, 20 5th graders from some farming town about 25 or 30 miles from Lincoln, and one other adult who we were told happened to be from New York as well.  We were about 20 minutes early for the tour, so it was suggested that we take the very antiquated elevator to the rotunda where you have a view of all of Lincoln.  Upon exiting the elevator ride experience, we entered the rotunda and I immediately had the experience of Indiana Jones in the cave of Somes when the sun, in exact position, beamed through a portal onto his staff whose shadow indicated the exact location of the Ark on the floor map.  Well there I was in the rotunda, with the sun shining in a photogenically direct manner on the only object there, a sign, letting us know that we were not alone.  A comforting thought in these uncertain times.

  
After the tour we got talking, and it turned out that the other New Yorker was Willa Cather's great nephew who had taken the train to Nebraska, and was just returning from Red Cloud, where he was attending an annual event honoring the Pulitzer prize winning chronicler of turn of the century Midwest life who often liked to dress in men's clothing, refer to herself as William, and who fled to Pittsburgh and later New York City as soon as she had the chance,  and who later became the patron saint of culture and literature for Nebraska.  I'm sure she would be amused by the irony.   There are courses devoted entirely to her works given at UNL.

As it turned out, George, her great nephew, was staying at our hotel, so we planned to meet for drinks later in the afternoon and then walked down to Billy's on H Street (where all of the legislators meet) for dinner and what turned out to be quite an entertaining evening of stories about his family, and particularly his mother, Willa's niece, and the times she spent at the Cather house while she was growing up..  By the time we parted company with George we too felt an almost familial connection to the town and the Cather family.

There is not much to be said about Red Cloud that you can't find on some of the many web pages devoted to the town and to Willa Cather.  It is a quiet, substantial midwest town,  lots of brick buildings befitting a county seat, and one gets the sense that it is mostly intact, although no longer the hub of activity and commerce it once was judging by the number of empty store fronts and the prevalence of turn of the century photos seen here and there showing the busy vibrant place it once was.

While I get the feeling that there was a certain ambivalence to Willa and her strange ways while she lived   here, in the end she became the savior of this town that might otherwise have lost all sense of real purpose and gone the way of other ghost towns, were it not for her.  While there, we did become members of the Willa Cather Society and I have since read O Pioneers, My Antonia, One of Ours, and A Lost Lady. In the process, I have developed and even appreciation of the people and place of Nebraska.  These are a few odds and ends to add to a sense of place.  Unfortunately time constraints here like elsewhere limited photo opportunities.  

As you can see, this is the Red Cloud Post Office, built in the 1920's.  If there is any architecturally compelling reason why, I like to take pictures of the P.O.  where ever I am.  Unfortunately, I did not find out until later that there are 4 murals inside painted by WPA artists during the 1930's.  It's on my list of things to do if I get back there.

According to pamphlets given out by the Willa Cather Society, this presently unoccupied store front  that is now for sale, was the place of business used by Willa's father after they moved into town following a short and apparently unsatisfying stint at sod busting and breaking the land into something useful (see O Pioneers).

This is the drug store next door to the above picture.  That's about it for Red Cloud during this trip.  Looking back at this selection of photos, I could have done more.   Hope I will get the opportunity to fill in the blanks next time around.

                                                                              Pablo

Addendum, 2/24/13...

While nosing around a used book store in Mobile, Alabama, I came across this heavily used, frayed library copy of   Death Comes for the Archbishop.  Fifth printing, December 1927.  Four dollars.  A find at twice the price. 

Pablo