Meet the Author; Mildred Bennett: The World of Willa Cather

I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say.

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. The world of Willicathor by Mildred Bennett is the newest of the Bison Book series. The Bison Books are original works and re -issues of books of permanent value in all fields of knowledge, quality paper bounds published by University of Nebraska Press. To introduce us to the world of Willicathor, here is Dr. James E. Miller, chairman of the Department of English at the University of Nebraska. Good evening. It is entirely appropriate that the University of Nebraska Press publish a book on Willicathor. Willicathor, before she was known, was a graduate of

the University of Nebraska, and later on when she became famous, the University bestowed on her an honorary degree. Sinclair Lewis is quoted as saying, Willicathor is greater than General Pershing. She is incomparably greater than William Jennings Bryan. She is Nebraska's foremost citizen, because through her stories, she has made the outside world known Nebraska as no one else has done. Stuart Edward White must have had Willicathor in mind when he wrote, The Mini passed that way, unseen, wrapped in the discomfort of dust, of daily toil, of thirst, and hunger, and fatigue, and saw in it only a hinderment to travel, and a labor to be overcome. The Mini would so continue to have passed, were it not that someone among them, at some time, brought there the outreaching

spirit of appreciation, and so, for the first time, introduced their beauty. The Mini is now deeply populated, the rich soil yields heavy harvest, the dry, breathing climate, and the smoothness of the land. They make labor easy for men and beasts. The wheat cutting sometimes goes on all night, as well as all day, and in good seasons, there are scarcely men and horses enough to do the harvesting. The air and the earth are curiously mated and

intermingled, as if the one were the breath of the other. The Mini is now deeply populated, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons. The Frank enjoys in the open face of the country, and the heavy grain bends toward the blade, and cuts like velvet. The Home Stairs were few, and the Mini is now deeply populated, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons. And far apart,

here and there, a windmill, gone against the sky, a sod house, crouching in a hollow, but the great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its somber wastes. The Home Stairs are now deeply populated, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons. Winter is settled down over the divide

again, the season in which nature recuperates, in which she thinks to sleep between the fruitfulness of autumn and the passion of spring. The Home Stairs are now deeply populated, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons, as well as in good seasons. The town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska table land, was trying not to be blown away. Some of the dwelling houses looked as if they were straying off, headed for the open plain.

Anna Pavelka, the inspiration for Maya Tania. Anna Pavelka, at 82, still had what Willa Kathar called,

the full vigor of her personality, battered, but not diminished. I peeped over the edge of the bank to see the little stream that made the noise. It flowed along perfectly clear over the sand and gravel. Down there on the lower shelf of the bank, I saw Antonia seated alone. She looked up when she heard me. Anna

Pavelka, the inspiration for Maya Tania. Antonia was out in the field from sun up until sun down. Whenever I see her come up the furrow, shouting to her beasts, sunburned, sweaty, her dress opened at the neck and her throat, chest, thus plastered, I used to think of the tone in which poor Mr. Schumerde exclaimed, my Antonia. As I wandered over those rough pastures, I had the good

luck to stumble upon a bed of the first row to my grandfather's farm. The reins had made the channels of the wheel -ruts and washed them so deep that the sod had never healed them over. They looked like gashes torn by a grizzly's claws. We saw a curious thing. A great black figure suddenly appeared. On some upland farm, a plow had been left standing in the field. The sun was seeking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun. Evening in the flat land,

rich and somber and always silent, the miles of fresh plowed soil, heavy and black, full of strength and harshness. The forest or place, as it was called, was encircled by porches to narrow for modern notions of comfort, supported by the fussy, fragile pillars of that time, and every honest stick of timber was tortured by the turning lay into something hideous. The cities of the dead indeed, the cities of the forgotten,

of the put away. But this was open and free, this little square, of long grass, which the wind forever stirred. Nothing but the sky overhead, and the many colored fields running on until they met the sky. The graveyard had only a light wire fence about it, and was all overgrown with long red grass. The fine snow, settling into this red grass, and upon the few little evergreens and the headstones, looked very pretty. He stopped by the windmill to look up at the frosty winter

stars and draw a long breath before he went inside. That kitchen with the shining windows was dear to him, with the sleeping fields and bright stars and the noble darkness were dearer still. After this glimpse into the world of Willacather, it is our pleasure to present Mrs. Carey Minor, age 92, a lifelong friend of Willacather, interviewing Mrs.

Sherwood is our featured author, Mildred Bennett. Thank you, Dr. Miller. Mrs. Sherwood, would you tell us about the first time you saw Willacather? Well, the first time I saw her was in the store, and she was sitting on the bay shelf back at the shoe counter, having a pair of shoes fitted. She was a very attractive child and apparently quite reserved and principally occupied with the answering her father's questions, which he was playing her with as most parents he was trying to show her off, I suppose. And I think maybe that I was as much attracted by her costume as I was by her face. She was dressed in

those days, they didn't have fabrics looking like fur, like they do nowadays. But Willac had on a coat and a hat that looked like leopard skin, and of course that was very unusual in those days. What year was this Mrs. Sherwood? 1883? About 83, I suppose. And Willa would be 83 or 4. She would have been 9 or 10 years old then. What questions was her father asking her? Oh, he was asking her questions about the history of the colonies in Virginia, and he was a great historian himself, and I think he had her pretty well posted and very proud of her being able to answer his questions. Well, then you watched her grow up in Red Cloud from that time on, would you tell us what kind of little girl she was? Well, of course,

in a very short time they moved into our neighborhood, and I found her quite reserved in a way, and also very free. She was like two people. She was one to me and another to the children. She associated with my sisters, who were one younger and one older than she, and they were playmates, but with me she was a companion. What did she want from you? What was her, aside from the companionship, what was she continually trying to find out from you? Well, I don't know. She was always asking questions. She was constantly asking questions, and she used to walk with me to the store, and we'd stand outside the door of the store and talk, and one day my father said, what under this sun do you spend so much time with that child

for? She's too curious, and so that was trouble. What did she always asking for questions? What did she want to know about? What sort of thing? All about the people. The store was always filled with foreign people, and she was always, if she saw them, then she wanted to know about them, and she'd have questions to ask about them. Some of these people she used later on in her books. They came back to life in her writing, for instance, like Silas Garber. I never knew what she was asking questions for, but as long as she was interested, I always tried to answer her. About that time, Annie Pavellka or Annie Sedgillac came to your place. Tell us something about the sort of girl Annie was, because later on she became Maya Antonea. Well, Annie was a very beautiful girl. She was about 16 years of age, and she

had a wonderful complexion and beautiful hair, and a very state -by position for a girl. She was interested in everything, and she was unusually kind. She was just about my own age, and so we really enjoyed Annie, and I think she enjoyed us. I was always interested in her, because of the way she took hold of everything that Mama was trying to teach her in her American way. Of course, your mother was the Mrs. Harling in Maya Antonea. Do you think that Annie was pretty much the way Willockathor described her in Maya Antonea? You think that's an adequate picture of her, and an adequate one of your home life, too? Yes, very, very. It was very true. She compared it to Mama. She thought that Annie was one who liked to feed children and see

them in comfortable warm beds. That was Annie. In fact, your brother even had a favorite hickory cake that's mentioned in Maya Antonea, and I understand you still have the recipe in the family for that hickory cake that Annie used to make. Well, the important part of that cake was picking out the nuts, and I suppose the children did that in the kitchen. Hickory nuts, you know, were not easy to, they were in the first place, they were hard to crack, and then after they were cracked, they were hard to pick out of the shell. Sometimes took Annie a week to pick enough for, make a cup full for a cake. We would think that was a very tiresome job, now we'd go to the store and buy them. Tell us about Willa Cather's visits back to Red Cloud after she became famous. What did she want to do, mainly? What things did she remember and want to repeat? Oh,

visiting over Governor Garbers, and going out in the country, the places that she had lived when she first came to town, and meeting the people that she knew for so many years. What was her favorite method of traveling on these trips, if it was possible? Harson Buggy, she liked the Harson Buggy days, and she just liked an automobile very much, and she didn't have very much confidence in one, and she had less confidence in the drivers usually. Tell us about the time she came in the winter and went up to visit Annie, and it was such bad weather. Oh, she was bound to get out there that she sent out into the country for somebody to put the runners on their wagon box, make a sleigh out of it, and so she could go over the snow. Oh, and that would have been at least a 14 mile trip, wouldn't it? It was about 14 or 15

miles. Yes. Or were bad roads too. Tell us how Annie entertained Willa when she came. How Annie felt about Willa? Well, of course Annie was a marvelous cook, and she always had good food, and she sought to it that the children all got in, and got seated at the table, and were served, and that the things were prepared that she knew that Willa cared most for. Tell us what Willa said about Annie's children, her sons, particularly. Well, one day after we left the house, and we're on the road homes, she said, all those boys of Annie's, she says, they were worthy to be the sons of the grand douche. She says, one is always standing. They're always at this side when I get into the car, one holding my shell, and one holding my

purse, and all was ready to wait upon me and help me. Tell us the one thing about life that Willa Kather hated the most, her feeling about change. How did she show that when she came home? In her feeling about the countryside changing and the trees and the young people? Well, of course she didn't like changes, but then there was nothing she could do about it. She could talk about it, no, but there was nothing she could do, but she resented just the same. Well, what did she really hurt her? I think it really hurt her to see many of the changes because she liked the old ways. What did she feel about the children of the pioneers? Well, she didn't approve of the fact that they had forgotten about their parents and so ready to take on new ways. She's too bad. She brought that out in one

of ours, I think, more than in any other book, how she felt. At least after that time, one of ours was the book where she hated the mechanized ways of farming and the washing machines and so on that she told about. Tell us, I think, probably she, at that time, felt like I feel today that there's too much of that sort of business you can't keep up with it. That's right, you can't keep up with it. Tell us more about the Kather family. They live just a block from your place. Yes, when they moved in to town, you might say next door neighbor. There was just a vacant lot and an alley between their house and ours. And as a matter of fact, I think the Kather children spent as much time at our house as they did at home. Tell us a little about Willa's grandmother, Boke, who seems to have been a great influence on her and of course she wrote about her in Ole Miss's Harris. Well, I

really love Grandma Boke. She was a very interesting woman and she interested me because during the Civil War, she was on both sides. She's right in the midst of both sides. One day she used to tell me one day she would go to one camp and the next day she'd go to the other one and carry food to the boys. Well, she was a very wonderful person. Oh, wonderful person. And had a great influence on Willa, I think, from what she wrote about her. Well, I think she had a great influence on me. I was almost as curious in asking questions about Grandma Boke because Willa was of me. Willa Kather said several times and she said it in one of the letters to you that the things that impressed her the most happened to her when she was a girl, that her whole life was influenced by what happened up to the time she was 15. In reviewing her work in your mind, do you think

that's true that what happened there in Red Cod were the important years to her? Oh, certainly must have been because it was her whole life. And that's what she used thereafter. Yes. Did you ever ask her about how she felt about her life work and did she give you any answer about how she felt about her work? Oh, yes. Once when she was home, after she had written several books and done some very notable work, I said to her, were you satisfied Willa with choosing literature as your profession? She said, oh, yes, Carrie. She walked up and down the floor. She said, oh, yes, yes. She says with Antonya, I feel that I have made a real contribution to American letters. And you feel that too? Surely. Well, I think that the great many people would agree with you on my Antonya. And thank you very

much, Mrs. Sherwood. Well, we are done now. That was a very fine and valuable interview. And now, to discuss the newest bison book from the University of Nebraska Press, the world of Willa Cather, is our author, Mildred Bennett. And to discuss with her, her book, her work, is Esther Montgomery, who is the TV teacher in the Lincoln

High School system in English. And next to her, Robert Huff, who is from the Department of English at the University of Nebraska. And I have, in my hand, the very handsome copy of the world of Willa Cather, with its picture of the landscape of Nebraska on it. And I'd like to compliment the press and also Mrs. Bennett on this book. There are some 48 pictures of Willa Cather and the family in the book, about 285 pages, and it sells for a dollar and a half. And the very worthwhile bargain it is, too. It's available at all the local bookstores, I take it. I'm sure it is. And one of the big values of that book, it seems to me, is that it gives you so much source material for the characterizations, which we get in the different stories. I'm sure that no scholar can work on Cather without consulting this book, because it's filled with material, that is much of it no longer available. Thanks to Mildred

Bennett, a good bit has been saved, that is conversations with people who are no longer alive, material that would have been destroyed, had she not been there to capture it and save it for the very fine memorial that she's built up at Red Cloud, Nebraska. I think we ought to ask her some of the experiences that she had in saving the material and collecting the material. For example, the pictures. Now, where did you get all these pictures of Cather? There are pictures here from the beginning of her life, to a very fine picture here when she was with McClure's. Well, I'll have to thank Mrs. Sherwood for nearly everything that we have in the way of pictures. She had been collecting these things over a long period of time. This edition has two new pictures, which were obtained in Winchester, Virginia. We have Willa Cather's birthplace in this book, and also a picture of the old mill that she describes in Sapphire on the Slave Girl. But most of the family pictures came from Mrs. Sherwood, who had known

the family from the time they first came to Webster County. Well, you really devoted your life, or a good portion of it, to saving this material, collecting these pictures. And I think you have 150 letters or something of that sort, don't you think? Well, we have around 200 now. 200 in the memorial. Well, I've spent 15 years on it so far. Well, it's very valuable and important work, because much of this would have been lost. Yes. I'm sure that all authors are eventually autobiographical in their works, but Willa Cather seems to me preuminately so. And perhaps this comes out of some theory of writing that she had. That she had to write about people that she knew, or they were so interesting that she wanted to write about. Well, I think she couldn't help herself. I think as she stated in some of her private correspondence that she couldn't write about something, unless it had hit her heart. And I think it was probably not a choice on her part, but a compulsion, because she didn't invent at all. She had to use things that had happened. That she knew about. That she knew about that had emotionally involved her. I

think it would be interesting to turn to one particular novel, Maya Tenea. Mrs. Montgomery was saying a moment ago that she was particularly fond of that novel, because she taught it. Yes, and so have you. But I think that that is a tribute to the greatness of the novel, that it appeals to high school people and university people equally well. Particularly the ones who are of a second and third generation, who still have stories current in their families of the troubles when they first came to this country. They love that book, and they can supplement the stories that are in there. I think this book is one of the finest that we've had so far, in presenting the ideals of the Midwest, as well as the hardships of it. This is a book that I have given frequently to friends overseas,

friends in different countries, who want books about Nebraska. And it's a book I like to see our exchange students take back with them, because I think it is Nebraska at its best. We saw a little while ago Anna Pavelka. Yes. Did you know her? Yes. She was still living, and I spent a number of hours with her. She was just exactly the way she's described in the book. Every time we went to see her, she had to give us something to eat. And very often she would have baked collaches, just before we got there, or was just baking them. And we had to have coffee and something to eat every time we went. Otherwise, she didn't feel that the visit was complete. And she always wanted to give us something too. She used to do a lot of crocheting, and she'd always bring it all out and want to give us something. She did that with everybody that came to see her. She was a very outgoing, generous person. How did she feel

about having been the original of Antonia? Well, this is the version of the book that is used in the schools, isn't it? Yes. A girl in Omaha who came from Red Cloud sent Annie a copy of this book. And when she saw her again, Annie said, the kids, do they like me? She identified with the fictional character. Yes. The kids, do they like me? And they could assure them that the kids they loved her. They still do. Did she hear? It seems to me that she, well, a cat that reaches her height there in the characterization of Antonia. When she's had two girls in her earlier books, who were more or less successful, but they're successful with the difference. There's Thia in the song of the Lark, who becomes a great singer, but she pulls out of this country completely. Alexandra, but she is a successful business woman, a ranch woman. Antonia

is a successful everyday woman. Yes. Well, of course, both the Alexandra and Thia are very sterile personalities, whereas Antonia is well -rounded and she's a fully developed person. No matter what tragic experiences she may have had, she comes out of them. She gets adjusted. Well, she was like that. She was really writing about a person who lived. Couldn't be downed. No, she couldn't be downed. Is she also the model for Mary in a neighborhood? Yes, she is. I would like to ask one question, and this would involve your book. Did Anna Pavelka ever mention that there were differences between her real life and how she turned up in the book? Or did she always think that Willekather had sort of transcribed her exactly and captured her exactly as she was in the book? Well, she didn't ever make any comment that things were different from what the

book says. She told me one time about writing home with those two Russians. Oh, really? And she had to drive the team for the two drunk Russians. They fell over in the back of the wagon and she had to drive it. And after she told me, she said, now, how would you like to have that happen to you? And every time she told some one of these tragic or dramatic experiences, she'd always end up with, well, how would you like to have that happen to you? Yes. Well, Anthony has always seemed to me as somehow larger than life. It's almost hard to believe that she ever really existed after finishing the novel because she's become a kind of, I think, one critic has called her Earth Goddess. She becomes a kind of symbol of mythic proportions by the time we finish the book. And it's sort of bringing it back down to Earth when you think that there was someone who really was the original Antonea. Well, her last thought before she died. And she died eight years to the day

after Willoughather on a Sunday. One of the very last things that she said was, I think that everybody ought to be able to get along with everybody else. This was in view of the world situation, which she did follow very closely. And then she asked the doctor if what was going to happen. And he shook his head and she said, it is well. And that's the way she died. She accepted things that happened. I think she was just as large a person, just as great a person as Willoughather made her. Willoughather has some magnificent characters. I think really that her stories center around her characters and, of course, the environment. And the part that the environment plays in molding the characters. I'm very interested in the other girls in the Antonea arena. And in China, it seemed to me, in a sense, as compared with my Antonea, they make successes, but a little different way. And I think probably Ms. Kather thought, perhaps not as great a success radius, Anthony. I think there's a good contrast there between Lena and Antonea. Antonea had a

very difficult home situation as a child. And yet she wanted a home of her own. And she became a very successful wife and mother. Lena, with a home much like hers, was so turned against it she wouldn't even consider Mary to remember. She just thumbs down on the whole thing. I think it was so wise that she gave those two reactions to comparable situations. Well, if you remember in her description of the girl, Lena, there's always something cold about Lena. Yes, very cold. I don't know just exactly how she makes you feel that, but Lena is a cold person while Annie is a warm. Anderson, as girls, Antonea accepted her life from year to year, made the best of it. Lena was always in revolt. Yes, she didn't want to have a family and work the way her mother had. I want to come back to something I mentioned a moment ago, about the relationship of Willa Kather's work to reality. And I know that Willa Kather, and you say,

talk about this in your book, that Willa Kather considered herself an artist. And she had a concept of art. In your researches, did you find that she was generally transcribing life, copying it in a sense, or remembering it, or remembering it through others? Or was she doing something in the process, which is her art, which makes her a great writer, something more than simply historian, and putting down things that actually happened? Oh, she did something definitely to the material. That's where in her art lies. And I think the easiest place to see that is in death comes for the archbishop. If you read the account that was written by Father Hollett, and then you read the same thing when Kather tells about it, you can almost go page for page, but there's where you can see the art. The ordinary historical way of telling it in the artistic way, oh, she definitely transformed. I wouldn't want to say that she took things literally and put them down. They were merely the sources, but

certainly not the end, because there was a transmutation there that was magic as far as I'm concerned. And one of those bits of artistry, it seems to me, that come up in everything she wrote. It would be just single sentences put in here and there, with a world of philosophy. You were speaking of death comes for the archbishop. You remember one night when they were eating supper, and one of them said there's a thousand years of history in that soup. You know, you can think about that. Well, that was Kather. You see, she always wanted to go back and put depth. She was always looking for the depth. Well, she was very much tempted. You know, in her very first letters back from Europe, when she was visiting the old Roman ruins, and those old ruins in England, she said there's a terrible temptation to go back and try to reconstruct this time. Of course, she was always. But she could do it with the country around here, too. You remember when Jim Burton was writing out here from Virginia, and they were going across in Nebraska Prairie, and he said,

and all day long, it was Nebraska. That's the best description of it. I guess that's true. I'm interested, too, in her process of writing. Mrs. Bennett, did she rewrite much? Did she go back in polish, or was she more of an inspirational kind of writer who didn't like the temper after she once got things done? No, she rewrote and rewrote and cut. I think she said, if Sophia and the slave girl that she had eight pounds of material, and she went back and cut and cut, and she called it stripping the material. That's the way she achieved this ideal that she talks about in her essay on writing, and not under 40, you know, the unfurnished novel. Yes. And she had them furnished to start with, and then she stripped off, and she think... She worked hard at it. She said, enjoyed it, but she worked at it. It was not something she tossed off in an odd moment. That's a good phrase, the unfurnished novel, I like it. You know, in some histories, literary history, she turns up in a chapter called the

local color movement, and this has always irritated me, and sometimes she's associated with Edith Wharton and Ellen Glassgo, because those people are connected intimately with specific areas of the country. I've always thought the term local color minimizes a writer, and certainly it does not seem to be suitable for such a great writer as Will the Cather, because although she wrote about Nebraska, she wrote about universal things. It was more than simply the local dialect or local customs. What she got at, I think, ultimately, was the basic things that all the great writers have written about basic human emotions that are not peculiar to Nebraska, but her universal. Do you think this is...? Yes, I think that's true, and she said this in one of her letters that you have to write about things that are true and things that are universal, and she was conscious of that. No, I would never classify her

as a local color person, because otherwise, why would the girls in Japan be crying over Lucy Gayhart, and why would they have Maya Antonya translated into Russian? And you wouldn't do that with a local color, right? Yeah, the Italians, certainly, respond to Maya Antonya, too, is something that they understand. Well, for example, in this whole problem of migrating from one country to another, and you haven't referred to in everything that she writes, but mentions Nebraska. There are always those two large classes of people that type who can adjust themselves to the new country, and they really find it a land of opportunity. I don't care whether it's the United States or where it is, and there are those who go to paces, and who degenerate, and who either find refuge in suicide as Mr. Shemerda did, or who become alcoholics as some of the other characters in the book did. You'll find that from the North Pole to the South Pole,

right? That's true anytime. How do you think about her attitude toward Nebraska small town? I know that there were many in Nebraska who didn't like her when she was here. And because they thought that she didn't portray them, you know, in a very good light sometimes. And it seems to me, even in my Antonya, there is an ambivalence in her attitude that she's very strongly attracted to Black Hawk as a place where there are very fine values, especially in the hired girls and in Antonya. But at the same time, there's a stifling atmosphere about it, and that comes through very, very well. And it's an atmosphere of misplaced values. These people, the general, the majority of the people, are not perceptive enough to see the value of the hired girl. And you get that in Antonya. So

it seems to me that she comes out. The Catholic comes out with a kind of ambiguous attitude toward the Nebraska small town or the American small town. There are some things there that are very fine value. There are still some things there that are very hard on the individual. Well, that's true. She did have this feeling of both love and hate. But it wasn't confined to the small towns. She felt the same way about Pittsburgh. And probably about any other town in New York. About Lincoln Park. And New York, she hated New York, but she stayed in New York. She couldn't work away from New York, and when she was in Pittsburgh, one of the sources of the story, the sculptor's funeral, was because of the fact that she went to a funeral in Pittsburgh. And she heard the people saying, oh, he never mattered much. She didn't make any money. Any money. The rest of the family are rich. As she reported all this, when she was in Pittsburgh, writing them for the paper, and her attitude about Pittsburgh there is

exactly the same attitude that you find sometimes projected against a small town. But I think it wasn't confined to any place or time. It was just that attitude toward the people who didn't appreciate. That's a very good point. I think that's a very good point. She hated that thicketed conventionality. She didn't care where she found it. That's what I mean. I like that's a chapter in my aunt and aunt. When she contrasts these immigrant girls who have the courage to come into town, do the most menial work there is, send back almost every sent they made, send it back to the farm for machinery which the people needed, and how they contrast it with the little narrow -minded girls who were living in the town. And the boys. You remember, since the boys were attracted to these foreign girls, but they wouldn't be sane with them. And the mothers were worried because they were afraid the boys would be.

But I like one sentence here that she uses. Anxious mothers need to felt no alarm. They mistook the metal of their sons. The respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in the black cute. Oh, that's a lie. Well, don't you think that's true today? Yes, and nearly all of a sudden I have to be black. In fact, it's worse now. Conformity is the big thing. But they don't have a life. Oh, yes. It does seem to me, though, that in reading through the look at there, that you find in her a kind of... she's being pulled in two directions. It's the drama of East and West, and culture lies in the East, and a kind of simplicity, a life of simplicity, and primitive values lies in the West. And she can't... she's pulled to the culture. She wants the music and the art and that kind of thing. This is East. But when she's there, she's a little unhappy because there are things that she's missing, the values in the West, in the

small town, or out in Colorado. She wrote about Colorado and Nebraska. I suppose, though, when she wrote about Colorado, she was really writing about Nebraska, transfigured. Well, when she wrote Song of the Lark, talking about Moonstone, she was talking about Red Cloud, although she put some sandheels in there with the arcs there. But... Well, I think even in death comes for the Archbishop, and shadows on the rock, although there's a little different setting. It seems to me there's a lot of Nebraska and of the Prairie and of the people in this place. Yes, because, as we mentioned before, she couldn't write about it unless it was something she'd experienced. And sometimes she seems to me rather unhappy. Jim was talking about the fact that she is pulled both ways. And I sense this in her books, too, that although she does have a great appreciation for Anthonya, there is the small town added to it, the bickering that she finds in the small towns. And even the large towns, it's not completely satisfied her. And I wonder, maybe, is she older? She wasn't completely happy. Well, no, I think she was not happy. I think she was probably never completely happy.

If she had been completely happy, she probably wouldn't have been writing. The tension would have been gone. But I think she was very unhappy, yes. Creativity may come out of the trauma. Well, I don't know. I don't know about that, but... I think it does. I wonder, since you spent so much time in the world over the catheter and tracing her, I know you travel far beyond Red Cloud to get material. And you've lived with her books. Now, what do you think is the best of her work? And I think you mentioned in your book that she thought, what's her greatest work? Do you agree with that? What is your opinion of her work generally? Well, I like my Anthony of the best, but I don't pretend to be a critic. I'm very fond of obscure destinies that book of three short stories. I like Death Comes for the Archbishop, but I think I'd have to go back to my Anthonya as my favorite of all of them. It seems to me that she gets more beauty. Do you remember the scene

where Jim Burden is going across the fields and the sun is setting and the shadows pull up the corn and stalks and so on? For anybody that's lived in the middle west and grown up in the middle west, that is beauty where you might not see it. I think she gave us beauty where we might not have seen it ourselves. I agree. I think there's a feeling in that book that she doesn't quite get in the rest of the books. And it's in the feeling it's not in the plot so much. It's in the feeling that Jim Burden expresses or the narrator expresses when he's talking about spring coming to Nebraska or when he's talking about winter or when July, the heat of July comes. Those are the most beautiful passages. And the symbolism she can work in. I'm thinking of that famous scene you remember when he went on picnic with the girls and just as the sun went down, it silhouetted a plow. That actually happened. She was walking on the south side of the river with a girl, a woman, who now

lives in California. And I have a letter from this woman saying that she was with Will look at it when they saw that plow. I was wondering if this could actually be and apparently it can happen if the light is just right. Because this woman says that she saw it with her. I think we ought to talk a little bit about what you've done in Red Cloud and the memorial that you have there. Would you explain what it is that people can see when they come to Red Cloud? Well, we have a number of things there that belong to Will look at her and scrap books and clippings and the letters, of course. Most of that material was collected by Mrs. Sherwood. Will look at her said to her one time, Carrie, what are you going to do with all this stuff I'm sending you? And Mrs. Sherwood said, well, someday, I hope there'll be a place for it. And it is in fulfillment of that dream which Mrs. Sherwood had for many years and which I have had, of course, in size. Started working on it 15 years ago. We have her honorary hoods that were given to her. We have autographed first editions. We have four

uneditions. We hope to have a library of everything that we know, definitely she has read. We have dioramas of different scenes. Then, of course, things outside the museum, you can go through the town of Red Cloud. It takes about an hour to take this tour. And you can see the town where the house where Whitcutter lived, you know, in... Back when were the trees? Well, it's... There's got trees around it. You can see the Grandparent, the Grandfather Burden's house. That was the Catherhouse. You can see Dr. McKibbie's house. That's Dr. Archie's house. You can see from... Well, about 20 different things that she described, quite literally, the default. Then, if you want to go out in the country, you can see all the country scenes she described. So that if you want to come and see us, you better plan on a half day, at least, you know, order to see and good weather, so we can get on the country roads. Tell me something. Since I come from an English department and the rest of us are teachers, and we are interested somewhat in scholarship. If you say you have 200 letters there, are these available? Can people look at them? Or are

they... Does her will prohibit the... The will prohibits publishing them. It doesn't prohibit that they may be read by scholars. I promised Virginia Faulkner that I wouldn't let anybody read those for a couple of years until I finished. But that... They're very precious. That is not a prohibition such as would be. Now, there are a lot of letters. For instance, there's a collection in Huntington Library. How many are there? Do you know? And Huntington would... They didn't tell me how many. I see. There are 13 that you can read, but there's enormous number you can't read. That can't be read until 50 years after the death of Willacather. There's a number in Newberry Library that can't be read. There's some Morgan... The Morgan Library in New York that may not be read until a certain period of time has passed. So there's a good deal of material around and it's going to be sometime, though, because our scholars can exploit it all. Eventually, it will be available, but I don't know how soon. I'm interested in the collection of those letters, where they collected... Did she collect

those and present them or has that all taken? Oh, no. Mrs. Sherwood had a number of letters. Oh, at Huntington? Well, after Willacather died, you know, her will said that none of these may be published and she had asked everybody to burn them. And so Zoetkins, who was an actress, put them there with a 50 -year prohibition on them. It's a very interesting story about the letters. I think now that our time is about up, I thank you, Mrs. Bennett, for being with us on the program. And thank you, estimate, government, Robert Huff. I want to read a passage, which I read earlier, which I think applies to Willacather. The many that passed that way, unseen, wrapped in the discomfort of dust, of daily toil, of thirst and hunger and fatigue, and sawing it only a hinderment to travel and labor to be overcome. The many would so continue to have passed where it not that someone among them, at some time, brought there the outreaching spirit of appreciation, and so, for the first time, introduced their

beauty. And so, I would like to read a passage, which I read earlier, which I read earlier, which I read earlier, which I read earlier, which I read earlier, which I read earlier, which I read earlier, which I read earlier, which I read earlier, which I read earlier,

which I read earlier. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.