Spring Conference

The heart and soul of the Cather Foundation can be found in the annual Willa Cather Spring Conference at the Cather Historic Site in Red Cloud. It is here that entrenched traditions of the Foundation are reinforced: kolache and coffee on Saturday morning, the service at Grace Episcopal Church, the St. Juliana Choir, the Passing Show Panel, country tours, banquets and luncheons comprised of the best of local cooking, and original performances on the stage of the Opera House Auditorium. Most important, members of the Cather Community from near and far renew acquaintances and share experiences. The Opera House and other historic buildings host a variety of presentations followed by open and invigorating discussions. In fact, the public discussions are uniquely robust.

We invite you to step into the heart of the Middle Ground and attend the 2008 Spring Conference. Below is a brief summary of the upcoming 2008 Spring Conference. Check this website for the official schedule and call 402-746-2653 to register. You won’t be sorry.

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The 2008 Willa Cather Spring Conference in Red Cloud, June 5, 6 and 7, promises to be one of the best ever! Literary experts from across the country will descend upon Red Cloud, all planning to share lively conversations with participants.

This year’s theme is “Cather and Her Contemporaries,” which includes discussions that involve authors such as William Faulkner, Bess Streeter Aldrich, Sarah Orne Jewett, Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, and others—all contemporaries of Willa Cather. The Willa Cather Spring Conference is known for events that include animated public discussions. Keynote speaker for the Passing Show Panel is Dr. Charles E. Peek, professor of literature at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, who will lead a panel of distinguished Cather Scholars. The Passing Show Panel will be held in the restored 1885 Red Cloud Opera House. Other discussions will take place at various historic Cather-related buildings throughout the community, including the Cather Childhood Home and the Harling House, setting for My Ántonia. In addition, Joel Geyer, one of the producers of the nationally acclaimed NET film of Willa Cather’s biography, The Road is All, will be on hand to host the showing of the film Saturday afternoon.

A special focus of the Conference on Friday is the Country Tour of sites related to Cather’s novel One of Ours. Included on the tour is the George P. Cather House, a key setting for the novel. This home has not been on the Cather Spring Conference tour for a number of years and promises to be a highlight of Friday events. Richard Harris of the Web Institute in New York City will be available for the Country Tour. On Friday afternoon, Harris will be the Keynote Speaker for One of Ours, with discussion to follow. Rare artifacts directly connected to World War I, which have been collected by Harris, will be on display, and Barb Sprague of Red Cloud will be at the piano, playing World War I popular music throughout the Conference.

The Conference is being held in June to accommodate a Cather Symposium on Thursday, June 5th. Scholars from throughout the United States will be reading and discussing papers especially prepared for this event. The day culminates with a Vespers Service conducted by Dr. Peek, with hymns led by the popular St. Juliana Choir.

The Gallery at the Cather Center will feature the work of British artist Steve Joy. Joy’s paintings are monumental in scale and impact and present a rare opportunity to view work done by a celebrated international artist. Joy will be in the Gallery to discuss his work on Friday at 10:00 a.m. A reception for the artist is planned for 4:00 p.m. in the Gallery on Saturday of the Conference.

Participants will not want to miss special banquets, receptions, the locally prepared salad luncheon, and special tours available during the three-day event.

Capping the three-day Spring Conference is a dance theatre work by Laura Diffenderfer called A Wagner Matinee, which involves video, photography, and dance. The program is inspired by Willa Cather’s short story, “A Wagner Matinee.” Already a portion of the performance has been previewed in New York City. Following the premiere performance of the entire program on the stage of the 1885 Red Cloud Opera House at the conclusion of the Spring Conference, the program will eventually return to New York City. Tickets are available to the public. Call the Opera House Ticket Desk at 402-746-2641.

A Chocolate and Wine Reception follows the performance on Saturday evening.

For a detailed schedule of events and lodging information, visit http://www.willacather.org/ or phone toll-free 1-866-731-7304. Pre-registration for the Conference is requested.

Joy

I have said before that the Middle Ground of the Cather Foundation is indeed broad—reaching out from its center in Red Cloud to the far corners of the world. But sometimes, the “world” comes to Red Cloud.

Today the Middle Ground of the Cather Foundation announces an exhibition of international art and joy—or, Joy with a capital “J.” To be precise, I want to talk about Steve Joy, a British artist whose work will be featured at the Red Cloud Opera House Gallery in June, as a part of the annual Willa Cather Spring Conference, scheduled for June 5-6-7. (See the 2008 Spring Conference Schedule at www.willacather.org.)

Joy is a painter who has worked and taught on three continents. He says of himself that he has for twenty-five years been “exhibiting his unique brand of exotically evocative art all over the world.” He has exhibited his work in galleries in Norway, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, the United States, as well as in his native England. Joy travels between England and his studios in Omaha and New York.

The Spring Conference itself will bring individuals from throughout the United States and occasionally from a number of foreign countries. Guests, as well as presenters, will include professional scholars, teachers, and lay people who study and enjoy the work of Willa Cather. Thus, it is quite fitting to also include an artist of national and international repute.



Joy says of his painting that “ . . . My current works include the somewhat romantic idea that exotic and mysterious places can be contained within painting—giving us all a taste of the unknown without having to make the journey ourselves. My paintings evoke thoughts of sacred places, abbeys, cathedrals, darkened candlelit rooms; and the perfume of incense and spices from the East . . . Most of all, I was thinking of silence—the kind of silence I connect to icons, especially the great icons of the Byzantine period.”

If you plan to visit the Cather Center Gallery when Steve Joy is exhibiting his work, plan to experience paintings that are exciting and monumental in size. Joy, always aware of his surroundings, will also be bringing some work inspired by the Great Plains. He will lecture on “Cather and Her contemporaries in the World of the Visual Arts” on Friday, June 6, in the morning from 10:00 to 11:00 in the Opera House Gallery.

Following Joy’s exhibition in Red Cloud, his work moves to the Joslyn Art Museum, June 28 – September 21, 2008, where a full-career exhibition will be featured, along with Joy’s new book, Steve Joy Paintings, 1980-2007: Uncreated Light. This newly released book includes beautiful reproductions of his works and places that have inspired Joy, including sites in Mexico, New York, Morocco, France, Spain, Norway, Italy, India, and Japan.

Please join us at the Cather Historic Site in June and experience Steve Joy’s impressive exhibition.

Restored Red Cloud Opera House Celebrates 5th Anniversary

On May 3, 2003, the newly restored 1885 Red Cloud Opera House was officially reopened and dedicated. The reopening five years ago was highlighted by an outdoor dedication, during which a number of dignitaries from throughout the state and the nation spoke and Marcy Thompson’s fifth grade class cut the ribbon. On stage that evening was James Ford’s production of The Bohemian Girl, which had also been produced in 1898 by the Anderson Company with Willa Cather herself in attendance.

The dedication was truly a gala event. There was much to celebrate that day. Twelve years of planning, fundraising, and plain hard work had gone into the project. Local individuals and people from throughout the country had contributed time, energy, and resources to make the restoration possible. At times, many had considered this to be the impossible dream, but it became a reality because the Cather Foundation Board of Governors, the Cather Foundation membership, and friends of the Foundation simply would not give up.

Today the Opera House is alive with activity. The Foundation offices, located on the ground floor, provide the “command center” for worldwide Cather-related activities. The gallery and auditorium are hosts to a wide spectrum of local, regional, and international talent. The facility plays host to a variety of business and professional groups. Weddings have been held there, politicians have spoken there, and, of course, the Spring Conference is centered in the facility. All of these activities and more reflect the same kinds of events that dominated the Red Cloud Opera House back in the late 1800s and early 20th century. Cather was at home in this facility then, and we like to think that she would be pleased with the events occurring there now. The restored Opera House has turned out to be exactly what those who made it possible expected.

Moon Block

Willa Cather renames Red Cloud again and again to establish settings for her various novels and short stories. In her fiction, Red Cloud becomes Black Hawk, Sweet Water, Hanover, Frankfort, and the list goes on. As a result, a certain amount of imagination, and maybe even a sprinkling of magic, has attached itself to this famous small town on the Nebraska Prairie. Adding to the magic is the Moon Block, located next to the restored 1885 Red Cloud Opera House. Moon Block . . . the name itself tempts one’s imagination to lift the little town right off the prairie and leave it hovering just beneath the moon—anyway the name has always struck me in just that way, though I don’t know that Cather would have carried it quite that far.

However, though the name sounds romantic enough and Cather certainly makes reference to it in her writings, any association with magic is soon dispelled when one learns that the name is derived from a man by the name of John Moon who named his building after himself. Moon built the Moon Block in 1886, just three years after Willa Cather and her family moved to Red Cloud. Cather would have been about thirteen when the structure was completed; and since the Moon Block takes up a good portion of one block on the west side of Webster Street, its construction would have caused some excitement in the burgeoning small town. The Moon Block held both offices and storefronts early on. Thus, it is in the completed Moon Block structure that Cather would have visited the office of Dr. McKeeby who would become Dr. Archie in The Song of the Lark, for example.




Located just to the north of the restored 1885 Red Cloud Opera House, today the Moon Block stands for the most part unnoticed—certainly undistinguished from the other store fronts located on this main thoroughfare. The Moon Block sports five business bays on the street level, three of which house the Red Cloud Hardware Store which has been in continuous existence since 1885, first physically beneath the historic Red Cloud Opera House itself and later moved to the Moon Block. The other two bays are empty at this time.

Overall, the two-story conglomerate is not in the best shape at this time, but this situation is about to change. The Moon Block is scheduled for renovation starting in this decade. The Cather Foundation has been the recipient of recent Congressional funding plus private contributions that now total over one million dollars, which represents approximately one-fourth of the necessary funding to restore the historic site. The main goal of the project is to create much needed archival space on the second level, but the restoration is essential, in part, because it shares a common wall with the newly restored Opera House. Obviously the structural problems of the Moon Block have become a concern.


Once the Moon Block is restored, the building offers many advantages to the Cather Foundation and many possibilities for economic development in Red Cloud. Because the Moon Block does share a common wall with the Opera House, the stage of the Opera House can be expanded on the north side and a green room added as well as dressing rooms. A freight elevator to the second floor will alleviate the problems of transporting sets and other stage materials to the second floor auditorium. The Red Cloud Hardware Store will be renovated, the Cather Foundation Bookstore expanded, and there will still be room for another business on the street level. Potential loft apartments in the second story have attracted considerable interest of Red Cloud area residents looking for good quality housing.

For the Cather Foundation, though, the planned archive offers a final solution to preserving its many precious Cather-related artifacts. A large section of the upper level is designated for the archive where internal light and climate can be effectively managed.

The name Moon Block might sound like it comes from someone’s exotic dream, but it is a definite structure identifiable in time and space. The real dream that so many hold is to make it come alive as a functioning part of the community of Red Cloud and, at the same time, save a national designed historic site that will become a repository for historic treasures important to our national literary heritage. If you want to learn more about how you can help this project become a reality, contact the Cather Foundation online at http://www.willacather.org/ or call toll free at 1-866-731-7304.

Travels with Ann

This past summer I had the opportunity to meet Willa Cather’s Virginia relatives, thanks to Ann Romines. Ann lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a professor of English at George Washington University, she is one of the most outstanding Cather scholars in the country, she is a member of the Cather Foundation Board of Governors, and she is an expert on Willa Cather’s Virginia connections. I was quite pleased when she invited me to attend the 50th Cather family annual reunion near Winchester, Virginia. As readers know, Cather was born in Virginia; lived there until she was almost ten years old; and, later in her writing career, completed a novel set in the area of Virginia where she lived as a child.

As the road trip up from the Washington DC area began, I knew almost immediately that I was with an accomplished tour guide. We soon passed Willow Shade, the home Cather lived in for most of her nine years in Virginia. I had toured this home earlier during the Virginia-based Cather International Seminar in 1997.

Ann was anxious to show me Cather’s great grandmother’s house and quickly found it. The house is the prototype for Sapphira’s house in Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl. Ann pointed out where the mill would have stood, though it is gone now.

We also viewed the house where Cather was born in what is now Gore, Virginia. (The name was changed from Back Creek Valley to Gore in the 1890’s.) Efforts are underway to save this home. There is much work that needs to be done fairly soon, I would guess.

On the road again, Ann continued to share the history of Cather’s family. We found the Round Hill Fire and Rescue Company building, which the Cathers had obviously rented for the day. Ann carefully carried in her blueberry buckle in high hopes that it would be a success. A success, of course, means that she would have an empty pan at the end of the day—and she did! I can verify that it was a delicious blueberry buckle.

Once inside, the scene was typical of my experience with family reunions. There were tables across the entire front of the large room where women were busy arranging casseroles, salads, cakes, and pies—all homemade from prized family recipes. I was soon to be initiated into the revels of home style Virginia cooking.

The main activity was eating. Once we had gorged ourselves and agreed that the food was wonderful, games were played and announcements made. There was a drawing for prizes. Being from Nebraska, I was excited to win the prize for coming the farthest distance.

As the reunion began to wind down, Cather family members were bustling around distributing the last of a very large supply of applebutter. The Cather family has an annual applebutter-making event. Ann and I left each carrying a jar of applebutter, the warmth of goodbye hugs, and invitations to come again next year. Ann also remembered to bring her empty dessert dish back to the car.

On the highway again, the tour continued and we were soon off on a side road, heading toward grave yards where Cather’s Virginia relatives were buried. Ann informed me that we had turned onto Hollow Road, one of the oldest roads in Virginia. We were traveling for the most part through deep Virginia forest with incredibly tall trees lining both sides of the road.

Occasionally the forest broke for an extended golden meadow, basking in afternoon sun. Ann knew exactly where to go when we arrived at the two graveyards, and we were soon again among Cather’s relatives—a silent reunion this time. Regretfully, we had to return to the highway.

Back in Winchester, I wanted to find the Larrick Tavern, which was founded in 1742. The Larrick name is common in the area of Bladen, Nebraska. In fact, my husband is related to the Larricks from that area. His mother used to talk about her Virginia relatives. I don’t have proof positive, but I suspect that the Larricks of Virginia and the Larricks of Bladen are from the same family. That would make sense. The Cathers were not the only Virginians to come to Nebraska.

We made a last stop at a roadside fruit stand, bought a half-bushel of Fredericks County peaches, which we then split between the two of us. I was made to understand that these peaches were the best peaches grown in Virginia. Yes, they were very good. Then it was back to the Washington DC area.

Back in Nebraska, visitors to the Cather Historic Site can receive guided tours through Red Cloud and the sixty-mile country tour of Cather sites. The tours become virtual tours through Cather’s six prairie novels. Ann’s tour provided the same experience for Cather’s Virginia novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl. I have also experienced Quebec, Mesa Verde, the Sante Fe area, Paris, and Provence. In each instance, the sites beautifully reflect specific Cather novels and each area claims the famed author. The “middle ground” is indeed wide.




Food is served at the Cather Family Reunion.






Ann talks with Cather relative Louise Cather. John Jacobs, Cather scholar from Shenandoah University, stands in the background at left.








Larrick’s Tavern in Winchester, Virginia.









Hollow Road, which we traveled to reach the cemeteries where many of Cather’s Virginia relatives are buried.