Pilgramage to Willa Cather’s Home

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Paula from Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Hi, Paula. Welcome. What’s on your mind?

Well, I was responding to your invitation to share a passage of literature that I found particularly moving.

But I have a little story first.

Oh, great.

I grew up on the prairie in Montana, and then I moved to Wyoming, where I was still on the prairie.

And then I moved to Turkey, and I lived in Ankara.

I was on the prairie, but it wasn’t the same prairie.

So I started reading a lot of stuff from home, and one of the books I read was Willa Cather’s My Aunt Ania.

And so when I moved back after when the pandemic hit and the school was closed and I decided I’d come home for a year or so, I got back into reading more Willa Cather.

And I discovered that her home was only about six and a half hours away.

And since I didn’t feel like getting on a plane and flying anywhere, I thought I would drive there.

And I discovered that you could stay in her house.

It was actually her real house.

So I went on Christmas Day.

The house was empty.

It was all mine.

And I sat in her house, sat in her living room, read her books,

Slept in her room, I think it was her room,

Read her books in the morning,

And then I stopped at her museum and bought a whole stack of books.

And the passage I loved came from one of those books.

Oh, that’s lovely. Let’s hear it.

The setup is that it says Taya Kronenberg.

She’s a young Scandinavian girl who has a gift for music, and she has great things in store for her, but she’s still pretty young.

She’s like 15.

And this man named Ray, who’s not much, but maybe five, six years older, works for the railroad, and he’s always planned on a life with her.

But he gets hit by a train, and she’s called to his side, and he’s dying, but he doesn’t want to admit it because he wants to give her always eternal hope.

So this is the scene.

The spark in his eye, which is one’s very self, caught the spark in hers that was herself,

And for a moment they looked into each other’s natures.

Taya realized how good and how great-hearted he was, and he realized about her many things.

When that elusive spark of personality retreated in each of them, Taya still saw in his wet eyes her own face,

Very small but much prettier than the cracked glass at home had ever shown it.

It was the first time she had ever seen her face in that kindest mirror a woman can ever find.

Very good. Thank you. That’s so lovely, Paula.

And how emotional that must have been to sit in her house, in her chair, and read her words and feel like you know her

And feel like you were communicating or she was communicating with you from the decades, through the decades, over the years.

And I don’t know, through the ether.

It was especially when, you know, I was up in a room.

I tried to pick the room I thought was hers because there were several bedrooms upstairs.

And I slept upstairs in her bedroom, I hope.

And I chose the one that had the with I chose it from the view of the street because I there’s a passage in another one of her books where this professor doesn’t want to give up his office.

He’s got this like attic office and you want them moving, but he wants to stay there because he likes the view because he looks out and you can see just a little smidgen of a lake in the distance.

And that is where he escapes to when he’s stuck and he can’t find ideas to write about.

So I thought, you know, I thought if that view is so important, then she probably chose the room that had the best view.

So that was what I chose.

And I looked from the window to try to see what maybe she saw because it probably hasn’t changed all that much.

The houses in the neighborhood are all about the same age.

Paula, thank you so much for sharing that. That’s lovely.

You’re welcome.

And I think I might have to tackle some of Willa Cather’s books again.

Yeah, thanks for that memory.

Okay, thank you.

You’re welcome.

Bye-bye.

We’d love to talk about books amongst ourselves,

And we’d love to hear what you have to say about what you’re reading.

What’s a vivid passage that just struck you as worth sharing?

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