December 7, 1873
On this day author Willa Cather, destined to become one of America’s most important Western authors, was born miles east of the prairie. But her writing would vividly capture the flavor of the frontier on the cusp of the 20th Century.
Early illustration of Winchester, Virginia
At the age of nine she was uprooted from Winchester, Virginia, a green and settled community platted before George Washington was a teenager, and dropped into Red Cloud, Nebraska. It was newly carved from the sod and populated by recent arrivals. Cather would leave the heartland behind less than a dozen years later but it would dominate her literary life forever.
Red Cloud, Nebraska circa 1880s
The best known of her dozen novels is “My Antonia,” a young man’s reflections on his boyhood and the lost love of an immigrant girl. Published in 1918, it was actually the third of her autobiographical “prairie triology,” all set in Red Cloud. “O Pioneers.” the first of the triology, had been published five years earlier and told the story of Swedish immigrants. “Song of the Lark,” in 1915 chronicles a gifted young woman’s struggles for artistic success in a small town and eventual escape.
Cather on campus at the University of Nebraska, circa 1892
Cather did just that, escape. She entered the University of Nebraska in Lincoln in the early 1890s. A virtual poster child for home schooling, she had attended 
the local public schools but had received a more classical education in Latin and literature from her mother, Mary Boak Cather. (Right) She put it to good use, becoming the first drama critic for the local newspaper, the Lincoln Journal.
After graduating from the University in 1895, however, she returned to Red Cloud, teaching English for a time before once again leaving, this time for Pittsburgh. As editor of the “Home Monthly Magazine” there, she began writing short stories to fill its pages..
Her 1905 book of short stories, “The Troll Garden,” caught the attention of 
S.S. McClure, (right) publisher of the powerful “McClure’s Magazine.” Credited with developing modern journalism’s “think piece” McClure’s tackled a variety of controversial subjects, publishing work by some of the country’s leading writers the likes of Jack London, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson,
With the publication of “My Antonia” Cather vaulted into the ranks of literary a-listers. Her poetic prose and her focus on the land as the main character set her apart from other writers of the day. But Cather’s “west” was not the robust frontier of Frederic Remington. It recalled instead the quiet endurance of settlers captured in stoic images by Solomon Butcher, photographer of a hundred Nebraska “soddies”.
Photograph of a pioneer sod house by Solomon Butcher
“My Antonia” is considered by many to be Cather’s finest novel. Four years later, “One of Ours,” the saga of a young man going to war to escape the stifling environment of midwestern farm life, was the one that received a 
Pulitzer Prize. It set the tone for Cather’s later books that would both celebrate the freedom of endless horizons and condemn them as a barrier to artistic success. (Right, Cather, 1912)
Cather defected from the heartland’s vanishing prairie to the American Southwest in “Death Comes to the Archbishop” and to Canada’s north woods in “Shadows of the Rock.” When critics began to characterize her writing as overly sentimental she began to lose faith in the American ideal.
Her conservative, anti-war sentiments in the 1940s and her relationship with Edith Lewis, (right) her long-time companion and editorial collaborator led her to sever ties with Red Cloud. A poignant trip back to her hometown for a family reunion in 1931 was her last.
Living sporadically in New York, Europe and Canada the next 16 years Cather finally devoted her writing to criticism and nonfiction. She died in New York City April 24, 1947 at the age of 73 and is buried in Old Burying Ground Jaffrey Center, Cheshire New Hampshire. Edith Lewis was interred next to Cather in 1972. She died in New York City at the age of 89.
While Cather had given up on Red Cloud, her hometown had not given up on her. The Willa Cather Foundation, begun in 1955, is headquartered in Red Cloud and is dedicated to preserving the archives and settings associated with Cather’s works.
She was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1962 and the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1988. Perhaps what would have no doubt most gratified the author, however, was her induction in 1986 into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Willa Cather Center, 413 N Webster St, Red Cloud, Nebraska, includes 
her childhood home, museum, archives, art gallery and performing arts center. The Willa Cather Foundation also provides a guided tour of seven historic Red Cloud venues which takes in the Cather House. Not a walking tour, but a “drving tour.” Tour fee is $25 but a guided tour is optional and visitors can opt for the free self-guided tour.
Admission to the Center is free. Summer hours, April 1 to September 30 are 9 to 5 six days a week and 1 to 5 Sundays. From October 1 to March 31, hours are 9 to 5 weekdays, 9 to 1 Saturdays. Closed Sundays as well as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter and Fourth of July.
In addition the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie, five miles south of Red Cloud comprises more than 600 acres of grassland and several miles of trails. Just off Rt. 281, it is open to the public daily. For more information go to willacather.org or call toll-free (866) 731-7304.
© Text Only – 2019 – Headin’ West LLC – All photos – public domain or fair use.
Head On West strives for historic accuracy and uses a number of sources considered reliable. When research differs on significant facts, the various points of view will be cited.