Cather official hopes deteriorating birthplace of famed author can be saved

As a preservationist who has been involved in restoring structures related to famed author Willa Cather, Ashley Olson’s heart aches when she considers the sad state of the writer’s birthplace in Virginia.

The clapboard home, along a turnpike near Gore, Virginia, has broken windows, peeling paint, rusty metal roofing and a sagging front porch.

The house has been deemed unsafe for visitors by a real estate agent and may have been vacant since the late 1970s.

Weeds, brush block passage

High weeds and brush block passage to the front door of a home where the Pulitzer Prize-winning author was born on Dec. 7, 1873, and baptized as “Wilella,” a name she later shortened to Willa.

A faded state historical marker along the turnpike denotes the significance of the dilapidated structure.

“We’ve had a lot of calls and emails over the years from concerned citizens,” said Olson, the executive director of the National Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, Nebraska. “It just pains me.”

But now the home — which the owner refused to sell a few years back to some preservationists and some Cather descendants —  is going up for sale. Olson hopes some individuals or organization can be found to save the birthplace.

At least one donor had stepped up already as of Friday evening, pledging $20,000 toward the $200,000 purchase price of the property. Some Cather family members, she said, are also contacting elected officials in Virginia.

“We might encourage Cather fans who are interested in making a gift or getting involved in an effort to save the house to contact us,” Olson said.

Too much to take on

She said that the Cather Foundation, which already owns and has preserved 12 structures related to the author in and near Red Cloud, doesn’t have the capacity right now itself to purchase the birthplace, a five-acre plot that includes a second house.

The new owner of the property, who took over after the death of the previous occupant in December, is putting it up for sale next week, according to The Winchester (Virginia) Star. Olson estimated it would take $2 million restore the sagging literary landmark, half a continent away.

“This one would be a lot for us to bite off,” she said.

Hoping others step up

Olson has reached out to organizations and individuals in Virginia in hopes something can be worked out.

“Historic preservation is a huge part of our mission,” she said. 

The Cather organization has not only restored an opera house in Red Cloud that was a favorite of Cather’s, but also her childhood home, the farmhouse where her family lived after first moving to Nebraska when Willa was 9 years old, as well as other structures mentioned in her novels.

The birthplace has been on the Register of Historic Places since 1978. Olson said the owner lived in a second house on the premises and indicated that he used the Cather birthplace as an office and writing studio.

Several years ago, Olson said a group that included some Cather descendants attempted to buy the property from the owner, Charles T. Brill Jr. But after they met the asking price, he backed away from the deal, Olson said.

The birthplace, meanwhile, continued to deteriorate.

Brill died in December at age 80, according to The Winchester Star, and the person who inherited the property is putting it up for sale.

Cather lived in the home as a baby. A year later, her family moved to a nearby house, called “Willow Shade.”

Olson said, Cather’s life in Virginia influenced her writings, especially her final novel, “Sapphira and the Slave Girl,” published in 1940. It  takes places in that region.

Cather, she said, had family members who fought on both sides of the Civil War, as well as family who held slaves and others who fought against slavery.

“She really struggled with her family’s role in the slaveholding culture,” Olson said. 

Cather visited her birthplace in the 1930s while doing research for “Sapphira and the Slave Girl,” which she described as the most difficult book she ever wrote. It took a decade to write.

“Her family stories and members of the region are really entangled in the book,” Olson said.

She added that conversations are ongoing with others interested in saving the birthplace.

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