Every once in a while I stumble on a writer who can take me out of my current environment (hot, humid Florida) and plunk me down in a different time and place (a frozen Nebraska winter). Willa Cather is one of those writers and the book is O Pioneers!
I'm not sure how I missed this book until now, but I'm glad I pulled it off the shelf for a look-see. Penned in 1913 by Willa Cather (1873 - 1947), much of the tale reads like stories I've heard from my aunts and uncles on my mom's side. Mom and her siblings grew up second-generation Texas homesteaders (almost wrote panhandlers, but I don't think they would appreciate that moniker.)
My great-grandmother Annie Arnold Beck (1872 - 1961) mirrors Ms. Cather's path through life to a certain extent. As far as I can recollect, great-grandmother, Annie Arnold Beck was born and raised in Paris, Texas. Sometime after her marriage to Charles Clinton Beck, they packed up and moved to the panhandle to homestead, with four little girls in tow (the oldest, my grandmother Elizabeth). They lived in a dugout for the first year or so while the house was constructed and fields were plowed.
Mom and her siblings were two generations younger than Ms. Cather (she was born in Virginia and moved to Nebraska as a child.) But with the timing of the dust storms the hardships in the late 1920's through the 1930's were very similar to what is recorded in the story of O Pioneers! The dangers of getting lost in storms (dust or snow), the loving care spent watering trees for an orchard or shade, tending gardens and flower beds, caring for all of the livestock are all echoed in the book.
The ending of the story is a bit romance-melodramatic for my taste, but overall Ms. Cather's writing is wonderfully rich and descriptive.
Give Writing a Try
I decided to write about this book because of the Finding Your Global Soul workshop TWA is hosting next month (9/14/19). O Pioneers! illustrates how to capture a place and time so well I thought it was worth a mention as an example fictionalized memoir.
If you have a desire to capture some of your experiences in prose for future generations there is no time like the present. You can carve out 15 to 30 minutes a day to make notes, flesh out characters, and outline possible storylines. There is no one specific way to write a book. The main thing is to make a start and train yourself to work on it at the same time(s) a little each day.
There are several writing groups in Tallahassee who would love to help you get started:
TAN - Tallahassee Authors Network (open monthly meeting)
Tallahassee Writing Group - Member's only - must join through Meetup
TWA - Tallahassee Writers Association (open monthly meetings)
Comments