Photograph courtesy of the Nebraska Division of Tourism. The dirt roads of Nebraska's prairies run straight as a wheat field furrow, intersecting at 90-degree angles. They outline the quarter sections homesteaded by 19th-century settlers, stitching the plains into a patchwork quilt that would make a farm grandmother proud. Windmills turn above stubbly cornfields and bittersweet vines climb the porches. Many of the settings are now protected by the Nebraska State Historical Society, including the old Burlington train station, the Episcopal church, and Cather's childhood home in town.
Local guides provide tours, and a map to the locations near town is available.
In the author's restored home, a taped narration echoes descriptions from The Song of the Lark while visitors gaze at the Brussels carpet, the wicker baby carriage, and the huge nickel-plated coal burner in the living room. These small quarters were the lap of luxury compared to the stark sod houses that immigrants lived in and Cather wrote about. Out on the plains, one gets the full worth of Cather country. Take a walk in the Nature Conservancy's Willa Cather Memorial Prairie, south of Red Cloud. Only 40 years ago Cather was out of fashion and all but forgotten in Red Cloud, according to Patricia Phillips, director of the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation.