The Life of Willa Cather
One of the many authors who’s works we have read this year is Willa Cather. Cather is an author who in a way I feel I can relate to. Cather not only writes about Nebraska in many of her novels, she is also grew up in Red Cloud, The same town as me.
Willa Cather was born on December 7, 1873 in Back Creek Valley , Virginia. She was named Wilella after her aunt on her fathers side of the family (Norris). Later in her life she would have her name changed to Willa. In 1883 at the age of nine Willa Cather traveled by train with her family from Black Creek Virginia to Red Cloud Nebraska. After arriving in Red Cloud the family moved to the country about sixteen miles from town. In the year 1884 one year after moving to Nebraska Cather moved into town to a house on third and cedar Street, which is still standing today. Cather said that she had trouble adjusting to life out on the prairie, but would soon come to adore it (Ahearn).
In the year 1890 Willa Cather moved to Lincoln Nebraska to attend the university and study medicine and science to become a physician....
Maggie was born in Woodland, Mississippi. Her parents were Jim and Maude. Her father was a sharecropper, even though he was more educated that the man he worked for. He was the leader of the farm, other than the fact that the white owner got all the money.
Born in Cederville, Illinois, on September 6, 1860, Jane Addams founded the world famous social settlement of Hull House. From Hull House, where she lived and worked from it’s start in 1889 to her death in 1935, Jane Addams built her reputation as the country’s most prominent women through her writings, settlement work and international efforts for world peace. In 1931, she became the first women to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1917 to Edwin and Edna Horne. Unfortunately, Horne’s father left the family when she was only three. Since her mother was an actress with a black theatre troupe that traveled, she lived in places like Georgia, and Miami. She also stayed with her grandparents for a while. After their deaths Horne moved in with a family friend. Shortly after she moved back in with her mother, whom just gotten married.
She was born on April 4, 1802, and she was also the oldest of three children. When she was younger her father was not home very often and her mother was not very involved with them. This forced Dorothea Dix to pretty much be the person to raise her and her siblings. When Dix was twelve, she left home to live with her grandmother in Boston. Dix later moved in with her aunt who lived in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Sandra Day O'Connor was born March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas. Her parents, Harry and Ada Mae, owned the Lazy-B-Cattle Ranch in southeastern Arizona, where O'Connor grew up. O'Connor experienced a difficult life on the ranch in her early years. The ranch itself did not receive electricity or ru...
Cather, Willa. O Pioneers!. Eds. Susan J. Rosowski, Charles Mignon, and Kathleen Danker. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1992.
What is a mortician, and what exactly do people in this profession do? Morticians have many different responsibilities, most of their responsibilities revolve around taking care of the dead, helping the living go through the grieving process, and managing a funeral home. Being a mortician is not a career for everyone. Because morticians often have to work around the dead and the grieving many people would find the job emotionally exhausting and stressful. The schooling required to become a mortician is a deciding factor in whether or not a mortician or funeral director will be employed in their industry. Without morticians and funeral directors, funerals would not be what they are today. Choosing to be a mortician is not for everyone; morticians have an important role in modern day society as well as a challenging one.
Willa Cather's novel My Ántonia dramatizes the effect the frontier has on both native-born people and immigrants that come to the West in search of new beginnings. The story centers around two families living in a remote area of Nebraska from completely diverse backgrounds. This tale suggests that regardless of where a person comes from, the trials and tribulations of living under such tough conditions will ultimately impact his/her future existence. Cather's characters, no matter the age or heritage, are continuously re-defined, as if reborn, into a new life by surviving the harsh realities of the frontier. Much of the creation of these characters takes place in the very first book of the story, with the middle books only showing the individuals sense of disconnection from the land from which they've come to make their living. They either love the frontier life, or they seek to escape it and create a new life for themselves elsewhere. The final book reunites the two main characters, Jim and Ántonia, and brings them full circle: back to the place where it all began.
On April 4, 1802 in Hampden, Maine, Dorothea Lynde Dix was born to Joseph and Mary Dix. Due to her mother's poor health, Dix assumed the household duties of tending to the house and caring for her two younger brothers from a very young age. Meanwhile, her father traveled as a preacher who sold religious books that Dix and her family stitched together. Her only escape from her responsibilities, were in the occasional visits she paid to her grandparents on her father's side, during which she became very close to her doting grandfather; therefore, his death in 1809 left her aching. Eventually, Dix became frustrated with her pressing responsibilities and home life, so she fled to her grandmother's home in Boston, where her grandmother attempted to instill proper manners and etiquette, however Dix did not take well to her instruction, so she was shipped off to her cousins in Worchester. Finally, surrounded by other children her age who possessed good manners, Dix developed the poise and skills that defined and followed her throughout the rest of her life (Morin).
Dorothy Day was born on November 8,1897 in Brooklyn, New York. She was raised in San Francisco. Dorothy read almost her whole local library. She read all the time and she was deeply affected about what she read. She read about many social problems that inspired her to do good.
• Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. She was born into a poor sharecropper family, and the last of eight children.
The Nebraskan prairies are beautiful and picturesque and set the scene for a memorable story. Big farm houses and windmills placed throughout the graceful flowing golden yellow grass become a nostalgic aspect of Jim as he leaves his childhood life behind. The frontier includes destructive and depressing winters and luscious summers that affect Jim's family and the immigrants. The gloominess of winter and the suicide of Mr. Shimerda provide memories that associate Jim's recollections with nature's seasons. The Christmas season provided faith to persevere through winter and the exchanging of gifts made happy memories, which Jim could not experience if snow darkness did not exist. The summers were most unforgettable though. The smoldering sun and fertile land made growing crops easy. The immigrants references of roads lined with sunflowers as opportunity inspired Jim to appreciate the splendor and bountifulness of the land. Later Jim encounters these pathways, now concealed because of erosion, remembering that "this was the road over which Antonia and I came when we got off the train . . . the feelings of that night had been so near that I could reach out and touch them with my hand. For Antonia and me, this had been the road of Destiny" (Cather237).
Dorothea Dix was born in Hampden, Maine on April 4, 1802. Maine at the time was part of Massachusetts. Hampden was a very small town of only about 150 people. Most of those residents were very poor, including Dix’s family. Her father was Joseph Dix, a traveling Methodist minister. She very much felt the effects of her father’s strict religion. Her father had her sit for hou...
Published in 1913, Willa Cather is the author of O’ Pioneers!. Set in the Nebraskan Prairie, Cather tells the story of Alexandra Bergson. Far from stagnant, Alexandra is a very complex character because of her independence as a woman and her acceptance of others. Analyzing some aspects of Cather’s life provides insight into O’ Pioneers! , specifically, why Alexandra’s character traits and choices make sense. If Cather consciously or subconsciously influenced Alexandra’s character with her own, then Alexandra’s independence could be due to Cather’s career success and Alexandra’s tendency to welcome outcasts and to judge gently could be due to Cather’s gender struggles and to her lesbianism.
Hildegard Peplau was born in 1909 in Pennsylvania. As a child, she saw the devastating effects of the flu epidemic in 1918, which greatly influenced