By Connie L. Sheehan
Senior Fditor
For some students, the names
Neihardt, Sandoz and Cather arc
nothing more than buildings dotted
across a sprawling university cam
pus.
But lucky arc the ones who know
these names for their real worth;
some of Nebraska’s best-known
poets and authors.
“Nebraska does a good job in
honoring its authors,’’ said Ann
Billesbach, reference specialist with
the Nebraska State Historical Soci
ety.
Carol Miles Petersen didn’t plan
to become one of the leading experts
on the life of Nebraska author Bess
Streeter Aldrich, “the research just
snowballed that way.”
Petersen currently is researching
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Nebraska authors preserve Old West memories
: the first biography written on Ne
braska author Bess Streeter Aldrich.
While teaching at the University
of Ncbraska-Omaha, Petersen jok
ingly asked her class why everyone
writes about other Nebraskan authors
and not Bess Streeter Aldrich.
“And the class asked why 1 didn’t
write about her,” Petersen said.
Petersen said she first was asked to
represent Aldrich on a discussion
panel, then wrote an article and even
tually gave a presentation in
Elmwood, Aldrich’s hometown.
“Each time I had to do more re
search on Aldrich’s life,” Petersen
said, and it just kept growing.
Petersen said she gets most of her
information from Aldrich’s three
surviving children and from research
done in the archives of the Nebraska
State Historical Society. .
“The archives hold personal let
ters, telegrams and clippings, most of
them donated by family members,”
she said.
Petersen said Aldrich wrote about
160 short stories, all of which were
published, and ! 1 novels. One story
was illustrated by a young Norman
Rockwell, she added.
“Some of her books have never
gone out of print,” Petersen said,
“and in 1931 Aldrich was one of the
top three writers in the country ac
cording to sales.”
Petersen said Aldrich’s stories arc
historically correct.
“But she weaves the history into
the story so the reader isn’t even
aware of it,” she said.
Petersen said some of Aldrich’s
historical background comes from
her family’s pioneering experiences
and the later adventures of her own
life.
Her parents, James Warren and
Mary Wilson Streeter, homesteaded
in northeastern Iowa and Bess was
born the youngest of eight children in
1881.
Bess graduated from Iowa State
Teachers College in 1901 and taught
severed years. Bess then married
Captain Charles Aldrich, the young
est U.S. captain in the Spanish
American War.
The Aldrich family eventually
moved to Elmwood where Charles
and his brother-in-law decided to
purchase the American Exchange
Bank, Petersen said.
“She (Bess) didn’t want to move
to Nebraska because she remembered
how her mother used to pack old
clothes for the poor people in Ne
braska and she didn’t want to eat
dried apples and wear old clothes,”
Petersen said.
But Bess changed her mind after
arriving in the middle of a duststorm
to find her neighbors had set the table
with her china, fixed the dinner meal
and were waiting for her to arrive at
the new house.
“She realized Nebraska would
probably be a pretty good place after
all,” Petersen said.
Billcsbach should know how
much work is dedicated toward pre
serving these author’s pasts since she
served as curator for the Willa Cather
Historical Center in Red Cloud for 10
years.
The centers don’t use a “George
Washington slept here interpreta
tion’’ when setting up the centers, she
said.
“We want to show how these
places affected her writing,’’
Billcsbach said, “not that this is the
house she slept in or the chair she sat
in.”
Many locations in the town of Red
Cloud have been placed on the Na
tional Register of Historic Places, she
said.
The center includes six buildings
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and a variety of tours have been de
veloped for Cather fans who stop to
visit.
Visitors may take a town tour that
includes her home and the Red Cloud
depot, but this tour is held only twice
a day, once in the morning and again
in the afternoon, Billesbach said.
Tours are given throughout the
day of Cather’s childhood home,
which was detailed in her story “Old
Mrs. Harris.”
Visitors also may hike through the
“Willa Cather Prairie,” 610 acres of
native prairie developed by the Na
ture Conservancy, named in honor ol
the author.
“There is also a self-guided coun
tryside lour which directs drivers
through 40 mikjs of southern Webster
county,” Billesbach said.
Billesbach said that even though
Cather traveled extensively, the au
thor always thought of Nebraska as
home.
“She was tom between her travels
and her life in Nebraska,” she said.
But some Red Cloud residents still
remember when she lived in town and
it’s good that the information sur
rounding the author’s life is being
collected now before it’s forgotten,
Billesbach said.
Caroline Sandoz Pifer, sister of
author Mari Sandoz, says her family
wasn’t the visiting kind; everyone
always ended up at the Sandoz home
instead.
“And I’m still waiting for the
phone to ring,’’ Pifer said, referring
to the tours and individuals who visit
her Sandhills home to tour the memo
rabilia of her sister.
Pifer said between the tours of
college classes and elementary chil
dren, she works in her garden or on
the new collection of unpublished
Sandoz stories she hopes to publish.
“People arc always calling to ask
what these unpublished stories arc
about,” Pifer said, “and it would just
be easier to have the stories published
than to retell them every time some
one calls.”
Pifer said her sister’s stories arc
based on her life in the Sandhills and
the surrounding community.
Their parents were homesteaders,
she said, and the two adults and six
children lived in a three-room frame
house set in the Sandhills near Gor
don.
Pifer said Mari graduated from
eighth grade and passed her teaching
certificate exam.
“So, she was my teacher for a
couple years at the local grade
school,” Pifer said.
Pifer said her sister moved in 1919
to Lincoln and eventually ended up at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
to work on credit hours for another
teaching certificate.
Louise Pound influenced her writ
ing while at UNL and even took Mari
around town to read at poetry meet
ings, she said.
Her most popular book, “Old
Jules,” was published in 1935, Pifer
said.
“'Old Jules’ is a family story and
249 people from the area arc men
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tioned in the story,” she said.
‘‘Old Jules” portrayed the life of
her father, Pifer said, and even
though he seemed a little extreme in
his actions, everyone gets a little
ornery sometimes in life.
J^G
J^eihardt
Hilda Ncihardt says her father,
author John G. Ncihardt, loved young
people and included his children on
many of his adventures.
‘‘ He said that people his aue were
n’t enthusiastic enough,” Hilda said.
"They had lost their sense of won
der.”
She speaks of growing up in the
West her father knew and one can sec
her sense of wonderment for that
period still runs strong.
“It’s incredible to talk to someone
who knew all these people,” Hilda
said as she ran over the list of famous
old-timers her father often visited.
His appearance on the Dick Cavctl
Show in the early ’70s impressed the
host to a point where his “mouth
would just fall open” when her father
began to speak of his famous Old
West acquaintances, she said.
“ He made it a point to know all the
old-timers who were still alive at the
time.”
Hilda said her father did a lot ol
research for his writings and then
filled in this research with the first
hand information from these old
timers.
“A good example is the story of
Crazy Horse’s death, which was got
ten from an army officer present at
the lime,' ’ she said. “The officer was
so upset about the death that he asked
to be transferred out of the Indian
Services.’’
The author also used many of his
own childhood experiences in his
works, she said.
Born in 1881, her father spent his
childhood living in a sod house on the
Kansas plains, Hilda said. But even
tually the family moved to Nebraska
to join other family members.
After graduation, Ncihardt held a
variety of jobs but a highlight in his
life was his job as clerk with J.J.
Elkin, an Indian agent, she said.
“Here he got to know the Omaha
tribe very well,” Hilda said. “He
thought of them as fine people and
appreciated their way of life.”
John G. Ncihardt was appointed
Nebraska Poet Laureate in 1921, she
said, and remained so for 52 years, as
long as any Poet Laureate in history.
“Nebraska was always important
to father,” Hilda said.
Hilda said she currently is writing
her own memoirs about her father’s
trips.
“He didn’t write any personal
references, just the information ob
tained for his stories,” she said.
During the writing of “Black Elk
Speaks,” Hilda accompanied her
father three times during his meetings
with the medicine man, Black Elk.
Ncihardt said she was 14 years
old, old enough to remember, and the
memories are still very clear.
“Now everyone is dead - father,
Black Elk, the Indian agent and Black
Elk’s daughter - and if 1 don’t do it,
the memories will be lost,” she said!
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