Willa Cather--The Song of the Lark

Three examples why Willa Cather is so beloved; each proves without a doubt that utter simplicity is the gift of a true artist. (the last line) So, into all the little settlements of quiet people, tidings of what their boys and girls are doing in the world bring refreshment; bring to the old, memories, and to the young, dreams. (p 417) The sprawling old house had gathered them all in, like a hen, and had settled down over its brood. They were all warm in her father's house. Softer and softer. She was asleep.She slept ten hours without turning over. From sleep like that, one awakes in shining armour. (p 413) When the pianist began a lovely melody in the first moment of the Beethoven D minor sonata, the old lady put hout her plump hand and touched her husband's sleeve and they looked at each other in recognition. They both wore glasses, but such a look! Like forget-me-nots, and so full of happy recollections. Thea wanted to put her arms around them and ask them how they had been able to keep a feeling like that, like a nosegay in a glass of water.

DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP

I read Willa Cather's last novel in college without its making the slightest impression on me (whereas I can still remember exactly how overwhelmed with a desire to both laugh and cry I was over Anthony's awful fate in Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned ). What a treat to come back to Death Comes for the Archbishop when its compassion and straightforward writing and the sheer goodness of its main and supporting characters are so much more meaningful! How did Willa Cather understand a Catholic priest so well? Not just Bishop Latour, but Father Vaillant, too. She built two such different characters with their unique approaches to the roles as a priest, to their congregants, to their faith. And how did she--twenty years before her own death--re-create the last days and thoughts of a dying man so vividly? Her creative power to "pretend" is just remarkable! The landscape is as much a character in this as the priests, the Mexicans, and the Indians are: the breadth and variety of it is just gloriously portrayed. I'll remember the book for so many reasons. Her gentle humor is certainly one of them: "By the Gadsden Purchase, executed three years after Father Latour came to Santa Fe, the United States took over from Mexico a great territory which now forms southern New Mexico and Arizona. The authorities at Rome notified Father Latour that this new territory was to be annexed to his diocese, but that as the national boundary lines often cut parishes in two, the boundaries of Church jurisdiction must be settled by conference with the Mexican Bishops of Chihuahua and Sonora. Such conferences would necessitate a journey of nearly four thousand miles. As Father Vaillant remarked, at Rome they did not seem to realize that it was no easy matter for two missionaries on horseback to keep up with the march of history."

Willa Cather 1873-1947

I'm thrilled to have been invited to participate in a celebration next November of Willa Cather, a Cos Club member of very short duration (ooohhh! A mystery!). Sarah Gordon has pulled together wonderful letters from the newest published collection, one that has caused quite a stir for its confirmation of Cather's sexual preference, something she wasn't eager to reveal. Looks a bit like her estate couldn't resist making money off the announcement. Regardless... this evening will be a loving tribute to an exquisite writer, a compassionate woman, and courageous and independent citizen of the world. I'll spend this summer reading her novels, starting with the last, DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP (1927). The Saturday Review calls it "a masterly quiet narrative." The desciptions of the Western American landscape are so vivid, I can smell the pinon logs burning and see the white-washed pueblos shining in the sun. I particularly like this thought: (p 95, Modern Library edition) "The great tables of granite set down in an empty plain were inconceivable without their attendant clouds, which were a part of them, as the smoke is part of the censer, or the foam of the wave."

Small World

Wilma Epstein--possibly the friendliest, most generous woman not only at 331 East 71st Street but in all of NYC--hosted a New Year's get-together for our neighbors. The women here represent a vast range of ages, nationalities, and professions: from 91-year-old retired social worker Shirley Lipsky to less-than-a-year-old Elsie Wagner. Tonight, in an apartment decorated within an inch of its life in both Christmas and Hanukkah decorations, a retired fashion designer caught up with a personal assistant in wealth management, a grief counsel for Visiting Nurse Service of NY chatted with a long-time animal rescue expert, and I enjoyed the easy laughter, the older neighbors' collective memory (the area was still distinctly old-time Yorkville when Natalie Levison moved in in 1956, the year I was born), and the reassuring recognition that, on an island of a million strangers, I am right at home.

Malala Yousafzai

Let's see...when I was fifteen, I was hanging out in a rich suburb of NYC, listening to Carol King's "Tapestry," I had a crush on Andy Kuhn, I cheered the Horace Greeley Quakers football team on Saturdays, and fought with my mom over whether to wash my hair before going to bed. Fifteen-year-old Pakistan schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, on the other hand, is recovering far from home from a brazen, globally condemned Taliban assassination attempt because of her outspoken support for girls' education. Humbling. Even with the prospect of more surgery, in a strange country, Malala will continue to inspire young women everywhere to be brave and learn and grow. It's not enough to give her an A+ for courage; she deserves a doctorate in determination. God bless her.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth

I'm surprised Lillian Gilbreth (1878-1972) and her husband Frank, both pioneering motion study engineers, didn't film the births of their twelve children to determine the "one best way" to have babies. Two of her children wrote the 1948 bestseller, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, and Lillian comes across as the quintessential mother: settling arguments, putting on Band-Aids (or their early twentieth century equivalent), standing up for the kids to their blustery father and various irate adults. But the reality was she was Frank's equal partner in the science of industrial engineering, carrying on their work alone after he died when their youngest child was two and the oldest was a sophomore at Smith. She overcame a bias against women as business consultants and, in her years flying solo, engineered "efficiency techniques for the American homemaker. She developed important inventions such as the foot-pedal trash can, shelves inside refrigerator doors, and an electric food mixer." (© 2013 Penton Media Inc.) God bless her for that! I don't know what made her name pop into my head today as I was thinking of who to write about, but she's certainly proof that "If you want something done, give it to a busy person."--Lucille Ball (aha! Another wonderful subject!)

Faith Popcorn

"The biggest lesson I learned from Faith was to ask questions! Cultural curiosity is the key to prediction. The ability to understand 'the why,' even when the consumer doesn’t, unlocks powerful insights."--Tiffany Vasilcik, from a post on the Innovation Excellence web site, 10/24/12 To debut the Women of the Year blog this 2013 New Year's Day, I thought it would be interesting to look at the work of the futurist, Faith Popcorn. Faith must be a reassuring name for the corporations who hire her and her consultants at BrainReserve, the firm she started in 1974, to predict what consumers will be doing and buying next. The message above from a decade-long acolyte is simple, the key to success in any endeavor, whether we undertake it now or in the future. In THE POPCORN REPORT, published in 1991, she predicted we'd own our own android. Close, though not with quite the value she imagined (she thought we'd have androids to actually do physical work while what we have at present is a phone/toy that distracts us from occupations more worth our time). The firm's predictions for a "she-change" in 2012 certainly painted a glowing picture of "a new era of productivity and peace," thanks to how we would "rely on compassion more than competition...more innovation than invasion" (from FaithPopcorn.com). Let me think...ummmm...women's leaps forward in 2012...there must be something. Ah yes, Marissa Mayer's new job as CEO of Yahoo! just before she gave birth to her first child is encouraging...that's one. And then I see the death from gang rape of a young Indian woman who'd moved to the city for more opportunity, the shooting of an Afghani schoolgirl by the Taliban for her outspoken support of girls' education, Kathryn Bigelow's portrait of the female government operative who pursued Osama bin Laden for ten years to target him for death (I'm not complaining about the outcome!), and the lack of a credible female candidate for President or VP as proof that we're still a world modeled more on Maggie Thatcher than Mother Teresa.

The Next Generation

Sadly, I wasn't blessed with any children of my own. These three delightful, uniquely talented nieces will carry on the Whittingham promise into the future. The oldest, Elizabeth Ruhl, 24, (at her graduation from UNC @ Chapel Hill in 2012) is sensitive, caring, and so responsible. The younger two are the same age, 16: Kate Whittingham (goofing around here at about 7) is smart, strong-willed, and so determined; Claire Whittingham (having her portrait drawn by our family friend Lucy Phillips in July 2012) is athletic, brave, and so personable. Each has dealt with much more real-life pain than I had to in my childhood: Elizabeth's dad's winning battle against colon cancer; Kate's loss of her young uncle and her grandfather's struggle with Alzheimer's; Claire's abandonment by her alcoholic dad, my brother Philip. May they take the steps in 2013 that will bring them to the realization of their dreams.