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"They turned into another street and saw before them lighted windows; a low story-and-a-half house, with a wing built on at the right and a kitchen addition at the back, everything a little on the slant--roofs, windows, and doors."
-The Song of the Lark
After first living on a farmstead 16 miles from town, the Cathers moved into this rented house on the fringe of downtown Red Cloud. It is from this porch that Cather would watch street cars make rounds to and from her beloved Burlington Depot. Here, too, she would have spent many nights swinging in a hammock when the temperature soared during sticky Nebraska summers. Hammock hooks remain on the porch, along with the original bittersweet that Cather would have watched bloom each spring. Cather left this home in Red Cloud in 1890 to enter the University in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Note: The home was restored in 1967 when Dr. W.K. Bennett purchased it as a gift to his wife Mildred Bennett, founder and president of the Willa Cather Foundation. She donated this site, along with six other historical buildings, to the Nebraska Historical Society in 1978. The Willa Cather Foundation maintains these buildings.
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