Rachel Olsen, director of education and engagement for the Willa Cather Center, speaks to the Vestey Tea audience. Rachel presented the narrative of Willa Cather and Evelyn Brodstone's friendship and their similarities with their respective roles in life. Olsen is the Director of Education and Engagement of Red Cloud.
Those who attended the Victorian Tea, Saturday afternoon at the Vestey Center were exposed to a delectable taste of Victorian culture and history.
Nancy (Headrick) Brandt headed the committee which planned the event. She was assisted by Jan Boyles, Beverly Beavers, Vicki Williams, Sara Elizabeth Jane, Sandy (Wehrman) Jones, Elizabeth Headrick Ginther and Sidney (Price) Rokusek.
During the introduction, Brandt answered a series of questions she frequently fields. She and her husband, Darrell, purchased the Willy Miller residence, a large multistory Victorian home which has often been open for tours during past Vestey Festivals.
The Brandts are in the process of constructing a Victorian Carriage House. It will serve the family as a garage, sewing and teaching studio for Nancy and an apartment for their son.
Sara Elizabeth Jane was one of the committee assistants. Her grandfather was Dr. J.S. Butler, who once served as a Superior physician. Her father is the late Reed Butler. Sara Jane resides in Superior a few weeks each year at what was once her father's residence.
Elizabeth (Headrick) Ginther, is Nancy's niece. Ginther wore her grandmother's shoes as part of her Victorian attire.
The Victorian tea for upper class Victorian citizens was a light meal served between lunch, at noon, and supper, at 8 p.m. The afternoon tea (high tea) would include treats like cookies, candies and cakes, as well as sandwiches, fruits and nuts.
Brandt indicated it was also common for the working class at that time to serve afternoon tea. It was designed to provide a brief time of rest and refreshment for the working man.
Saturday's menu included decadent grapes, cheesy celery, caprese skewers, chicken salad croissants, cucumber sandwiches, cheesecake minis, chocolate eclairs, lemon bars, strawberries ala chocolate, lemon bars, strawberries ala chocolate, Darjeeling tea or Ceylon tea and citrus infused water.
The light meal was served on glass hostess plates with china tea cups. The tea cups were donated by the late Eleanor Harriger, a longtime Superior High School home economics teacher, whom Brandt had in high school.
A doll, a replica of Evelene Brodstone, made by Addie Meyer sat by the registration book.
Olsen talks of Brodstone and Cather
After a delightful early afternoon Victorian Tea, Rachel Olsen, National Willa Cather Center director of education and engagement, spoke at the Vestey Center dining room. She often conducts guided tours through the Willa Cather Center at Red Cloud. Prior to moving to Red Cloud eight years ago, she was a college English teacher. Her husband is a Red Cloud native.
Evelene Brodstone (1875-1941) and Willa Cather (1873-1947) were childhood friends. Brodstone lived in Superior and Cather in Red Cloud. Both were bright young women who were mutual friends of the Miner family.
One of the Miner daughters lived a century long and was instrumental in assuring the Cather Center had artifacts.
Olsen shared snippets of information about the girls. For example, at one time both had their hair cropped short. "There are many opinions and speculation as to why," Olsen said. "But it was popular at the time for teenage girls to crop their hair, which was a great irritation to their mothers."
The audience laughed.
"The friendship between Cather and Brodstone is a topic of current research being worked on by personnel at The Willa Cather Center," Olsen said. When the original Brodstone Hospital was dedicated, Cather wrote the words for the bronze plaque that hangs in the hospital today.
As time passes, much of Cather's work is moving into the public domain. The move frees the Willa Cather Center to encourage things that Cather forbid in her will - like having her literature works become films.
June 7, the Willa Cather statute will be unveiled in Washington D.C. at the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol along with Ponca Chief Standing Bear. It is to be streamed live at 10 a.m. (central time). It will be the first sculpture to represent one of the 50 states that is sculpted by an African American artist, Littleton Alston. Cather is the first Pulitzer Prize winner and twelfth woman to be honored in the collection.
Olsen highlighted several free events designed to whet participants interest in Cather and her literary works.
Cather once said, " I had searched for a book telling about the beauty of the country I loved, its romance, and heroism and strength and courage of its people that had been plowed into the very furrow of its soil, and I did not find them. And so I wrote O Pioneers!" The novel and others set in Nebraska help establish her career and introduce readers to a compelling time in Nebraska's history.
Olsen's presentation updated the audience on activities and events happening at the National Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud including the 68th annual Willa Cather Spring Conference, June 1 through 3, commemorating her 150th birthday. Cather's novel A Lost Lady, which was publish in 1923, and other works will be studied. Cather's childhood home and other structures are going through extensive remodeling.
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