Gene Stratton Porter
Last week in this column I began the story of the once popular
author, naturalist and nature photographer, Gene Stratton Porter.
The Hoosier native introduced and estimated 50 million readers
to Freckles, A Girl of the Limberlost, Laddie
and many other characters in her dozen novels.
She wrote many scholarly nature books, but when she wrote novels
they were always spiced with interesting bits about the creatures
and plants of her beloved Limberlost swamp.It was there near
the town of Geneva, IN, that she built her Limberlost Cabin.
However, as the need for more farm land grew, the great swamp
was drained and Porter's first natural laboratory was lost. There
is a Limberlost State Memorial marking the place.She found a
lovely, secluded spot about 100 miles north of that first cabin
near Rome City, IN, and bought 150 acres which included Sylvan
Lake.
She built the second Limberlost Cabin overlooking the lake and
surrounded by the vast, undeveloped forest of Limberlost North.Here
she was provided with a rich source of material for her nature
studies, writings and photography. Named Wildflower Woods it
became her home in 1914.
Although these two retreats in Geneva and Rome City were called
cabins they were both two-story homes with rustic touches.The
new place was a 14-room home built of Wisconsin cedar logs according
to Porter's plans which included a darkroom.
Inside the first floor was panelled throughout with local wild
cherry. On this floor there are three handsome fireplaces. One
is of polished English brick, one of puddin stone, and the third
is built with stones collected from other states and Indian artifacts.
Since 1946, 34 acres of the original 150 and the Gene Stratton
Porter home has been a state memorial administered by the Indiana
State Museum and Historic Sites Division of the Department of
Natural Resources.
It is open to visitors from March 11 to Dec. 14. It is closed
only on Mondays, Easter and Thanksgiving. Tuesday through Saturday
the hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m.
There are picnic tables and admission is your donation.There
are a number of routes from which to choose to reach the memorial,
but one would be 69 north to Route 6, then west to Route 9 and
north toward Rome City.
Signs point the way to the memorial.Guided tours are given
through the home. You will see the chandeliers Porter designed,
the watercolor moth prints she painted are enclosed in a glass-doored
cabinet and her reference books are on the book shelves.
Stills from the eight movies produced from her novels are displayed.
You can look out over Sylvan Lake from the window she called
her million-dollar picture window, certainly a novel idea for
1914.
In the conservatory, where she did much of the writing for
the five books that were born here, many of her popular works
are available to purchase.Sadly Gene Stratton Porter's life was
snuffed out when she was struck by an automobile in California.
Even sadder was that she was far from her beloved peaceful Wildflower
Woods, a sanctuary dotted with wildflowers, alive with fat chipmunks
scampering about and colorful birds darting through the tree
branches.
Shortly after she moved to this second Limberlost, she wrote
a friend describing a quiet skirmish she and a neighbor farmer
waged. Near the house there was a huge hollow beech which was
home for a pair of great horned owls.
Occasionally they raided the farmer's chicken yard, and the enraged
gentleman was determined to do them in with poison bait. Equally
determined Porter glided Indian-like through the forest nightly
just before the owls took flight to snatch the death-laden bait.
This amazing woman, sometimes called the Lady of the Limberlost,
sometimes the Bird Woman, explained to her friend that she had
a theory that the balance of nature must not be upset.
All these years later we have learned how right she was.Dorothy
Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident whose column is published
each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle.
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