After spending the first nine years of her life in Virginia and another 18 months on a homestead in south central Nebraska, Willa Cather’s family settled in the nearby town of Red Cloud. The oldest of seven children, Willa was given her own small bedroom in the attic. As a teen, Willa worked for a pharmacist in a local drugstore, where, as the story goes, she selected a bright, rose-patterned wallpaper in exchange for payment. She decorated the walls and ceiling of her attic bedroom with this paper, which she later recalled in both published works and private correspondence. Today, this space has become a historical highlight for visitors at the Cather Childhood Home, run by the Willa Cather Foundation.
Over more than 130 years, the wallpaper has been adversely affected by a handful of environmental factors that include: major fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity, leaks in the roof, an accumulation of dust, dirt, and debris blown into the attic from the windy plains, and light exposure from the north-facing window that faded the once vibrant wallpaper to a muted version of its original colors. Additionally, the wallpaper was adhered directly to acidic wooden boards, which resulted in horizontal tears in the paper along the board seams. The combined elements all contributed to the poor condition of the wallpaper. Discoloration, brittleness, tears, and losses to the wallpaper were some issues conservators faced in preserving the historic wallpaper.
As the wallpaper paste aged over time, the paper became loose in many areas and fully detached in others; some fragments were lost, particularly on the ceiling and sloped walls.
In 2019 Ford Center conservators reduced dust and surface dirt in Willa’s bedroom. This work was followed recently by major renovations to the home that included the installation of HVAC in the attic. Once the interior of the home reached a stable temperature, conservators returned to carry out an extensive stabilization treatment. They began cleaning every accessible surface in the bedroom, from floor to ceiling, between boards, and around every inch of wallpaper and exposed board. This was done with small brushes and HEPA filter vacuums. Following cleaning, loose and detached sections of wallpaper ranging from fragments smaller than 1/16” to chunks as large as a greeting card were reattached to the boards with reversible conservation-grade adhesives.
There were many voids where the wallpaper had been lost, exposing the wood boards beneath. This was unsightly and left delicate wallpaper edges exposed to further damage and more dust accumulation. To preserve as much original material as possible, these areas of loss were filled with modern paper toned with acrylic paints to match the background colors of the wallpaper. Conservators found the wallpaper had discolored irregularly due to uneven daylight exposure; some walls appeared yellow while others looked pink or green. For this reason, paper fills were toned in a range of colors and chosen to best match the surrounding wallpaper. More than 400 losses in the wallpaper were traced onto plastic film; toned paper fills were then cut from these templates and applied over the areas of loss to stabilize the paper. This is both a practical and aesthetic step, which also helps to improve visitor interpretation of the room.
Wallpaper fragments to be reattached and toned papers used for filling losses.
The pattern of the wallpaper was not replicated as part of the conservation treatment because it was determined to be cost- and time-prohibitive. Conservators and the Cather Foundation decided that simple, toned fills were adequate to reintegrate the overall appearance while preserving the history of the room. From start to finish, the project took two conservators about two months, from preparation to aesthetic compensation and everything in between. With the major building renovations and extensive conservation treatment, Willa Cather’s historic bedroom is now better preserved so it can be visited and enjoyed by the public for many years to come.
Cleaning debris off the ceiling.
The Cather family sold the home in 1904, but it was purchased in 1960 by Mildred Bennett and her husband. The Bennetts worked to restore and preserve the home, consulting with Cather’s sisters Jessica and Elsie and her close childhood friend Carrie Miner Sherwood on the home’s original layout and furnishings.
Mildred Bennet stands in Willa Cather’s childhood bedroom, c. 1967. Image courtesy of the Willa Cather Foundation.
Cather seems to have remembered this small, modest room affectionately. In a letter to her brother Roscoe, written in Maine in 1945, she said: “I have a funny little room in the attic here, with a sloping ceiling, like my ‘rose bower’ in our old first house. Do you remember? I can always work best in a low room under the roof.”
In her 1915 novel The Song of the Lark, she wrote of the young protagonist’s bedroom:
The ceiling was so low that a grown person could reach it with the palm of the hand, and it sloped down on either side. There was only one window, but it was a double one and went to the floor. In October, while the days were still warm, Thea and Tillie papered the room, walls and ceiling in the same paper, small red and brown roses on a yellowish ground.
Thanks to the Willa Cather Foundation’s continued preservation efforts, this unique piece of Willa Cather’s world can remain a place of inspiration and historical insight for years to come.
