Red Cloud, Nebraska: Willa Cather’s Lifelong Muse

by Sue Repko
As I drove west toward Grand Island, Nebraska, the psychic battle for my literary allegiance kicked into high gear. Would I continue my personal race to Denver along the s-curve of federal highway 30 and the Platte River, a la Jack Kerouac? Or would I take a roundtrip detour of several hours to visit Red Cloud, hometown of Willa Cather, whose novel My Antonia had left me years ago with a yearning to see the stark beauty of the Nebraska prairie and the frontier town that inspired so many of her novels? As a mother of two back in New Jersey, I had a finite amount of time for this so...