On day two of my stay in Asheville I walked over to visit the Thomas Wolfe Memorial site. Wolfe (1900-1938) is considered one of the best American writers and he happens to actually hail from Asheville. His two most famous novels, Look Homeward Angel and You Can't Go Home Again, are sort of auto-biographical and deal with his character's (or actually his) life there and include a lot of local people.
I always say it is typical that a very prolific or especially inspired writers, or artists in general, must surely come from a slightly dysfunctional background. Otherwise, how would they have any material to write/sing about... Well in case of Wolfe that is certainly true. He was the youngest of several children. His parents married rather late in life, for his father this was the third marriage, and Tom's mother replaced wife two who was by far the love of his father's life. His mother came from an extremely poor family and was determined to never go hungry again. She was a penny-pinching shrewd businesswoman, totally unorthodox for a woman of that time. She ran a huge boarding house. And while her husband and most children lived in the family home a few streets away, she and little Tom stayed at the boarding house (called The Old Kentucky House). Anyways, enough of the back story.
Here are some photos from the house. I showed up first and only for the first tour of the day and had the undivided attention of the tour guide. It was really cool to see the house and hear the story behind it. I love seeing old houses, furniture, etc... Plus I vaguely remember reading Wolfe in college so I thought I owed it to my first degree (MA in English) to go there...
One side note... Julia Wolfe was charging $1 per night at her boarding house. Now at the time, the Grove Park Inn had just been built and while it was considered tops of the tops from the beginning, it was not that unbelievably expensive by comparison... This is an original ad for the hotel. It's hard to see but it says:
'Absolutely fireproof, water piped 17 miles from Mt mitchell, Biltmore supplied milk and cream, 400 rugs made in France, bathtubs and fixtures all solid porcelain, no pipes or radiators visible, great fireplace that burns 12 ft logs. All that for $5 a day!!'
That's right! $5 a night! Ha!
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