Family History, Poetic Justice

Visiting North Carolina for work a couple of months ago, I found a nice surprise on the Interstate. These surprises often take the form of a brown sign signalling either a National Historic Site or Wildlife Reserve.  This was the former: the poet Carl Sandburg's home in the small town of Flat Rock, and it would be right on track for my trip back to the airport when work was done. It was, as they say, a plan.

Carl Sandburg Home, Flat Rock, NC

Carl Sandburg is actually the first poet I remember learning about in school. The first poem? Fog. Appropriate for a Newfoundlander, I guess.  
The fog comes 
on little cat feet. 
It sits looking 
over harbor and city 
on silent haunches 
and then moves on.

That, we were told, was metaphor! And while I'm sure that serious poets the world over now find it quite tiresome, there is no denying its power as an image. And don't be tempted into thinking that Sandburg had no muscularity as a poet; he told the sweaty, dirty history of the immigrant midwest, and he also wrote of love and desire. Here is the final stanza of "The Great Hunt," which he wrote about his wife, Lilian (or as he called her, Paula) Steichen:

I never knew any more beautiful than you: 
I have hunted you under my thoughts, 
I have broken down under the wind 
And into the roses looking for you. 
I shall never find any greater than you.

He had written poems for her while they were both working for the Social-Democatic party in Wisconsin. He would send her poems; initially, she would write back "Dear Comrade..." Well, it seems you can only ignore poetry for so long... six months in their case, and they were married.

This photo was taken by Paula's brother, the photographer Edward Steichen.

The Sandburg home, which Carl and Paula purchased in the late 1940s, was built in 1836 as a summer home by slaveholder and (later) Confederate Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Memminger. After Memminger died, it was sold, in succession, to two Confederate military veterans. Then it lay abandoned for some years until Paula, looking for a place large enough that her passion for goat farming and Carl's need for quiet could coexist, stumbled upon it. At more than 200 acres, it fit the bill.

Carl, Paula, and Jennifer.

Sandburg is reported to have commented that it was quite the manor for an old socialist like him. And, I suppose, for a supporter of the NAACP and the civil rights movement and a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of Abraham Lincoln, it was a kind of poetic justice.

Lincoln. That's where I came in. The house is at the top of a nice little hill, and it was a steamy day when I arrived.  Stepping inside the cool ground level entrance/gift shop, I asked the National Park rangers about the next tour, which was just 12 minutes away. With that wait and no one else around, it seemed rude not to make conversation.

"You know, I have a family connection to Carl Sandburg."

"Really?!" Their heads snapped to attention. "What is it?"

I explained that my mother-in-law was the great-great niece of Sandburg's friend Oliver Barrett, a  Chicago lawyer. Blank stares. "Never heard of him."

"Something to do with Lincoln," I said.  "Sandburg either wrote a book about Barrett, or Barrett wrote a book about him."

"Huh. Let's look him up."  And so down came a copy of Penelope Niven's Carl Sandburg: A Biography. A check of the index revealed a thick block of page references. The volunteer guide was almost breathless with excitement as he searched through the pages. Uncle Oliver was a well-known collector of Lincoln memorabilia and was a great help to Sandburg as he wrote his biography, and Sandburg in turn wrote a small book about him, entitled Lincoln Collector. The mater-in-law has a copy of it, possibly signed by the poet himself.

As tour time approached, another 2 women came in. "Ladies!" the guide called out to them. "You are in for a treat! This woman is from Canada and she has a personal family connection to Mr. Sandburg!"

We entered the house via the living room, left much as it was when Sandburg last sat in it in 1967. Paula and their daughter Margaret left the home for Asheville soon after Sandburg died, and the Johnson administration purchased it for the nation.


















Paula's study, full of the goats' championship rosettes. Descendants of those goats still live on site. I wonder if they've been furloughed in the Obamacare battle? I wonder what that old socialist Carl Sandburg would think.























Paula's bulletin board: the tapestry of a family, human and hircine.


















The day study, where Sandburg, with Margaret's help, dealt with correspondence. He was given many prestigious awards, but the only one he displayed was from the NAACP, recognizing his work for civil rights.























The night study, where he wrote:

Some of his thousands of books. I bet you Lincoln Collector is in there somewhere.

When it was all over, the guide took me aside and joked, "Too bad the connection was only by marriage. Otherwise we might have waived the entrance fee."

No matter. It was worth the cash.