Cather Homestead

Northwest of the New Virginia Church is the location of the Cather homestead—the Burden homestead in My Ántonia. Willa Cather came here in 1883. Even then she was aware of the light air, the earth, the sun and the sky, with hawks circling overhead.

“There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. No, there was nothing but land— slightly undulating, I knew, because often our wheels ground against the brake as we went down into a hollow and lurched up again on the other side. I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man's jurisdiction. I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of heaven, all there was of it.”— My Ántonia