How a 101-year-old linked to Willa Cather helped alter a small town's future

JARROD McCARTNEY

RED CLOUD - It's not unusual to catch sight of a celebrity in Red Cloud, population 962, especially during the annual Willa Cather conference.

First Lady Laura Bush has appeared here. So has writer Maya Angelou, Golden Globe-winning actor Paul Giamatti and a drumbeat of talk show hosts, TV stars, novelists and artists.

And yet a tiny, energetic, elderly woman often stole the celebrity spotlight, holding court about the life and times of Nebraska's famed novelist.

Antonette Willa Skupa Turner - Toni, to her friends - lived most of her long life in Bladen, an even smaller town down the road. She died in August at age 101 after spending her final few years in McCook.

For decades, a hush would fall when Toni Turner began to speak about visiting her grandmother's Orchard, meeting Willa Cather Foundation founder Mildred Bennett, or growing up speaking Czech at home and being chided for speaking the language of her babička at school.

Turner was Nebraska literary royalty, the granddaughter of Anna Pavelka, the real-life inspiration for Cather's most famous character in her most famous novel, "My Ántonia."

When Turner died this year, Nebraska lost one of its last connections to Cather herself.

"I couldn't tell you how many students and people of all ages she connected with over the years; She made the connections to Cather real for those people," said Tracy Tucker, the education director and archivist at the National Willa Cather Center. "Antonette could make you feel what those old days had felt like."

Turner was born in rural Franklin County in 1920 to mother Julia Pavelka Skupa. Skupa recalled racing out of the cellar on the Pavelka family farmstead to greet her mother's friend, Willa Cather.

A strikingly similar scene was depicted near the end of "My Ántonia."

Turner grew up about 10 miles west of that very farm. She ate Pavelka family Sunday dinners there and gathered supplies for the family meal from the famous cellar. She spoke Czech growing up and got teased for it, just like her grandmother.

Toni married Carrol Turner in 1943 and moved to Bladen. There, she collected the mail for her grandmother, who had also recently moved to town.

The two talked nearly every day for the last dozen years of Pavelka's life.

Turner's transformation into a Cather advocate and public speaker - the beginning of her presence in the scholarly world of Willa Cather - began with an invitation to speak to a PEO group from Kearney.

Turner declared it would be "a one-time thing."

Instead, she spent the next half century spreading awareness about Cather and Czech culture.

She was invited to speak when Chicago selected "My Ántonia" for its reading program in 2002. She gave Humanities Nebraska presentations across the state, telling stories about her family and its Cather connections. In 2016, she was awarded a statewide honor for helping preserve Nebraska's Czech heritage.

After Pavelka's death, Turner grew close to Mildred Bennett, who founded the Willa Cather Foundation in 1955.

Turner and Bennett made an odd pair: The Cather Foundation founder was reserved, bookish and urbane; The granddaughter of the real "My Ántonia" was gregarious, talkative and country to her core.

"Oh, we were real close," Turner said of Bennett in a 2017 interview. "She was real kind. A lot of people talked about her and her husband, how she spent more time with her books and things than with her family. But I liked her a lot."

Turner and Bennett's relationship mirrored that of Cather and Pavelka, Tucker said. Both sets of women developed lifelong friendships despite being at least superficially opposite.

One thing Bennett and Turner did share: A deep value for historic preservation.

Turner's support helped enable the restoration of her grandparents' farmstead, the creation of the South Central Czech Festival (now in its 45th year), and the endowment of two scholarships for first-year college students who write original work about Cather novels.

Bennett, Turner and other women laid the groundwork that made rural Red Cloud a literary and arts destination.

Today, Red Cloud has more historic sites dedicated to a single author than any other place in the United States. More than 10,000 tourists visit the town annually.

The Cather Foundation is still run by women. Many say that Turner changed their lives and careers.

Ashley Olson has worked at the Cather Foundation for 13 years, and run it since 2014. She credits Turner with inspiring her to "develop some of the characteristics that made her such a special person: her confidence, resiliency, and conviction. She managed to spur action in a way that seemed effortless."

Turner's example continues to spur action.

The Cather Foundation restored the Red Cloud Opera House in 2003. It restored the Moon Block - a city block of the historic Main Street - turning it into a National Willa Cather headquarters with a museum, archive, bookstore and three refurbished storefronts.

Turner's influence extends to even younger generations of women.

MaKenna Karr, an eighth grader from Turner's hometown of Bladen, invited Turner to Silver Lake Elementary School for a 2019 panel discussion. The event developed from Karr's summer 4-H project about her love of Willa Cather.

Karr, 11 at the time, and Turner, then 99, became another set of unlikely friends. Turner even declared that Karr was, "a little Willa Cather right here in Bladen."

Karr hasn't forgotten. "She was one of those people that was just joyful. She didn't have a mean bone in her body. I loved talking to her. She was full of information and was always ready to share it. She made everyone feel special...A sweet, beautiful, kind and pure human."

Since Turner died in August, Ann Romines has often thought back to a conversation she had with one of Nebraska's last real-life connections to Cather.

Years ago, Cather enthusiasts were debating which were more authentic: round or square versions of kolache, the Czech dessert. Romines, a George Washington University English professor, sought out Turner's expertise.

Turner told her that while her mother made them square, she herself made the round ones.

"I even make them out of that new frozen bread dough," Turner admitted. "The important thing is not to be stingy with the filling."

That was advice that Toni Turner followed herself in ways far beyond kolache recipes.

Said Romines: "Toni taught us that the important thing is not to be stingy with energy, with stories, with attention, love, and her bright, wide smiles."

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