Efforts made to save Willa Cather’s birthplace

The National Willa Cather Center in Nebraska and the Cather family is seeking donations to help purchase and restore her birthplace located in Gore.

The Pulitzer Prize winning author and Frederick County native’s home has fallen into disrepair and is in risk of collapse.

Significant restoration is needed to preserve the home with costs estimated at $200,000.

Cather’s works including Sapphira and the Slave Girl have increasing interest to contemporary scholars and preserving her birthplace could attract visitors to the Shenandoah Valley.

The home has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978 and was last visited by Cather in the 1930s.

The Willa Cather Birthplace Fund has already raised over $20,000 and you can chip in by donating here.