63

Looking Back--
Genuine Bohemian Lived in Hubbell

IF ANY one were to ask,
"Have you read any good
books lately?" I'd have to
put at the top of the list
"The Nebraska of Kate McPhelim
Cleary" published in
1958 by The United Educators,
Inc., Publishers
House in Lake Bluff, Ill.

The book, a collection of
short stories, vignettes and
verse, is the work of an
early-day (1884-1898) resident
of Hubbell, Neb., a
Thayer County community
south of Hebron almost on
the Kansas border.

A preface written by
Kate's son, James Mansfield
Cleary, one of six children
born in Nebraska,
calls attention to a number
of nationally known publications
to which Kate contributed
but adds:

"Her best work was that
inspired by the Western
prairies."

Intrigued

The book was brought to
my attention by Mrs. Glenn
O. Pearson.

She received it and another
volume of poems written
by Kate, her mother and
a brother, Edward J. McPhelim,
onetime literary and
dramatic critic of the Chicago
Tribune, from another
of Kate's sons, Gerald V.
Cleary of Winnetka, Ill.

When Mrs. Pearson and
the late Mr. Pearson were in
Hawaii in 1955, they met
Gerald Cleary and his late
wife.

After the latter's recent
death, Mrs. Pearson sent to
members of the family the
colored photographs taken
by the Pearsons of Mrs.
Cleary on that holiday.

In return, Mr. Cleary sent
the books to Mrs. Pearson,
who was so intrigued by the
subject matter and the
charming manner of its
presentation that she shared
her prize with me.

Hubbell, with a population
of 126, I discovered in this
newspaper's library, figured
in the news in 1961 because
of an old elm tree "believed
to be the largest in
the state (having) a spread
of 110 feet and a 14-foot circumference
at breast level."

But back in Kate's day.
The Sunday World-Herald of
April 23, 1893, devoted 2 1/2
columns to a story, "A Bohemian
in Nebraska," by
Elia Wilkinson Peattie (later
literary editor of the Chicago
Tribune and mother of
Donald Culross Peattie)
about Kate Cleary.

'Bohemian'

Mrs. Peattie's piece, reprinted
in "The Nebraska of
Kate McPhelim Cleary" and
verified by the microfilm
files of this newspaper, began
like this:

"It's not very often that
a woman is a bohemian--a
genuine Bohemian.

"And it must be confessed
that Nebraska is not
the place where one would
go to look for a woman of
that kind, and certainly he
would not journey all day
along the Burlington road,
over the prairie, to the tiny
town of Hubbell--the quietest
place, with prohibition
politics--to find such a
woman.

"Yet, there is one there.

"Perhaps some night you
will get in that little town
...about midnight. The
place will be black as Erebus
...But up the dark,
straight street one light will
be shining, and it will show
you inside...a group of
people in a room which does
not in the least look like
the room of quiet Nebraska
farming village...

"There never was a more
informal room--never. It's
a room where you say good
things if it is in you to do
it...

"And when you get in one
of those comfortable chairs
with a glass of beer in your
hand, and no particular care
whether it is time to go to
bed or not, and the Chicago,
New York and Omaha
papers at your elbow, and
new books and magazines
yet to be cut lying near...
then suddenly Bohemia has
come to you, and the Nebraska
praise with its hard
working, quiet living people
seems very far away..."

Empathy

Kate Cleary doesn't mention
Hubbell often in her
stories but she frequently
speaks of "Bubble" and refers
to Chester (now a community
of 480), Hebron,
Lincoln and Omaha.

In fact, "At the Omaha
Fair" is a tale probably
born of exposure to the
Trans-Mississippi Exposition
of 1898 held in Omaha.

Since Kate's husband was
in the lumber business, hers
was not the lot of the overworked
farm wife who was
dominated by her menfolk,
chained by frugality and devoid
of bright interludes to
bright the day-to-day struggle
for existence.

But Kate had empathy---
for the fatigue and hardiness
of farm women, the
dreams of poor-but-hopeful
town women, the suffering
of the westbound mother
who buried her child, and
part of her heart, beyond
the bluff and plunged on.

Kate demonstrated that
empathy in such tales as
"For the Rest of Her Life,"
"Jim Peterson's Pension"
and "On the Way West."

The stories prove beyond
much doubt that whereas
there is much to be said for
"the good old days" in Nebraska,
to get an unbiased
appraisals, admirers should
talk to a few pioneer women.
They had what it takes.

Evelyn Simpson,
Women's News Editor