BARTOW COUNTY, GA - HISTORY Cora Harris - Novelist Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Robert Latimer Hurst lat@wayxcable.com Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm MR., MRS. HILL LOOK OVER AN ORIGINAL CORRA HARRIS' `CIRCUIT RIDER'S WIFE' Two Renovators Of `In The Valley' Share A Moment In Novelist's Home THE HILLS STRESS IMPORTANCE OF THE PINE LOG FARM WITH THEIR GRANDSONS Todd and Kenneth Hewatt Listen To Grandfather's Stories About The Rich History Found Here By Robert Latimer Hurst Stepping into the spacious, low pine-ceiling room reminded me of some lodge one would find in the Northwest, with the roaring fire and the exposed beams. Observing the surroundings, I could not help but center on the ancient art deco-designed radio that would have, with its necessary static, given pleasure during the 1920s and 30s to Corra Harris as she began a series for The Saturday Evening Post or for a novel to rival her The Circuit Rider's Wife. This scene from another era became what Renovator Jody Hill would call "un-scrambling the modernity" earlier residents had placed on the late novelist's home "In the Valley." It is Hill's intention to return this writer's Pine Log homeplace near Cartersville, Georgia, to the way it was when Margaret Mitchell, Rebecca Latimer Felton, Martha Berry and other personalities came to call when the circuit rider's wife lived here. In late summer, 2003, while I was involved researching materials on Waycross and Baxley novelist Caroline Miller, and more recently, I had the opportunity to visit "In the Valley" to further my understanding of the relationship between these two outstanding Georgia writers. I smile as I think of finding Mrs. Harris' comment when Mrs. Miller declined an offer to visit her farm near Cartersville. "When Mrs. Miller asked that a dinner invitation to the Valley be postponed, Mrs. Harris consented, but told a friend `the Pulitzer Prize winner would get turkey hash instead of roast turkey,' when she did appear," informs John E. Talmadge in his Corra Harris Lady of Purpose. Mrs. Harris died in 1935, leaving in her will the hope that someone would take over and care for this land that she wanted to be her living memorial. But for many years this care was not given, until Mr. Hill and his wife, Blanche, and Mrs. Marilee Henson took up the cause, with the support of the Corra Harris Garden Club, which they established. Hill, passionate in his desire to restore the property to its original state, sees this task a challenge in "saving a national treasure." This more recent tour of "In the Valley" revealed in closer detail why the Hills and Mrs. Henson feel the way they do about this rolling North Georgia country. Looking at it in deep winter, one can note its beauty still -away from the blooming foliage of spring and summer and the orange, reds and yellows of autumn --in the brown hills set starkly against the overcast gray skies. From the farm there is still warmth and a glow that must have originated when Cherokee Chief Pine Log owned this place in the 1830s before being removed on the "Trail of Tears" to the Oklahoma Territory. "In the Valley" maintains that look of the pioneer era, reminiscent of that period when Mary Thompson, the circuit rider's wife in Corra Harris' novel, rode with her husband to his several charges in the area. Corra Harris gained fame through her books and magazine serializations. She chose this North Georgia acreage primarily as a shrine. It was near here that her beloved but obsessed husband, Lundy Harris, died. Now, one finds the historic homestead, cheerily lit with that roaring fire, welcoming visitors very much the way Mrs. Harris did. Two homes in one would better describe this 1820- built cabin once belonging to the Cherokee chief. With its low ceiling and exposed beams, this lodge- turned-into-a-living room became a type of salon for Mrs. Harris as she entertained her many guests. The first cabin, with its more recently constructed wide doors built to accommodate Mrs. Harris' casket in 1935, boasts itself as the oldest structure in Bartow County, relates Mr. Hill. As this author, who was also a pioneer war correspondent for The Saturday Evening Post, began her clearing and renovations, she found use for most of the raw materials on her land. The pine trees were used for building rooms on each side of Chief Pine Log's former home; the rocks from her quarry became walkways, rock gardens and retaining walls. Desiring that original architecture be kept, she turned those pine logs into wooden shingles, 12-inch heart pine paneling, six-inch flooring and, of course, those exposed beams. Added were the large arbor, where the wild grapes grow; a coach house; a Delco House for the generation of electricity; the smokehouse; springhouse; barn; library; and the chapel, which is also the mausoleum for Mrs. Harris. Students of American literature realize that Corra Harris influenced literary trends in this country, wrote a Georgia Life reporter. She pioneered the use of imagery in her novels and polished sentence structures so that they were "lean and meaningful." The Hills and Mrs. Henson, among others, are determined that she is remembered --at least, "In the Valley." Talmadge underscores that, after her husband's suicide and her daughter's death, "this sorrowing woman turned to her Pine Log home ... it was the Valley that restored purpose to her life."