30 November 2009

Milledgeville, Georgia: Flannery O'Connor: Literary Landmarks of the Southern United States, #26:

Three interpretation panels give background details of the farm. One, entitled 'The Farm', states: 'Between 1931 and 1939, Bernard McHugh Cline, M.D. (Flannery O'Connor's uncle) purchased this farm, which had once been the core of a 19th century plantation. With the help of employees and family members like Dr. Cline's brother-in-law, Frank Florencourt, Andalusia became a fully functional farm with electricity and other amenities. As the farm operation eventually expanded other improvements were made, such as the distribution of well water around the complex in underground copper pipes. When Dr. Cline died in 1947, the property went to Flannery's mother, Regina Cline O'Connor, and another uncle, Louis Cline.'

The front porch.

Photos of Flannery O'Connor's father, Edward Francis O'Connor, Jr, and her uncle, Dr Bernard McHugh Cline.

Flannery O'Connor's bedrooom, with the familiar crutches.

The dining room.

The kitchen.

The interpretation panel entitled 'The Property' states: 'On the National Register of Historic Places since 1980, Andalusia is a 544-acre farm composed of gently rolling hills divided into a farm complex, hayfields, pasture and man-made and natural ponds, and forests. Tobler Creek intersects the property, entering near the west corner and meandering down to exit at the southeast boundary. The farm complex comprises roughly twenty-one acres of the property and also includes a livestock pond at the bottom of the hill south of the Main House. During her productive years as a writer, Flannery O'Connor lived at Andalusia with her mother, Regina Cline O'Connor, from 1951 until her death in 1964.'

The barn.

The third panel is entitled 'A Literary Landscape' and reads: 'The argicultural setting of Andalusia, with its laborers, buildings, equipment, and animals, figures prominently in Flannery O'Connor's work. Southern literature places great emphasis on a sense of place, where the landscape becomes a major force in the shaping of the action. Andalusia provided for O'Connor not only a place to live and write, but also a functional landscape in which to set her fiction. While living here, O'Connor completed to novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), and two short story collections, A Good Man Is hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965).'

Flannery O'Connor's grave in Milledgeville cemetery.

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