State

October 26, 1935 THE STATE Page Three Thomas Wolfe’s Mother AN interesting cluiracter study of tlio mother of one of the na¬ tion's foremost novelists of to¬ day. She will soon be* 7в years old and is still hale and hearty. By G. E. DEAN MOP and dust cloth in hand, Mrs. Julia E. Wolfe— the "Eliza Gant" in her son’s two successful novels, “Look Homeward, Angel,” and the more recent, bulky, best-seller sequel, "Of Time and the River” — was busy about her tourist hotel, "The Old Kentucky Home" at 18 Spruce Street, up in Asheville the other Sunday morning. But all the while she was not un¬ mindful of the fact that her youngest son, Thomas Wolfe, is, at У5, being acclaimed at home aud abroad a* one of America’s most forceful living writers and a leader, along with sev¬ eral others, in a so-called "literary revolt" against old forms, old wavs old viewpoints and old prejudice* against writing clearly and accurately from real life the things they see, feel and hear about them. At "The Old Kentucky Home,” Mrs. Julia Wolfe's tourist hotel located on a quiet, sloping side street in Ashe¬ ville a block north of the Buncombe County Courthouse, hundreds of strangers from far and near have called to see the place that housed the characters pictured so vividly in the turbulent text of “Look Homeward, Angel,” which created something of a furor in Asheville when it was pub¬ lished several years ago. For "The Old Kentucky Home” is the "Dixieland" in the novel which occupied so much of Eliza Gant’s time and energy when Tom Wolfe was a boy, and with which was so closely bound many lives that came into contact with this strange family between 1900 and 1920. It is the same rambling, unplanned, added- to, gabular affair with IS or 20 rooms and painted on the outside a dirty yel¬ low as described in the novel "Look Homeward, Angel." But about it now ihoro is something of the semblance of a dusty museum which never fails to fascinate readers who delight in see¬ ing a hook come to life. It i» hero that scores of tourists and sightseers wend their way just for a glimpse of Julia Wolfe and her tourist hotel. Mrs. Wolfe, who now seems a little old and worn by her years of strenuous living (she told me she will soon bo 7t>), is kindly, hos¬ pitable and quietly talka¬ tive to strangers, but one suspects that she is not quite the vigorous, energetic and dynamic Julia Wolfe she was 15 or 20 years ago. .She likes to talk about the boy, Tom Wolfe, who was the “pet” of the family of sons and daughters who were grown before lie was born. In her dusty, cluttered lit¬ tle parlor there are pictures every¬ where of her sons and daughters — the Helen. Daisy, Luke. Steve and Ben of "Look Homeward. Angel.” as well as pictures of “W. O. Gant,” the ec¬ centric stone-cutter, Thomas Wolfe's father, on the site of whose tonihston»-- sliop up on Pack Square now stands one of Asheville’s skyscrapers. Her "picture gallery" is one of Julia Wolfe’s most prized possessions, and along with those pictures taken of the hov Tom Wolfe in infancy she proud¬ ly displays recent character studies of Thomas Wolfe, the author, made by Now York photographers. Two Diplomas Over the piano on her sun porch hang Thomas Wolfe’s two diplomas — one from the private school ho attend¬ ed in Asheville and the other from the University of N’orth Carolina — the "Pulpit Hill" in the novel. Se¬ curely locked behind the dusty glass of a book case an- copies of Thomas Wolfe's bulky novels which, hie mother says, she was forced to lock tip out of the reach of souvenir hunters. She revealed the fact flint she lias auto¬ graphed numbers of her son’s novels for strangers who come thousands of miles just to seo “The Old Kentucky Home” and its proprietor, Mrs. Julia E. Wolfe. She outlined at some length plans for her latest real estate venture — this time a modern duplex apartment house in Miami, Fla. She has been going to Florida for a numl»er of years, she says, and if things pick up enough to justify her investment she plans to huve such an apartment within the next few years. Living in New York The author. Thomas Wolfe, only recently returned from a trip to the “It’s impossible to get a photograph of Mrs. Wolfe,” writes Mr. Dean, the author of this article. “She hasn’t had one made since the early 90’s, so I’d suggest you run a picture of her son, instead.” It's O.K. with us, so here’s the picture of Thomas Wolfe. West Coast, is now making his home in Xow York where, his mother says, he is putting finishing touches on’ a new novel which will surpass anything lie has done >o far. Mrs. Wolfe plans to see him on a trip she is making to Washington soon to visit her daughter. “The Old Kentucky Home" she plans to close for the winter. On leaving she ran back into the house to get a handful of little white cards which rend : OLD KENTUCKY HOME One Block Xorth of Courthouse Julia E. Wolfe, 4S Spruce St., Prop. Asheville, N. C. Reasonable Rates Then, and then only perhaps, was she the “Eliza Gant” of the novel "Look Homeward, Angel,” the domi¬ nant, driving personality that is re¬ sponsible without knowing it for Thomas Wolfe’s success as an author.