Экскурсии по хижине Гинн Страттон-Портер в штате Индиана раскрывают жизнь писательницы и её любовь к болоту Лимберлост

Cabin tour explores Stratton-Porter’s life, love of Limberlost Editor’s note: This story is the eighth in a series that will feature attractions in the Graphic Printing Company’s coverage area, including Randolph, Jay and Blackford counties and parts of the surrounding counties. Author and nature photographer Gene Stratton-Porter gained worldwide fame around the turn of the 20th century. She lived in southern Adams County for more than two decades. Tours of her cabin are available every week. Limberlost State Historic Site in Geneva is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Recognized at the state level, the site maintains Stratton-Porter’s Limberlost Cabin and carriage house and a visitor center. Self-guided hikes of the nearby Limberlost Conservation Area Nature Preserves — they include the Loblolly Marsh Nature Preserve and Limberlost Swamp Nature Preserve located in Jay and Adams counties — are also open all day, with trail maps available at the visitor center or by visiting the Limberlost’s webpage at indianamuseum.org. Global impact Stratton-Porter initially rose to fame for her nature photography and earned four national awards, along with various reproductions in magazines and books. She received worldwide recognition for her written works, which included 184 magazine articles, 12 novels, eight nature studies, two children’s books and four poems and essays. Some of her most popular novels include the bestseller “Freckles” and “A Girl of the Limberlost.” Her stories were adapted into 23 films. Limberlost State Historic Site estimates 50 million people have read her works. At the height of her career, Stratton-Porter sold 1,700 books a day. She had sold 10 million books by the time of her death in December 1924. “She was a very prolific writer,” said Limberlost State Historic Site interpreter Teresa Fravel-Cox. ‘Bird Woman’ Geneva Grace Stratton was born in Lagro in 1863. Fravel-Cox explained that as a child, Gene Stratton developed a close relationship with nature, climbing into trees and building trust with birds. She trained pets, including a rooster named Bobby and a hawk, and made clothing for them. Fravel-Cox noted Stratton’s mother once told her, “You’re quite the little bird woman, aren’t you?” The nickname stuck, and it later turned into a character in her books. ‘A Girl of the Limberlost’ Stratton’s family moved to Wabash for better healthcare after her mother contracted typhoid fever. She married Charles Porter from Decatur in 1886. They moved into a little yellow house in Geneva soon after. Stratton-Porter became fascinated with the Limberlost Swamp, which encompassed 13,000 acres in Adams and Jay counties at that time. Dressed in knee-high leather boots, waders and wool tops, Stratton-Porter would travel into the swamp with her photography equipment — it included ladders used as tripods, a 40-pound field camera and 100 feet of hose with a bulb used to trigger the shutter — and remain there for hours to snap her shots. “She would actually go out and capture (birds) in their nests,” Fravel-Cox said. Limberlost Cabin Following a visit to the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, Stratton-Porter decided to build a log cabin in Geneva. She worked with a builder from Decatur to create her new home, which is known as the first house in Geneva to have running water and gas lighting. Fravel-Cox pointed out during a tour that the Town of Geneva followed suit and installed gas streetlights along streets following the cabin’s construction. Stratton-Porter designed the cabin to be constructed from white cedar logs with red-tinted oil stain, a product delivered from Wisconsin. Among other amenities, the cabin features Stratton-Porter’s octagonal “dream girl porch,” which included space underneath for their daughter Jeannette’s playhouse, as well as an old sycamore tree fashioned into a smokehouse and later a garden shed. The carriage house included a room for their gardener and caretaker, John Brenner, as well as a stall for Stratton-Porter’s horse, Patience and carriage storage. The perimeter of the property features a limestone wall quarried near the Wabash River, which took three years to complete. Stratton-Porter designed it with holes for rabbits and squirrels to come and go as they pleased, noted Fravel-Cox. Limberlost State Historic Site’s tour of the cabin’s main floor features a look into the Porters’ lives through various rooms, including the study where Stratton-Porter wrote several of her works and her bathroom and kitchen where she developed her photos. A glass case full of butterflies and moths she preserved — many are still fully intact — is still mounted inside. The Porters moved into the Limberlost Cabin in 1895. They owned several other properties, including a cabin at Wildflower Woods next to Sylvan Lake in Rome City, a five-room bungalow in Los Angeles and a 26-room mansion in Bel Air, California. Stratton-Porter died in a traffic accident in 1924 shortly before the family moved into the mansion. The Limberlost Cabin changed hands a few times before it became a state possession. Limberlost State Historic Site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Among other possessions, the visitor center includes various Porter family paraphernalia, such as Charles Porter’s desk and the metal safe used at one of his businesses, the Geneva bank. •••••••• Historians at Limberlost State Historic Site today are still uncovering new aspects of Stratton-Porter’s life to share with visitors. They recently discovered Stratton-Porter also owned a house in Fort Wayne. “All these years later, we’re still finding things out about Gene we never knew,” said Fravel-Cox. To schedule a tour, call (260) 368-7428 or visit the Limberlost’s webpage at indianamuseum.org.