On the Road with Flannery
The day after our Savannah visit was Sunday, and we headed inland toward Milledgeville. The
experience couldn’t have been more different than my time in Savannah, drawing sharp contrast
between the beginning and ending of Flannery’s life.
To be sure, part of the difference was due to my circumstances. While I spent my time in Savannah with
husband or alone (he graciously bowed out of my tour of her childhood home, recognizing that I would
enjoy my time more if I wasn’t worried about whether he was bored or ready to go), my whole family
joined me on my “Milgrimage” (the affectionate word Cody gave for Flannery fans’ pilgrimage to
Milledgeville).
We drove straight to Sacred Heart, the Catholic Parish in Milledgeville founded in 1850, five years after
the first Mass was celebrated in that town at a private residence. The church itself was built in 1874 and
was the church where Flannery and her mother, Regina, attended daily Mass each morning before she
returned to Andalusia to write. Having been on the road for 3 hours to get there, we had just enough
time before Mass to use the restrooms, located in “Flannery O’Connor Hall.”
I was wearing a boot on my injured foot and could barely fit into the pew, making me wonder how
Flannery and her crutches managed. The church was so tiny compared to the Cathedral in Savannah,
that the difference between the sizes of the two Catholic communities was palpable.
The museum at Andalusia didn’t open until 2pm, giving me enough time to visit Flannery’s gravesite. I
had heard that people like to leave trinkets on her grave and saw some stones and coins there. I didn’t
leave anything but took time to pray for her while Graham and the boys went to eat lunch in a nearby
park.
Driving out of town to Andalusia was surreal because I knew that nearly everything we passed must not
have been there at Flannery’s time, but when we turned off the main road and onto the gravel one, and
I caught my first glimpse of Andalusia, I wondered in awe at finally being there.
While we waited for the docent (Andalusia is now run by Georgia College, Flannery’s alma mater), my
boys made a beeline to the peafowl (modest Flannery thought the word “peacock” was vulgar, and it’s
also inaccurate as only one of the two on the property is male). [nota bene: They are both named after
characters from her story, “The Displaced Person”]
My sons, too young to have read Flannery themselves but with knowledge of how much their Mama
adores her, wanted to come on the tour with me. The four of us (my husband and toddler stayed
outside) were joined by two women who just happened to be passing by and didn’t even know who
Flannery was! This coupled with the formality of the docent (the fan girl gushing from the day before
was nowhere to be found) resulted in a much dryer experience than the day before.
My children were given a stapled packet full of Flannery coloring pages, word searches, crossword
puzzles and worksheet-style-fill-in-the-blank pages where they could record what they saw inside the
home. Can you imagine how appalled Flannery would have been at this?!
The tour was brief but powerful. There were minor highlights along the way: the state-of-the-art
refrigerator (which surely held much mayonnaise, her condiment of choice as we know from the letters
– recently published – she wrote to her mother while in Iowa/NY/CT) that she bought from the royalties
to the TV adaptation of her story, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, which starred Gene Kelly and
which Flannery despised, the unused record player and unopened records that Flannery received as a
thank you for the sister for whom she wrote the introduction to “A Memoir of Mary Ann” (Flannery
thought that “all classical music sounds alike and everything else sounds like The Beetles”, not a
compliment from her lips) and the gorgeous front porch where Flannery often sat looking out over the
farm (very different now as during her time it was active and had few to no trees).
But the “pice de rsistance” (as our docent accurately called it), was Flannery’s bedroom. In it were her
bed, her crucifix and Holy Bible, dresses she wore, her crutches and her typewriter. To be in this room
where she wrote the essays, letters, short stories and a novel that I so very much love and admire and
by which I came to know my dear spiritual friend was such an honor. I could barely bring myself to leave
when it was over.
I bought a few items in the gift shop, including beautiful peacock feathers from my boys and a postcard
with a Flannery quote that reads “When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.” I’m not sure about
the Rome part, but I do feel like we did Milledgeville well. It was a fitting ending to a beautiful trip.
Nicki Johnston is a home educator, a CGS catechist, an avid reader and an amateur naturalist. She lives in Kansas with her husband, Graham, and their four young sons. We are so blessed to have her not only participating in community enrichment conversations, but also sharing the fruit of her intellectual life freely with us. See her posts on Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow and on Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away. Next month we’ll have an update from Milledgeville. See Part One of the Johnston’s journey here.
Peacock Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/peterkraayvanger-10776/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=90051">Peter Kraayvanger</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=90051">Pixabay</a>