Travels with Flannery
This fall, my family took a much-anticipated, two-years-in-the-making trip to Georgia and South Carolina. While my four young sons were most excited about seeing the ocean for the first time, I planned this trip around the two most significant cities in the life of my favorite author, Flannery O’Connor: Savannah and Milledgeville.
After a full day at the Georgia Aquarium, we headed east, right into the projected eye of Hurricane Ian. My husband, in an attempt to avoid Atlanta traffic, took us on backwoods roads that were straight out of a Flannery story. When we drove in the dark past a penitentiary, I couldn’t help but think of the Misfit, and my prayers grew more fervent that we would avoid both the hurricane and a mass murder. Thanks be to God, we did.
As Ian tracked out into the Atlantic, we suffered only minor wind and rain at Hilton Head, and I was able to make my day trip to Flannery’s childhood home in Savannah just one day delayed. It was worth the wait. Savannah was a ghost town because of the storm, and to my delight I had a private tour of Flannery’s home. The docent, Cody, was utterly delightful, and the scheduled 40-minute tour lasted more than 90! I treasured every moment there.
Here are some highlights: Seeing the books Flannery read as a child, including her critiques of them written right inside the book (rumor has it she called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland “the worst book since Pinocchio”)
Laughing at the grotesque doll – the only toy Flannery didn’t despise – that gives a glimpse into what Flannery considered worthy of her interest and attention
Reading an unpublished letter Flannery wrote to the Brainard Cheneys
Learning that the museum came to be when a group of English professors heard rumors that the home – which had been broken up into apartments for decades – was for sale and decided – at a cocktail party and without their wives’ knowledge – to buy it
Seeing a glimpse of Flannery behind Pope Pius XII in a photo taken on her pilgrimage Rome (and Lourdes)
Looking at framed copies of her baptism certificate and elementary report card (top marks in Algebra and Christian Doctrine; unsurprisingly, if you’ve read her letters, low marks in spelling)
Gazing into the backyard in which she taught her chicken to walk backward, giving her the first taste of worldwide fame
Hearing the story of precocious little Flannery entertaining her forced playmates in the bathroom (her favorite room of the house) by reading them Grimm fairy tales until they ran home crying to their mothers (thus ensuring no future playdates)
Being in her bedroom (we aren’t sure why the only child Flannery had two beds, or whether she slept under the Sacred Heart or St Anthony) and seeing the closet (an anomaly for Savannah) in which she “fought” with her guardian angel
Checking out the state-of-the-art “Kiddie Koop” in which she slept in her parents’ room, just under the window that gave her a view of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist
After the tour, my husband and I attended daily Mass at the Cathedral. The beautiful baptismal font is new this century and so wasn’t the same one in which Flannery was baptized, but it was so special to be in the church where I knew she attended daily Mass. The close proximity of the gorgeous church (since 2020 a Minor Basilica) just across the square from Flannery’s childhood home and the vibrant Catholic community within Savannah helped me to understand these formative years (13; exactly 1/3 of Flannery’s short life) and provided a contrast to Milledgeville, which we visited the next day…
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 Two: On the Road with Flannery