World United States Indiana Rome City

Ginny's Journeys Ginny's Adventures 2009

Gene Stratton-Porter Aug 19, 2009

I visited a couple of nature centers and walked trails, saw lakes, and looked for letterboxes, but the highlight of the day was the Cabin in Wildflower Woods – the cabin home of Gene Stratton-Porter (1863-1924). Gene’s real name was Genevieve, but her husband, George called her Gene, she liked it, and used that name since then.

Gene became independently wealthy from writing 12 novels (8 became movies), 7 nature studies, 2 poetry books, 2 children’s books, and many magazine articles and essays. She took pictures that were so good that George Eastman visited her to find out how she did it before he started Eastman Kodak!

Gene married George in Geneva (wow – was she named after the town?) and they had a beautiful house there with 14 rooms. (Dolores and I went to see that but it was closed at the time.) Gene moved up to Rome City when George’s job brought him up here and had the 16 room cabin designed and built using her own money. George was rich also, but she ended up making more money than him and he was okay with that. Here, she had a dark room but in Geneva, she used her bathroom. She was also a very good artist using charcoal and pen – drawings look like pictures! She didn’t finish school, but was self-taught. She played 3 musical instruments, learned a lot about plants and birds and used her conservatory to work with the plants for her gardens. She opened the windows so the birds could fly in and she could study them up close! What a remarkable woman! How come I didn’t hear of her before???

She didn’t like how the producer interpreted her first movie from a book, so she went out to L.A. to start her own production company and produce other movies. She had a house built out there and it fit right in with the magnitude of movie star’s homes. George didn’t like California, so he lived in the Cabin while she was out there. Gene was in a car accident that killed her when she was 61. She had a daughter, Jeannette, who had 2 daughters and two sons. One of her sons is alive today and keeps in contact with the management of the State Historic Sites. Gene and Jeannette’s bodies were brought back to the cabin from L.A. in 1999 because of Jeannette’s sons. This is a lovely place on the banks of Sylvan Lake – I can see why the Porters loved it!