Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 27, 1994 TAG: 9412280011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LORI MILLER THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``Little Women'' was first and best of the Alcott books, and remains true because Alcott drew her tale of four sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy - directly from life.
Now is a good time to visit the house where Louisa wrote the chapters of our early lives. ``Little Women'' comes out again as a movie on Christmas Day. The film's producers consulted the Orchard House staff to design the set for the film, but the house endures beyond Hollywood as a history of an intricate family love and an unquenchable creative spirit. Not only that, it's a great place for true Louisa fans to get in a good wallow.
I still laugh and sob over ``LW,'' but Orchard House introduces a far more complex truth about its prototypes. Louisa (Jo) was a stormy, strong-willed woman whose juvenile books made her famous but took her away from the adult psychological fiction she wanted to write. She prized freedom but devoted her life, much of it marred by terrible health, to supporting her family, especially her mother. Louisa loved them all fiercely, but was nothing like her gentler, older sister, Anna (Meg), and was divided between great affection and jealousy for her youngest sister, May (Amy), an acclaimed artist. Bronson Alcott, their father, was a philosopher and leader of the Transcendental movement. His pursuit of the ideal left his family broke and almost constantly on the move before they landed at Orchard House in 1858.
The house still has the comfortable sense that the family has just stepped out. The rooms are not roped off, so you can poke your nose right in (no touching, of course, and no cameras are allowed inside).
You don't have to have ``LW'' engraved on your heart to appreciate the house, which stands on its own as a museum of 19th-century life. You may then wonder why people are shouting ``Beth's piano!'' ``The mood pillow!'' ``The russet boots!'' They are all in the book and their originals are all in the house. But if you are a true believer, oh my, you can wander in a kind of bliss. You see what Louisa described in the beginning of ``LW'': ``a comfortable old room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain; for a good picture or two hung on walls, books filled the recesses ... and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded it.''
The family portraits give the house its immediacy. Everyone is well represented in paintings and photographs that give faces to characters you already know so well. There are two that capture Louisa. Downstairs is a painting done in her 30s, one she said made her look ghastly. It is my favorite. Her gaze is direct and reflects a life in which success was balanced by much loss. That portrait makes the photograph upstairs look almost heartbreaking in its youthful bravado. In that one particularly are the ``decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, grey eyes, which appeared to see everything. ... Her long thick hair was her one beauty,'' Alcott's description of herself as Jo. Of special interest is the one image of Lizzie, who died as a young woman just before the family came to Orchard House and is the least known of the sisters.
Louisa often lived in Boston while the family was at Apple Slump, her name for Orchard House. Concord made her restless. It's still quiet. But it's a beautiful, well-preserved village dating to the 1600s and it makes for a good historic and literary weekend, with its connections to the Revolution, Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne.
You can pay your respects to Louisa, and to much of 19th-century thought, at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Up a steep hill there is Author's Ridge, where the famous rest.
About 30,000 people a year visit Orchard House, says its executive director, Stephanie Upton.
ORCHARD HOUSE: The Alcott home is at 399 Lexington Rd., Concord, one mile east of central Concord. It is open Nov. 1 through March 31 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday. From April 1 to Oct. 31 it is open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday. It is closed Jan. 1-15, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. For information, call (508) 369-4118 or write Orchard House, P.O. Box 343, Concord, Mass. 01742. A gift shop at the house has a good selection of hard-to-find Alcott adult fiction, the children's books, family memorabilia, T-shirts and Victorian stuff.
FOR CONCORD INFORMATION: The Concord Chamber of Commerce has a helpful tour brochure and map that include lodgings, restaurants, historic sites, shopping and other sundries. Call (508) 369-3120 or write 2 Lexington Rd., Concord, Mass. 01742.
by CNB