With Norris' mother in town for a visit, we tried hard to think of a touristic thing we hadn't yet done in Asheville. We've never visited the Thomas Wolfe Memorial in downtown Asheville, so we headed that way this afternoon. Thomas Wolfe is the most famous author to have grown up in Asheville and his first book, Look Homeward Angel, was based on his childhood experiences here. His memories of his youth in Asheville in the early 1900s turned out to not be that flattering to his family and acquaintances and as a result his booked was banned from the Asheville library for a number of years and Wolfe was afraid to set foot back in Asheville for the next 8 years.
He spent his early years in this boarding house which his mother ran. The old house dates to the 1880s and is well preserved, even though it is now surrounded by downtown hotels and office buildings. Tours are given hourly for the bargain price of $1, although it turned out our timing was good as the fee is going to $5 on the first of August.
After the tour, Cheryl and Norris' mother tried out the front porch rockers. It turns out Thomas Wolfe had a connection to Chickamauga, Georgia where Norris' mother now lives. Wolfe's uncle was a veteran of the Civil War Battle of Chickamauga and Wolfe turned his uncle's recollections of the battle into a short story.
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