Before I sat down for an hour-long conversation with Kent Pavelka, host of “Metro & More,” a television show in Omaha, Nebraska, he asked me if I had read “My Antonia” and did I know that the Antonia was based on someone from Cather’s childhood who fascinated her — Anna Sadilek, later Anna Pavelka. When I said, yes, yes, Kent said, “Anna Pavelka was my grandmother.” I loved learned that! Years ago, I had visited Cather’s home, museum, and namesake prairie in Red Cloud, Nebraska. I’ve also gone to her grave in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where her headstone has these words from “My Antonia”: “that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.”
