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 Elizabeth Bishop - Great Village, Nova Scotia, Canada Posted by:  ScroogieII
N 45° 24.987 W 063° 35.974
20T E 453088 N 5029389
This small wood frame house along the Glooscap Trail in the village of Great Village was the childhood home of Pulitzer Prize winning poet Elizabeth Bishop.
Waymark Code: WM13710
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 09/30/2020
Views: 1
As a child, Elizabeth and her mother lived in this house after the death of her father. Elizabeth lived in the house with her maternal grandparents for the first seven years of her life, after which she was sent to live with her grandparents in Worcester, MA. In her adult years she returned to visit on many occasions.
Fully half of Bishop's poems and stories were centred on Great Village from her childhood and even this house. As well as being a Pulitzer Prize winner, Bishop once served as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Not a prolific writer, she produced only 100 poems in five slim volumes over 35 years, yet she earned a large number of awards. Her first book of poems, North & South, earned her the title of Poet Laureate of the United States, while its later edition won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1956.
The building itself was built sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a one-and-one-half storey Classical Revival structure, typical of a great many homes built in rural Nova Scotia in that era.
Bulmer House
DESCRIPTION OF HISTORIC PLACE
The Bulmer House is a simple one-and-one-half storey wood frame structure with wood clapboard, tin shingles and a symmetrical façade. The house is of a Classical Revival style in the vernacular form with a kitchen ell and a shed extension. Built in the early to mid nineteenth century, the house is located in the heart of Great Village, Nova Scotia, and the rear of the house overlooks the marches and the Bay of Fundy. Both the house and the surrounding property are all included in the designation.
HERITAGE VALUE
The Bulmer House is valued for its historical association with poet Elizabeth Bishop, a Pulitzer Prize recipient, whose work incorporated the imagery of the Great Village landscape, and the house itself. Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1911. Her father died shortly after and her mother suffered a nervous breakdown when Elizabeth was four years old, and was institutionalized for the remaining eighteen years of her life. She remained with her maternal grandparents in Great Village, where she and her mother had been living since the death of her father, for three years. She was then sent to live with her grandparents in Worcester who were better able to support her. She spent summers in Great Village, and throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s she visited Nova Scotia for regular and extended periods.
Elizabeth Bishop is recognized as an influential figure in twentieth century American poetry. She initially published her poetry and prose in small periodicals and it was not until 1946 that she published for a book. By the late 1940s she was already widely recognized and in 1956 won the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry. She was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was the first woman to win the Newstadt International Prize for Literature. Bishop received over a dozen major fellowships and prizes, and six honorary degrees, including one from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Fifty percent of her work derives its inspiration and sources from her memories of Great Village. Of all Elizabeth Bishop’s prose pieces the best known and most analyzed is “In the Village,” agreed to be referencing Great Village. The community of Great Village, as well as the Bulmer House, appears repeatedly in the imagery of Bishop’s work...
From Historic Places Canada
Name of Famous Person: Elizabeth Bishop
Physical Address: 8740 Glooscap Trail (Highway 2) - Great Village, NS - B0M 1L0
What is this person famous for?:
Bishop was a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and poet.
Website verifying legitimacy of site: [Web Link]
Additional Website verifying Site legitimacy: [Web Link]
Personal Experience:
We had already known of the history of what is now known as The Bulmer House when we visited Great Village. The house is just a short walk down the Glooscap Trail (Highway 2) from the village's other major attraction, St. James United Church, a rather large (for a small village) wooden Gothic Revival church built in 1883.
Mounted on the church's south wall, to the side of the entrance, is a Bronze Plaque, placed in Elizabeth Bishop's honour by Great Village. It reads:
In Memoriam
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Poet
"Home-made, Home-made! But aren't we all?"
Great Village, Nova Scotia
1992
Sadly, the house bore a For Sale sign on the day we visited.
Other information about area: Not listed
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