1998 Volume 121 No 1–4 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

Phi and literary great Louis
Bromfieid is remembered by
Ohioans as the
Master
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Malabar
By Ron Simon
OF ALL THE LITERARY GREATS IN THE 1920S
and '30s, Louis Bromfieid, Columbia '20,
was the most satisfying, the most prolific and
the most quickly forgotten.
While biographies of Ernest Hemingway, F.
Scott Fitzgerald and WiUiam Faulkner dot the
bookshelves, a recent attempt to publish the
life Story of the Master of Malabar simply fell
through.
Despite winning a Pulitzer Prize for his third novel,
"Early Autumn," Bromfield's literary life story is
largely unwitten. Instead, Bromfieid is remembered as
the owner and operator of Malabar Farm south of
Mansfield in Richland County, Ohio/ So famous did
he make his sprawling farm and its Pleasant Valley
setting that after his death in 1955, his friends banded
together to save the farm until it could become a state
park.
Today, Malabar Farm State Park is a successful blend of farm
and state park, a place where cattle graze in the rolling meadows
and hikers share trails with horseback riders. Where
;, children pet animals and families camp in ridge top picnic
areas. And where curious tourists travel through
Bromfield's Big House, marveling at his library, the great
hall and at the bigness of it all and wonder about what kind of
man could create such a place. Bromfieid has been described as
a human whirlwind. Accompanied by his band of Boxer dogs,
the famous author roamed his farm, sometimes by Jeep and just
as often by tractor. At home in the apartment world of New
York City's fashionable Fifth Avenue, Bromfieid was still, at
heart, a farmer. A Thomas Jefferson kind of farmer. And like
Jefferson, another literary type, Bromfieid built his Monticello
in one of Ohio's greenest valleys. And to the big house they
flocked; the rich, the famous and even the notorious. Governors
and senators might chat in the spacious living room while a
famous newspaper columnist cooked dinner in the kitchen and
movies stars roamed the grounds. It was at Malabar that actor
Ron Simon is a reporter and columnist for the News Journal in
Mansfield, Ohio.
http://www.ph idelt-ghq. com WINTER 1998 THE SCROLL 13