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

gion, ballet, theater, travel, movies and books. He loved active
people and feared dullness. In the late '20s, just as
Hemingway and the other expatriates were starting to come
home, Bromfieid moved his family to France where he followed
his pattern. He had a farm at Senlis and an apartment
in Paris. He skied in Switzerland, golfed, swam, painted, drove
sports cars, attended bullfights and wrote novels with his
usual passion. The farm at Senlis became the model for
Malabar Farm. Anybody who was anybody found his way to
Senlis where, in between farming, writing and having one
very good time, Bromfieid would entertain.
Two of his guests, the Majarani of Cooch Behar and the
Majaraja of Baroda, interested Bromfieid in India and for a
time, he and his family lived on the Malabar Coast. Later, he
wrote a novel about India, "The Rains Came," which proved
to be his most popular novel. Back in France, Bromfieid
watched the political situation in Europe begin to deteriorate
with the rise of Hitler and other Fascist dictators.
Home again
It was time, Bromfieid decided, to come home. In 1938 the
family settied near Oberlin. But that was temporary. Bromfieid
had his eye on Pleasant Valley. He had a plan. In 1939, he purchased
four farms and combined them into one which he
named Malabar. By this time he had 12 books published. Another
18 would follow during the Malabar Farm years. Now
Bromfieid began his new career as a spokesman for restoring
ruined farm lands with such tools as improved grasses and
contour plowing. He wanted to turn Malabar into an American
showcase. And with his sense of showmanship and his
cosmopolitan connections, he did just that. He often clashed
with his first farm manager. Max Drake, a young farmer with a
college education. "He (Bromfieid) became a great exponent of
contour farming and soil conservation," Drake recalled. "His
most important contribution to farming was winning converts
to soil conservation." Drake recalls "The Sunday Sermons" on
nearby Mount Jeez when Bromfieid, standing on a farm
wagon, would deliver impassioned talks about farming.
"He had plenty of followers," Drake said.
Drake and Bromfieid collided over livestock, Bromfieid
wanting hogs and Drake not wanting them. Drake won that
round. But not all of them. Bromfieid believed a farm should
be nearly self-sufficient for the needs of those who lived on it.
Drake wouldn't go that far. But the two forged a partnership
and, after four years, the farm began to break even, Drake said.
His boss loved working in the fields and had a special feeling
for gardening. And, of course, a special flair for entertaining
visitors. And from his library, the books kept coming, mixed
in with trips to Hollywood to work on scripts. Life on and off
the farm was a continual and energetic round of excitement
for Bromfieid and his family.
Mansfield News Journal editor D. K. Woodman recalled
Bromfield's Big House.
"Malabar was a beautiful and gracious house full of fine
furniture and rugs and books and art objects and usually
throbbing with classical music from concealed loudspeakers
that had to vie with animated conversation at all hours.
"Actors, writers, musicians, statesmen, the rich and the plain
folks from nearby were made welcome. Malabar might indeed
have been the chateau of a famed and literate French nobleman
transported across the ocean and a century and a half to the
hills of southern Richland County. Yet it was a place teemingly
alive to the issues of the day."
That's how the romance of Bromfield's Malabar affected
those who came and enjoyed. And who sometimes put on overalls
to help in the fields. Bromfield's enthusiasm seemed to
catch very easily. Chet McGrew, the Richland County agriculture
agent in that era, recalls Bromfieid. "Nobody ever took the
area by storm like Louie," he said. "He couldn't sit still for long.
He always had visitors and work to do. His life was geared to
constant movement. Chance is terribly slow and he didn't want
it that way.
And so Bromfieid wrote books, short stories and magazine
articles, explaining his faith in farming and his social beliefs.
He kept this up until his final illness in 1955. His last book,
"Animals and Other People," was published
that year. James Hughes, a professor
of English at Wright State University in
Dayton, wrote about Bromfieid in 1979
and had this to say:
"Bromfield's apparently wholesome
outlook on life and his persistence in
communicating that outiook have run
counter to certain literary tastes. In a period
in which literary critics reserve their
highest praise for profoundly anxious and
obscure writing, Bromfieid does not fare
well. Some critics have been irritated at
Bromfield's ability to write with ease, just
as they have been irritated at Bromfield's
individuality and its sometimes cranky
manifestations. Bromfieid, moreover, attained
during his lifetime, two things
which some critics cannot forgive: popularity
and wealth."
And, long after his death, one very fine state park.
^slife was
geared to
constant
movement.
Chance is
terribly slow
and he
didn't want
it that way.
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