How “Lassie Come Home” Came Home … settle back, journeys take some time.

Its Pennsylvania’s Bucks County … known for its Arts community who played the markets of New York City and Philadelphia off each other.

Up Winding Road, down Ghost Mountain, is Spring House Lane. Where Eric & Jere Knight made their home. Here Eric Knight wrote”Lassie, Come Home” & they lived with Toots the prototype Lassie … Toots named after Eric’s teasing Nickname for Jere if she became too proper….

Jere , a seemingly stern & intimidating chronic “over-achiever” … graduate of Penn & the Sorbonne, later in Hollywood (then NYC) story editor for Selznick International , writer for Saturday Evening Post (Phila), & later: Major Jere Knight aide to the head of the WACs in London (WW2), executrix of e e cummings estate, named on a Pulitzer on a history work while at Lehigh University, & Quaker Peace Activist.

Both Knights were birthright Quakers, Eric from Wales, Jere , Quaker Phila. The Farm was purchased a bit before Eric’s LASSIE COME HOME & THIS ABOVE ALL best selling novels became Academy Award winning Movies. Spring House an act of faith & great love between the two.

As fascism rose in Europe both entered service. Jere returned alone. To spend the rest of her life. Spring House – evidence of that place & time.

CAPTIONS

Jere Knight & Maman Cat sitting together on a quiet autumn evening in the summer kitchen of Spring House Farm. The Home “Lassie “Come Home”… came home … to. And where the book was written by her husband Eric Knight.

Jere Knight & Maman Cat sitting on a quiet autumn evening at Spring House Farm. The Home “Lassie “Come Home”… came home … to. Where the book was written by her husband Eric Knight. These were originally completed for an Mag issue with themed: HOME. At lock down, I was home at Splinter Cottage completing this for the Anniversary of Lassie’s publication in Sat Post. 12.17.38. Both wrote for it.

Jere Knight’s portrait painted by her friend Henrietta Wyeth Hurd in the 1930’s. Before Spring House Farm, in Bucks County Pennsylvania’s autumn light . The story of Lassie unravels. Its own story against the story of literary Bucks County (USA) and the border collies who found their way home to it. And the family that cared for them.

Jere and “Jere from earlier times” … takes a call during a visit from a University group wait to hear back the story of “Lassie, Come Home” from the authors wife in their home.

Jere’s presence remains after her passing. In small things: pillows on seats, simple wooden furniture, that Pennsylvania Farm house window light. The notes of a life well lived and a certain period that had remained, somewhere back there, just over her shoulder. Rough notes in oil paint and fountain pen ink.

If Jere’s life was a writers sentence, she the subject, the remnants of her shared efforts predicate … imprints of much fabled hands. Belonging to friends not briefly noted. The exectrix of the e e cummings estate, the poet gifted them with his self portrait in oil and a painting of his wife. Jere mentioned the story of a photo-portrait shoot on Big Sur with Edward where e e cummings photograph became well known and Eric Knight’s died in a darkroom error.

From the door to Spring House Farm is its namesake. Access to the legendary watershed. Eric & Jere Knight bought in the farm in faith …later solidified with the proceeds of Eric’s bestselling novel: THIS ABOVE ALL (1941) and an Academy Award movie. Their escape from Hollywood. Where things went for Jere; the opposite for Eric. Jere was story editor for Selznick International; Eric built himself a cabin in the desert and wrote: YOU PLAY THE BLACK AND THE RED COMES UP. The couple got together in LA on weekends.

Jere’s son Jeff Lindtner was raised at Spring House. With a collie . Blackie. He has returned with Zazz … first collie was Toots … “what Eric called me if I got on high horse.” Toots, the model for Lassie, a Christmas gift for Jere wrapped in Eric’s sport coat pocket. “I rode home First Class on the Super Chief with an Orchid pinned to my lapel. Eric was in the baggage car with TOOT’S. She was pregnant.”

Zazz the new collie at Lassie’s farm. (3rd shift) TOOTS (Lassie) would travel with Eric to the woods to write on a desk he made “if I hovered too close.” remembered Jere Knight of her undaunted pair. She received a letter from Eric who was traveling: “I’ve got one they can’t steal, can’t wait to tell you.” That was the beginning of the Lassie story. He wasn’t entirely right. In the later 1930’s.

A pasture break on Ghost Mountain, on the Farm, a small reserve. A monument with two small carved stones … TOOTS & Jere. As fascists contaminated Europe , Eric & Jere Knight, both birthright Quakers enlisted. Jere … assistant to the head of the WACs in London; Eric rejoined the Royal Army where he served in WW1. Majors & Captains, the facts unsettled. Jere returned to Spring House Farm alone.

A “Come Home Collie” returns if stolen or sold. This is the road to my neighbors. As a “COME HOME” would walk. Raised in Pa’s Bucks County in the States, other kids had TV, I had the artists. The most European part of the States … our second home was often Europe. Set out to find Badger’s House in the Wild Wood as a child. The photographs intended to get on and off time. Like a train.

After I copied the Wyeth painting , Jere asked me for the bill saying “Strong fences make good neighbors” when I told her not to worry about it. Later I made her a photograph of one of the fences that “makes good neighbors.”

Lassie was a border Collie, and as everyone who has been around them knows, they will herd anything from sheep to basketballs. Or cows that share the same tuxedo.

At the bottom of Ghost Mountain flows Cooks Creek, a native trout stream. And over the creek is Knecht’s Covered Bridge. The road to Splinter Cottage is up over the bridge and straight up the hill; Spring House on a dirt road to the right. Some idiots tried to burn the bridge, so Jeff Lindtner arranged for special lighting. Myself I suggested more of us, with lighter rides, begin using the bridge on the way home.

The door, the handles, the light , the wood, the white… all reminiscent of the meeting house … the soft glow of silence.

Description final for LensCulture submission

Home … where I always returned … after constant travel. 20 Acres of trees, now sick with climate change …& a 300 year old log cabin: SplinterCottage- that can’t be fixed with pocket change. &cats who like collies always come home.

Its Pennsylvania’s Bucks County … known for its Arts community who played the markets of New York City and Philadelphia off each other.

As fascism rose in Europe both entered service. Jere returned alone. To spend the rest of her life. Spring House – evidence of that place & time.

*****************************************A series assembed for further stories and adapted the the Lens Culture competition with the theme: HOME.

The View from Splinter Cottage