The Cave Lady.
That’s what the locals in Eau Claire called Maude Phillips. Her story contributes an odd and interesting chapter to the local folklore. Using the pen name Violet Leigh, she was an eccentric poet whose scorecard included two involuntary stays in the insane asylum, five children, one patient husband, and too many admitted affairs to count, including one with a local minister that led to a court case and bankruptcy. Her financial situation became so dire that she rounded up her family and took up residence in a cave along the Eau Claire River in 1917. The authorities tried for months to get her to leave, but did not succeed until they had her committed for the second time to the state mental hospital in Mendota. Her curious life has been the subject of articles, books and even a play.
When I was told this story by a shop clerk in Eau Claire and heard that the cave was walking distance from my vacation rental, I was determined to see it for myself. Not a tourist attraction you can find on a map, I had to do some digging to find out exactly where it was and how to reach it.
My excitement at locating the former underground home of the crazy Cave Lady was immediately dashed, however, when I saw that a tent was set up in the cave, accompanied by a bicycle and various bags of possessions. Like it had been so many years ago, but with considerably less notoriety, the cave was once again a residence. I silently retreated, embarrassed and somewhat ashamed. What was a lark to see a bit of local history turned into a shocking revelation. Nothing had changed in a century, yet so much had changed in a century. The authorities were in no rush to evict this cave dweller, nor will his name be the subject of essays, books or plays in 2120. He is not a celebrity now, nor will he become a local legend.
Two years ago, I set out to write a play about homelessness for a community outreach project at the Janesville Performing Arts Center. To research the topic, I did the things well-meaning volunteers do: spend time with the men at the GIFTS homeless shelter, go on the overnight Rock County homeless count, interview non-profit leaders about the services they provide. It was a real learning experience, and it opened my eyes to a lot of the issues the homeless face, as well as the wide variety of experiences that lead them there and the obstacles to escaping it.
For a while, I felt pretty good about what I accomplished with the play, titled “There’s No Place.” Then, for the most part, I just went back to my old life. Some artists say experiences like this change their lives. And it would be incorrect to say that I don’t view the plight of the homeless differently now. But it didn’t really affect my behavior going forward.
One of the scenes in the play featured a character living in a tent under a downtown bridge. He had a job, and he even had a car he drove to work and parked on a side street at night. The situation was based on a combination of experiences I heard about on the night of the homeless count. I created not only the character, but I imagined a specific area of downtown Janesville where he might be found living. I had gone to Beloit the night of the count, so my supposition about the Janesville location was pure conjecture.
Then this summer, while riding my bicycle on the city trail, I nearly fell off my bike when I spotted a tent at the base of the railroad bridge just west of the Monterey Bridge on Center Avenue. This was almost exactly the place I had pictured in my mind. Way off to the back of the empty parking lot next door, a beater car sat, seemingly parked as far from street view as possible. The similarities to what I had created shocked me.
Since that discovery, my eyes seem to be opened and my radar turned back on. I once again notice the sleeping bags trying to hide from view, the people wandering downtown carrying all of their possessions, the men in dirty clothes sitting alone on benches staring into space. It’s like when you buy a certain car, you suddenly see that model everywhere you look. So it is with me now and the homeless.
Eau Claire has many similarities to what Janesville is in the process of becoming, with a revitalized downtown focused on its rivers with murals, public art, paved trails and pedestrian bridges. In fact, one almost feels like downtown Eau Claire is a template for the ARISE program. But like Janesville, your visit downtown will show you that here, too, homelessness still exists.
Like the sleeping bags you find along the paved trails between Mercy Hospital and Riverside Park, the homeless in Eau Claire seem to gravitate to the river. A woman we had seen sleeping under a tree next to the bike trail later startled the entire neighborhood with a screaming fit that was loud enough to hear through closed windows from our rental a half-block away. She sat under the tree, raging at an unknown someone or something, her arms waving and her voice screeching. This went on for almost 45 minutes, earning lots of stares from nearby pedestrians and shop employees. Finally, my wife called the police to ask them to check on her welfare. We watched from our window as an officer engaged her for less than a minute. He left, and then she left. And for the rest of the week, as I walked or biked past the tree where she had been, I couldn’t help but wonder where she went and what happened to her. What was her story? What was she yelling about? Where did she go? Did the officer know her? Did he simply tell her to calm down and leave?
A fleeting thought went through my mind while she was having her episode, to go down and talk to her. But ultimately, fear of what she might do overcame me. Was she dangerous? Would she make me the object of her rage? I felt impotent, watching this play out but not having the courage to see if all she needed was a caring human being to engage her in conversation.
When all was said and done, “There’s No Place” did what it was intended to do. Expertly directed and acted, it spurred some community conversation and brought awareness to the different aspects of the homeless problem. But now, two years later, new thoughts consume me. Did it all make any real difference? Did a single homeless person benefit because someone who saw the play took action?
And why didn’t it change me?
