Thomas Wolfe's Angel

My husband and I were passing through Hendersonville, NC, last weekend on our way back to Atlanta from a wedding in Asheville, NC. Of course I consulted by guidebook, Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains before the trip to see what we could check out while we were in the area. We were in luck. The Wolfe Angel is located in Oakdale Cemetery in Hendersonville. The historical marker and the statue are pictured below:

This angel inspired the title of Thomas Wolfe's first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. The marble statue was imported from Italy and sold by Wolfe's father (a monument dealer) to the Johnson family for use on their family plot. It's beautiful, and is surrounded by the rest of the cemetery, which is on a beautiful piece of land.

For more information about my visit to Thomas Wolfe's mother's boarding house in Asheville last fall, click here.