LUCAS — Ellen Bromfield Geld, daughter of the late Pulitzer-prize winning author Louis Bromfield, likes coming back to Mansfield.
“I always get a lump in my throat when I see Malabar,” she said today from AngelWoods Hideway Bed & Breakfast on Pleasant Valley Road, where she and husband Carson Geld are staying through Oct. 9.
Bromfield Geld, who has lived in Brazil since 1953, said while in town the couple plan to see old friends, Malabar Farm and their great-grandchildren, who are coming from Canada.
One of three daugthers of Louis Bromfield, Bromfield Geld grew up at Malabar Farm. She will sign her books and her father’s books this weekend during Heritage Days.
She hadn’t yet stepped inside the Big House since arriving in town but planned to spend time seeing what’s going on at the farm, which was her former home.
“The Big House definitely needs to be maintained. The house is an important part of the whole scene,” she said of recent state cutbacks.
“I’m a little bit concerned about Malabar and what its real goals are. The main goals of my father were soil conservation and changes and he kept right on doing that up until the day he died,” she said. “Brazil is very much influenced by my father and that’s why we went there. A Brazilian came to visit us.
“One of the last practices that Brazil adapted was from my father’s work, no-till or direct planting. You plant directly in the trash of the last crop. If you had wheat, you plant in the trash of what’s left from the wheat or corn. It’s used in Brazil in practically everything. It prevents erosion.”
The couple also are in town to vote.
“We wanted to vote for the presidential election. Very important,” she said. “This year my husband and I are both voting for the same person,” she said. “Obama.”