Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
GREAT NORTHERN RY. LINE.
S. S. NORTH LAND. August 2/99 My Dearest Mariel1;
I think you are about the luckiest girl4 I know and only the awful vows of secrecy to which Dorothy5 swore me, prevented me from writing you so at once. I am so glad about it all, my dear, it's like a dream come true. I am journeying home slowly by the Great Lake route, about a thousand miles by water and a day at Mackinac2. I will be in Lincoln3 with mother6 next Sunday at 139 N 12th street, wherever that is. Mother has been ill there a long time you know, and while I am not exactly alarmed about her, I am very much worried. So I don't see how I can get a visit in with you, much as I'd love to. Every minute in Lincoln must be with mother. But at any rate I'll get to see you before you start East, and that's something. Until Sunday
Faithfully Willa Miss Mariel C. Gere1 D & Ninth Streets Lincoln3 Nebraska MACKINAC ISLAND MICH.2 AUG 3 1899 8 PM Aug 1899About my going to Europe with the CanfieldsOn her way to be with her sick mother in Lincoln N. NEBR. REC'D.3 AUG 5 99 11 AM NORTHERN STEAMSHIP CO.S. S. NORTH LAND.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0057.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0057
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mariel C. Gere1
- Date letter was written
- August 2, 1899
- Place letter was written
- Mackinac Island, Michigan, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (RG2639.AM), Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Mariel Gere accompanied Dorothy and Flavia Canfield on a trip to Europe in 1899 (See Flavia Canfield's invitation in #0053).
Person Annotations
Gere, Mariel Clapham (1874-1960). Cather’s university friend; a teacher. Mariel Gere, eldest daughter of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, born in Lincoln, NE, entered the University of Nebraska's prep school in the same year Cather did. She and her sisters visited Cather several times in Red Cloud, NE. Both were members of the Union Literary Society until Gere joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority in 1892. Gere graduated in the science course and taught chemistry at Lincoln High until 1941. She also served on the Lincoln City Library board for many years. Cather and Gere remained friends and correspondents; Gere defended Cather from accusations that she had been arrogant and friendless during her university years.
Fisher, Dorothy Canfield (1879-1958). American novelist; educational
and social reformer. Dorothy Canfield and Willa Cather became
friends in 1891 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Canfield's
father, James Canfield, had come to serve as Chancellor. The family moved to
Columbus, OH, in 1895 when James Canfield assumed the presidency of Ohio
State University, from which Dorothy graduated in 1899. She then followed
her father to New York City, where he became Librarian of Columbia
University, and she pursued graduate study in Romance Languages at the
University of Paris and Columbia, from which she earned a PhD in 1904. On
Cather’s first trip to Europe, she spent time in France and England with
Canfield, including an awkward visit to the home of poet A.E. Housman.
Cather derived the central character of “The Profile” (1907) from Canfield’s
friend Evelyn Osborne, whom Cather had met in Europe. Cather and Canfield
became estranged for more than a decade because Canfield objected to the
story’s planned inclusion in The Troll Garden (1905).
Canfield married John Redwood Fisher in 1907, and their primary residence
was Arlington, VT. Canfield Fisher had spent 1916-1918 in France engaging in
war relief work, and Cather’s consultation with her about the accuracy of
her depiction of wartime France in One of Ours (1922)
led them to reconcile. In 1925 Canfield Fisher became a founding member of
the Book of the Month Club selection committee. She published her novels
(most of them very popular) under the name Dorothy Canfield but her various
nonfiction works as Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the Virginia to William Lee
Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and
was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872.
Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War
while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
Place Annotations
