Seibel, George (1873-1958). American literary and drama critic. Cather met Seibel and his wife Helen while working as editor of the Home Monthly in Pittsburgh in 1896 and 1897. They regularly studied French and German together, Cather read her work in progress to him, and George reviewed April Twilights (1903) in the Pittsburgh Gazette.

Hambourg, Isabelle McClung (1877-1938). Cather’s longtime friend. Cather met Isabelle McClung, the daughter of a socially prominent, Pittsburgh (PA) family, in 1899 in the dressing room of actress Lizzie Hudson Collier. McClung seems to have been the first woman to reciprocate Cather’s romantic affections. In 1901, McClung invited Cather to live in her family’s large home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. She and Cather traveled together to Europe in 1902, and McClung accompanied Cather on a visit home to Nebraska in 1905. After Cather moved to New York City in 1906, she frequently visited McClung in Pittsburgh, finding the familiar house a congenial place to write, and McClung visited New York City, staying with Cather and Edith Lewis. Cather and McClung also rented a vacation cabin in Cherry Valley, NY, in 1911, and traveled together to Virginia in 1913. In late 1915, shortly after the death of her father, Judge Samuel McClung, Isabelle announced her intention to marry violinist Jan Hambourg. Cather reacted negatively to the marriage (which took place in 1916) but eventually reconciled herself to it, enjoying long visits with the Hambourgs in Toronto, Ontario, in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. Cather and Edith Lewis also spent time with the Hambourgs in Paris is 1930 and 1935. The latter trip occurred after Isabelle sought treatment in the U.S. for the kidney disease that killed her several years later in Italy. Her death came only four months after Cather’s brother Douglass died, leaving her feeling bereft. “No other living person cared as much about my work, through thirty-eight years,” she wrote her brother Roscoe (#2137). After Isabelle’s death, Jan sent to Cather the six hundred letters from Cather to Isabelle in his possession, and Cather destroyed them, although a few letters from Isabelle and Cather postcards to Isabelle are extant.

Sawyer, Edith McClung (1884-1958). Isabelle McClung Hambourg’s sister. The youngest child of a socially prominent Pittsburgh, PA, family, Edith McClung lived in the family home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood in 1901, when her older sister Isabelle invited Cather to join the household. Some time after her social debut in November 1903, Edith left for New York City to take a nursing course and then worked as a nurse in Hudson, NY. She married John Leroy Sawyer and in 1913 moved with him to his hometown of Cherry Valley, NY. She died in Cherry Valley.

McClung, Samuel A. (1845-1915) American jurist, Isabelle McClung’s father. Born in Alleghany County, PA, to a Presbyterian minister and his wife, Samuel McClung graduated from Washington College in 1863 and in 1868 was admitted to the bar and moved to Pittsburgh, PA. He was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1872 and was known for his conservatism. He married Fannie Merritt in 1874 and they had three children, Isabelle, Samuel Jr., and Edith. In 1901 Isabelle McClung invited Willa Cather to reside in the McClung family home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and she lived there until her 1906 move to New York City. Cather often returned there to write until Judge McClung’s death caused the sale of family home in 1916.

McClung, Samuel Alfred, Jr. (1880-1945) (“Alfred”). Pittsburgh lawyer; Isabelle McClung’s brother. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, to Samuel A. McClung and Fannie Merritt McClung, Samuel Alfred McClung, Jr., graduated from Shadyside Academy in 1900 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1901, when his sister Isabelle invited Cather to move into the family’s home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, he was likely still at MIT, but by 1904 was a clerk at the First National Bank of Pittsburgh. He was admitted to the bar in Pittsburgh in 1911 and practiced law there. In 1917, he married Mary Caldwell Mellon Kampmann, a divorcee with two children and a member of the wealthy and influential Mellon family of Pittsburgh. They had three children together, Samuel III, Cynthia, and Isabelle. In the 1930s he retired from the practice of law, and he and his family lived on their farm in Cherry Valley, NY.

McClung, Frances A. Merritt (1852-1913) (“Fannie”). Isabelle McClung’s mother. Born in Cherry Valley, NY, Fannie Merritt married Samuel A. McClung in 1874, and lived with him in Pittsburgh, PA, where they had three children, Isabelle, Samuel Jr., and Edith. In 1901 Isabelle McClung invited Cather to reside in the McClung family home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and Cather lived there until her 1906 move to New York City, often returning there to write. Fannie McClung died suddenly at home after an illness of a few hours.