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 |
GRAND MANAN2
NEW BRUNSWICK
CANADA June 24th My Dear Helen1;
I've been wanting for a long while to write to you, but you know a writer's friends are the last served, like cobblers' children. Of course I want to hear all about the baby3; his name, and who he looks like. I was so glad for all of you when he arrived, well and husky. Is he a lot of fun as well as a "responsibility"? I hope so. My father4 and mother5 made a mere plaything of me, I remember, and it did not kill me.
The Lindbergh horror6 goes on from worse to worst. Just a year ago they7 were telling me all about their new house and how happy they were going to be in it, and how they were sure people would let them alone and not torment them there because the region was so unattractive. Any place would be attractive to them, they said, where they would be let alone to live like other people. They didn't ask for anything exceptional—and this is what they get! I think that man Curtis8 was the vilest of all their tormentors. How he could go on deceiving that desperate and rather unsophisticated young man! Anne would have seen through that crook, I'm sure, if she hadn't been ill and shut up in the house.
I've been for two weeks in our9 funny little home on this soft, flowery island, with no sounds but the wind and the fog horn. Twenty three huge ice bergs have broken loose south of Greenland10—the ocean liners have changed their course, and the cold wind off that ice has been blowing in on us across the open sea, bringing a lot of fog that moves very swiftly over us. My love to all of you, my dear, and please write me about the baby—a character sketch!
Affectionately always Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1114.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1114
- Contents
- Document is photocopy of one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Helen McNeny Sprague1
- Date letter was written
- June 24 [1932]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
The 20-month old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped 1 March 1932. His body was found 12 May 1932.
Cather may mean John F. Condon, who had Lindbergh appoint him an intermediary with the kidnappers. He received notes from the alleged kidnappers, asked for and received a child's sleeping suit as evidence that the child was alive, placed coded ads for meetings, and delivered the ransom money. He continued an investigation after the body was found, although he himself became a suspect.
Person Annotations
Sprague, Helen McNeny (1908-?). Cather's Red Cloud acquaintance. Helen McNeny was the only child of Bernard and Helen (Nellie) McNeny. She graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Omaha, NE, and attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where she met Leon Sprague, whom she married after her graduation in 1930. He practiced law with her father, and they lived in Red Cloud, NE, where she was a member of the Literature and Art Department of the Red Cloud Women’s Club. They had three children, born in 1932, 1934, and 1938.
Sprague, Bernard (1932-1999). Red Cloud lawyer. Born in Hastings, NE, son of Leon and Helen McNeny Sprague, Bernard grew up in Red Cloud, NE; he attended the University of Nebraska and earned his law degree at the University of Denver (CO). In 1955 he married Barbara Flanagan, and they had four children. He served as Assistant United States Attorney in Lincoln, NE, from 1961 to 1963, then returned to Red Cloud to practice, serving, like his father, as Red Cloud City Attorney and Webster County Attorney, and then as District 10 judge.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
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.
Lindbergh, Anne Morrow (1906-2001). American author and
aviator. Born in Englewood, NJ, to Dwight Morrow and Elizabeth
Cutter Morrow, Anne Morrow graduated from Smith College in 1928 with a
degree in English. She married aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1929 and became
his copilot. Cather met the Lindberghs in 1931, when both she and Charles
Lindbergh were given honorary degrees by Princeton University. On March 1,
1932, the Lindberghs first child, Charles Jr., was kidnapped; the crime and
the discovery of the boy’s body ten weeks later were a media sensation.
Cather admired Anne Lindbergh’s first book, North to the
Orient (1935), which recounted her 1931 journey with Charles to
Asia via the great circle route in 1931. Lindbergh’s best-known book is Gift from the Sea (1955), an inspirational meditation
on modern life and particularly the challenges facing women, which has sold
more than three million copies.
Lindbergh, Charles Augustus (1902-1974). American aviator.
Born in Detroit, MI, to parents of Swedish descent and raised in
Minnesota, Charles Lindbergh wanted to become a flyer in World War I but was
too young. After three semesters studying engineering at the University of
Wisconsin, he left to become a barnstorming pilot and later enlisted in the
Army Air Service and became a captain in the Missouri National Guard.
Lindbergh’s 1927 nonstop flight from New York to Paris piloting the Spirit
of St. Louis made him an international celebrity. In 1929 he married Anne
Cutter Morrow, who became his copilot. Cather met the Lindberghs in 1931,
when both she and Charles Lindbergh were given honorary degrees by Princeton
University. On March 1, 1932, the Lindberghs first child, Charles Jr., was
kidnapped; the crime and the discovery of the boy’s body ten weeks later
were a media sensation. In 1939 Charles Lindbergh advocated against American
involvement in World War II, and although he eventually supported the war,
his non-interventionist stance tarnished his reputation. His bestselling
book about his pioneering flight, The Spirit of St.
Louis (1953), was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
Lewis, Edith Labaree (1881-1972). Magazine editor,
advertising copywriter, and Cather's domestic partner. Born in
Lincoln, NE, to Henry Euclid Lewis and Lillie Gould Lewis, Edith Lewis
attended the preparatory school associated with the University of Nebraska,
earning college credits from the University before transferring to Smith
College in Northampton, MA, in 1899. She received an A.B. in English from
Smith in 1902 and returned home to teach elementary school. She met Willa
Cather in the summer of 1903 at the home of Sarah Harris, publisher of the
Lincoln Courier. Moving to New York City soon
afterward, Lewis settled into a studio on Washington Square and found work
at the Century Publishing Company. Cather was her guest when she visited the
city from Pittsburgh. In 1906, at Cather's suggestion, Lewis applied for a
position as an editorial proofreader at McClure's
Magazine, and the two women worked together on the McClure's staff for six years. In 1908, they moved
into a shared apartment at 82 Washington Place, and then, in 1912, to Five
Bank Street. Lewis left McClure's in 1915 to become
managing editor of Every Week Magazine, where she
stayed until the magazine folded in 1918. In 1919 she began a long career as
an advertising copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson Co. In 1926 Edith Lewis
acquired the land on which she and Cather built their cottage on Grand Manan
Island. When they lost their apartment on Bank Street to subway construction
in 1927, they shared quarters at the Grosvenor Hotel when they were both in
New York City. In 1932 they took an apartment at 570 Park Avenue. Throughout
their relationship, Lewis was closely involved in Cather's creative process,
reading and editing her work in pre-publication forms. Cather's will
appointed Lewis as executor of her literary estate and a beneficiary of her
literary trust. Lewis authorized E.K. Brown as Cather's first biographer and
published her own memoir of Cather, Willa Cather
Living (1953). She remained in their Park Avenue apartment after
Cather's death and died there after a long period of illness and invalidism.
She is buried at Cather's side in Jaffrey, NH.
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
