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 |
An hour ago I returned from a short Thanksgiving holiday in the country and found
your telegram awaiting me. I can scarcely realize yet what a large part of of
Red Cloud5 has, for me, vanished with
your father6. In his kindness for his women
folk he seemed fatherly to Nell as well as 2 to Helen. I can never forget his kindness, and Nell’s, to my mother7 and father8 when they were growing old. Father depended on Bernard’s
smile and his hearty greeting, as mother did on the red lamp she Nell used to light in her window at night. The
generous hospitality of your house meant almost as much to me as it did to them.
Bernard’s face when he greeted us was always rosy and
glowing like that of the host in old English 3 novels. He came West when he was
young, but he came before it was the fashion to be a r“roughneck”. As a young man he had good manners, as well as good looks,
and he kept both. He was, as my father often said, “a gentleman”,—(and so was
his older brother, James9.) He set the younger
generation an example which few of them followed—yet certainly they he was more successful in business than the
roughnecks. His kindness to old people and to poor people 4 will
certainly be long remembered in Red Cloud—that was a part of his warm
geniality and courtesy.
You two, Nell and Helen, will never cease missing him, as long as you live, and I
write this as one who is sorrowful with you. (Your telegram is dated from Lincoln10, so I suppose Bernard must died there.) In my heart I shall always remember
his how much your household added to the
happiness of ours.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1461.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1461
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Helen Sherman McNeny and Helen McNeny Sprague1
- Date letter was written
- November 24 [1939]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is derived from the death of Bernard McNeny in 1939.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Person Annotations
McNeny, Helen Sherman (1880-after 1940) (“Nell”). Cather’s Red Cloud friend. Helen Sherman was born in Nebraska, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. M. C. Sherman. She was a milliner and clerked in the Miner Bros. store before her marriage to Bernard McNeny in 1907. They had one daughter, also named Helen, in 1908. In 1914 the McNenys moved into a house across the street from the second Charles Cather home. She was active in local women’s clubs.
0160Sprague, 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.
McNeny, Helen Sherman (1880-after 1940) (“Nell”). Cather’s Red Cloud friend. Helen Sherman was born in Nebraska, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. M. C. Sherman. She was a milliner and clerked in the Miner Bros. store before her marriage to Bernard McNeny in 1907. They had one daughter, also named Helen, in 1908. In 1914 the McNenys moved into a house across the street from the second Charles Cather home. She was active in local women’s clubs.
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.
McNeny, Bernard (1871-1939). Red Cloud lawyer. Bernard McNeny was born in Ft. McHenry, NY. He came to Red Cloud, NE, in 1889 to visit his elder brother James McNeny, a lawyer, and was himself admitted to the bar in 1891, becoming very successful. He was part of the young social set of Red Cloud when Cather was growing up there. He married Helen Sherman in 1907, and they had one daughter, Helen, in 1908. In 1914 the McNenys moved into a house across the street from the second Charles Cather home. Bernard McNeny handled some business and legal matters for Willa Cather.
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.
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).
McNeny, James (1847-1910). American lawyer. Born in Port Henry, NY, James McNeny worked his way through Ottawa College in Canada. After studying law in New York, he came to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878, where he practiced in partnership with Oliver C. Case. He married milliner Julia Chapman Fowler in 1886. His younger brother, Bernard McNeny, came to Red Cloud to join him around 1890. In 1898 James McNeny left Red Cloud for Seattle, WA, where he practiced until his death in the Wellington, WA, avalanche. Cather asked McNeny for permission to use a room in his law offices to write while she was on a visit home in 1898.
Place Annotations
