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 |
It was kind of you to write, my friend of many years. This is the blow that seems to have shattered me completely. Roscoe3 and I had grown closer and closer through the years. Six years ago, after he had been so very ill, I went to California4 to be with him as much as I could. As he grew stronger, we did many delightful things together.
For the last two years his oldest daughter, Virginia5, had been working in the bank with her father while her
husband, Captain Brockway6, was commander of
an airplane carrier in the Pacific. She wrote me often, and always to tell me that
her father seemed stronger each month and she felt so glad to be useful to him in
the dreary time of waiting for her husband. There were no symptoms to tell Roscoe
or
us that at any time he might be leaving us. The telegram announcing his death7 reached me at Northeast Harbor, Maine8, we where I spent the summer. The day after this telegram, came a long and
very jolly letter from Roscoe himself. He died in his sleep the night after that
letter was posted. It was an easy way out for him, thank God, but it is hard for the
people who loved him to quite realize it. I often waken in the night and think that
it was all a bad dream.
You will remember the days9 we spent at Brownsville10, when the hot winds11 came and burned the whole state12 up. Roscoe was only a green lad then, but he grew to be a very fine man. And he lived just the kind of life he loved. It was only after the long hard Wyoming13 winters had begun to tell on his health that he sought the softer climate of California.
Thank you, my dear friend, for remembering me in this the hardest trial I shall ever go through.
Lovingly to you WillaInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1717.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1717
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mariel C. Gere1
- Date letter was written
- October 19 [1945]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Roscoe Cather's death on September 25, 1945.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (RG2639.AM), Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Roscoe Cather died on 5 September 1945.
Willa Cather, Roscoe Cather, Mariel Gere, and Grace Broady went to Brownville, NE, in late July 1894 (see #0018). Cather wrote about the trip in "An Old River Metropolis" in the 12 August 1894 Nebraska State Journal, and used material from the experience in other articles and a short story.
On 26 July 1894, very hot dry winds from the south swept across Nebraska, burning up the corn crop in a single day. Cather was in Brownville, NE, that day and wrote about it in "The Hottest Day I Ever Spent" (Library, 7 July 1900); Cather's character Mary Rosicky describes a similar day in "Neighbour Rosicky" (1930).
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.
Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother.
Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High
School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high
school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of
schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he
married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an
abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret
and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe
became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA,
where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in
the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank
until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several
times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926
trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San
Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle
family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was
one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a
prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Brockway, Virginia Cather (1912-1984) (“West Virginia”). Cather's
niece. Born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe Cather and Meta Schaper
Cather, Virginia graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper, WY, in
1929. She received an A.B. in English from Smith College in Northampton, MA,
in 1933, the same year Willa Cather received an honorary doctorate there. In
1934, she enrolled in the University of Chicago School of Social Services
and was, for a time, a social worker. She married John Hadley Brockway, a
Navy officer, in 1936. They moved frequently until his retirement from the
Navy. She had one child, son George. In letters, Willa Cather sometimes
calls her "West Virginia" to distinguish her from her cousin Mary Virginia
Auld because Virginia Cather's birthplace in Wyoming was farther west than
Mary Virginia's in Nebraska.
Brockway, John Hadley (1910-1991). U.S. Navy officer; Virginia Cather’s husband. Born in Douglas, WY, John Brockway was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1927 and on graduation was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy. In 1936 he married Virginia Cather, Willa Cather’s niece, and they had one child, George. The family moved frequently until his retirement from the Navy. He died in San Diego, CA.
Place Annotations
