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.

Hess, Myra (1890-1965). British pianist. Born to a Jewish family in London, England, Myra Hess began playing piano as a young child, studying at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1907 she made her debut, then toured in Britain and Europe. She made her American debut in 1922, becoming popular as a soloist and in ensembles. Cather became acquainted with her through her publishers, Alfred and Blanche Knopf. Myra Hess was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1936 and Dame Commander in 1941. During World War II, when bombings and curfews made evening concerts impossible, Hess organized thousands of weekday lunch-time concerts by eminent musicians.

Zimbalist, Rieba Fiersohn Glick (1882-1938) (“Alma Gluck”). Romanian-American soprano. Reba Fiersohn’s poor but music-loving family emigrated from Romania to New York City when she was a young child. She married insurance man Bernard Glick in 1902 and had a daughter who would become the novelist Marcia Davenport. An opera-lover who heard Reba sing arranged for her to have lessons in 1906; in 1909 she signed a contract with the Metropolitan Opera as Alma Gluck. In 1911 she began making a tremendously successful series of recordings of operatic and popular songs. She left the operatic stage in 1912 to study with Jean de Reszke and Marcella Sembrich, and then to devote herself to concert singing. She married violinist Efrem Zimbalist in 1914, by whom she had a son, actor Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., and they performed together. By the early 1920s, however, her voice was giving out and she performed rarely.

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.

Auld, Jessica Virginia Cather (1881-1964) (“Jessie”). Cather’s sister. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Jessica was the fourth child and second daughter of Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud High School in 1899, she taught at a country school and the South Side Grade School until her marriage to James William Auld, a Red Cloud banker, in 1904. They had three children (Charles, William Thomas, and Mary Virginia). After their divorce in 1933, she moved to Palo Alto, CA, where she died thirty-one years later. Few letters from Willa Cather to her sister Jessica survive, and particularly after Jessica’s divorce their relationship was strained.

Cather, Charles Douglas (1880-1938) (“Douglass”). Cather’s brother. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Charles was third child and second son of Charles and Virginia Cather. As an adolescent, Douglass Cather helped his father supervise rented farm properties and worked as a messenger for the local Burlington & Missouri Railroad office. In 1897 he left Red Cloud for a position in Sterling, CO, and then took a position with at the Cheyenne, WY, office of the Burlington Railroad. In 1908 he traveled to Mexico, an experience that his sister gave to Emil Bergson in O Pioneers! (1913). By 1910 he was working for the Santa Fe railroad and living in Winslow, AZ, where Willa Cather visited him in 1912. He later achieved success in the oil business in California. Although he never married, Cather notes that during the last six or seven years of his life he had a relationship with Dorothy Rogers. Douglass visited Cather in New York City in December of 1937. His death in June 1938 left her devastated. Douglass served as a prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932) and Hector the messenger boy brother in “The Best Years” (1948). His years working for the Burlington also inspired Cather’s many railroad worker characters in her novels, including Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925). Few letters from this important sibling relationship have survived.

Cather, James Donald (1886-1966) (“Jim”). Cather’s brother. James was born in Red Cloud, NE, the fifth child and third son of Charles and Virginia Cather. James moved to Wyoming in 1907 to work with his brothers Douglass and Roscoe. In 1913 he married Ethel Garber, and owned and operated clothing stores first in Red Cloud and then Holyoke, CO, where the family settled for a time 1920 before returning to Red Cloud in 1922. The couple had two children, Helen Louise and Charles Edwin. In 1930 the family moved to California so James could work in the oil business with Douglass and his partners. Willa’s relationship with James was more distant than that with her brothers Douglass and Roscoe, who were closer to her own age, although she was very fond of his children.

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).

Cather, John (1892-1959) (“Jack”). Cather’s brother. Born and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Jack was the seventh child and fourth son of Charles and Virginia Cather. He was nearly two decades younger than Willa Cather, and she was a doting older sister when he was a small boy. Because she missed him after her 1896 move to Pittsburgh, PA, she wrote several poems about him and the story “Jack-a-Boy” (1901). After graduating from Red Cloud High School in 1912, Jack studied for two years at University of Nebraska in Lincoln. With Willa Cather’s encouragement, in 1914 he enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh to study engineering. Willa Cather was then living in New York City but traveled to Pittsburgh to help him settle in and enjoyed visiting him and supported his decision to change his major to theater. It is not clear whether he graduated from Carnegie Tech but the British government trained him as a chemist so he could inspect munitions factories. While working in Smethport, PA, he met Irma Wells, and they married in 1918. They had two children, Catherine and Ella Faye. After World War I, he worked as a chemical engineer in the oil industry in Cincinnati, OH, Casper, WY, and Bradford, PA. In 1936 he moved to Whittier, CA, and became a business partner with his brothers Douglass and James in an oil production company. He died in Long Beach, CA. Willa Cather mentions him frequently in letters, but she seems to have had little contact with him and his family in later years, and no letters from her to him have surfaced.