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 |
In the first place I want to thank you for the dear letter you wrote me about your Easter in Red Cloud3. That letter, like so many of your previous letters, brought the whole scene before me, and I felt a renewed contact with our old friends there, almost as if I had seen them.
Now as to the second part of your letter. I took it up into the Catskills with me, to think it over4 in a quiet place, and I have come to a complete face-about with regard to the house in Red Cloud5. When I came back to New York2 I found a long letter from Roscoe6, explaining to me why he thought it much better for you to move to Lincoln7 and forego the house. But I had come to my decision before I got his letter. Your long last letter convinced me that you really found no more pleasure at all in the house, and that it is merely a burden to you. Since you want to live in Lincoln and to move your effects there, you certainly ought to do so.
Hitherto my letters to you on this subject have been written under the apprehension that in a low moment you might destroy something for which you had a real affection, and then be sorry for it afterward. You see, my mind has not kept pace with the changes in Red Cloud and in your own feelings. When I last saw you, you were very enthusiastic about your plans for making the house just as you wanted it. You were then in a possessive frame of mind and seemed a little afraid that someone else might try to put an oar in. A summer or two later, when you were painting the house, pulling down the barn, etc., you wrote me at Grand Manan8 about the changes you were making, and wrote -2-enthusiastically. You seemed to enjoy making the place more and more just as you wanted it. When the drought came on you wrote me about your fight to save the trees, as if you enjoyed that, too. I was further influenced by a letter in which you deplored Mrs. Frank Smith9's leaving her own house and renting rooms in Lincoln. All these things made me feel that, in spite of temporary discouragements, you really had a deep fondness for the place and would regret it if you gave it up.
In the four days I had in the country10, I
tried to realize how much the town itself hads changed and how much your own circle of
friends there hads narrowed. And the climate itself seems to have changed - though I doubt
if the climate in Lincoln will be a great improvement.
I think it unreasonable and unjust that you should be expected to be the caretaker of a house which you do not wish to live in, merely because Douglass11 and I had a strong feeling about it. Roscoe was never there enough to feel strongly about the place, and he saw very little of his parents12 there in their gentle and mellow old age. It was different with Douglass and me, and I am so thankful that the house was still there on Douglass' last visit. He talked to me with such satisfaction about it - urged me to go out there soon, and said it was not much changed - "not to hurt". For him it will always be there: so I think you will be glad, on his account, that you kept it as long as you did.
As long as the house is standing on the ground, unsold and unrented, I will certainly send you13 the $250 a year I promised for taxes, etc. But I
shall certainly not try to influence your disposal of it in any way. And if you can
get any money out of it, I think it would be right for you to do so. You have
certainly put up a valiant struggle to keep that
housethe place as a reminder of
Father and Mother to their old friends,—but so many of their old friends are now dead. I can see how the changes in
the town and climate have been
-3- against you. Don't let the place be any
further worry or care to you, Elsie. Slide out of it as easily as you can. If I were
ten years younger I would buy it from you in a minute, though I have even fewer
friends there than you. I wish I could advise you as to how to get rid of it. I am
afraid that will be painful, whatever way you do it. Perhaps you will decide to
truck the furniture to your place in Lincoln and let the old shell of the house
stand. Tramps and a fire might end the difficulties. It really seems to me that
might be the easiest way out. It is all a painful business, but remember the place
was there for Douglass to see when he went back. That ought to be a lot of comfort
to you.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1926.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1926
- Contents
- Document is three leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf only. Carbon copy of this letter is enclosed in #2147.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elsie Cather1
- Date letter was written
- May 26, 1939
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Susan J. and James Rosowski Cather Collection (MS228), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Elsie Cather was serving as caretaker for and living in the family home in Red Cloud. In 1939 Elsie decided she would prefer to relocate to Lincoln.
541 N. Seward Street (Red Cloud, NE): Built circa 1899, Cather’s parents, Charles F. and Mary Virginia Boak Cather, purchased this home in 1903. Cather stayed here when she returned to Red Cloud to visit her parents, returning for the last time in 1931 following her mother’s death. At that time, Cather's sister Elsie inherited the house, returning to Red Cloud for summer vacations for most of the 1930s. Willa Cather contributed to the maintenance of the property until Elsie sold the house in 1945 to W. H. Maynard. By 1946, it was being used as a local hospital. Willa Cather used the house as the prototype for the second Ferguesson house in her short story “The Best Years.”
In March 1939, Cather traveled to Mohonk Lake, NY, which is just South of the Catskill Mountains (#1446).
Cather often provided financial assistance for the upkeep of the family home in Red Cloud. Cather's ledger shows a $250 payment to Elsie Cather on 16 March 1939 and another $250 payment on 5 January 1940 for "upkeep of her house". No similar payments appear in the ledger after 1940.
Person Annotations
Cather, Elsie Margaret (1890-1964) (“Bobbie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Red Cloud, NE, shortly before Willa Cather
graduated from high school, Elsie attended the University of Nebraska in
Lincoln from 1908 to 1910, before transferring to Smith College, in
Northampton, MA, from which she graduated with an A.B. in English and Latin
in 1912. She undertook graduate study at the University of Nebraska in 1914
and in 1916 received her A.M. with a major in philosophy and a minor in
English. At both the undergraduate and the graduate level at Nebraska, she
studied under Louise Pound. She began a career in high school teaching in
1912, when she took a position in Lander, WY, where her brother Roscoe then
lived with his family. She also taught in Albuquerque, NM; Corning, IA;
Cleveland, OH; and briefly Red Cloud, when illness in the family brought her
home. Her longest tenure as a teacher was at Lincoln (NE) High School, where
she began teaching in 1920, with Olivia Pound and Mariel Gere as colleagues.
Willa Cather's expectation that Elsie be responsible for aging family and
friends and for legal affairs after their parents' deaths sometimes brought
the sisters into conflict. Elsie Cather retired from Lincoln High School in
1942. She died in Lincoln.
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).
Garber, Charlotte Squire Smith (1869-1965) ("Lottie"). Cather family's Red Cloud neighbor. Born in Wisconsin, Charlotte Squire married Frank Smith, who owned a shoe store. The couple lived on Seward Street in Red Cloud, NE, next door to the home that Willa Cather’s parents, Charles and Mary Virginia Cather, purchased in 1903. She was active in the Rebekah service organization, holding many offices. Widowed in 1934, she stayed on in Red Cloud. In 1942, she married Edwin S. Garber. She died in Lincoln, NE, after a short residence there.
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, 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.
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.
