Seymour, Elizabeth (c. 1859-1934) (“Bess,” “Bessie”). Cather’s cousin. Bess Seymour was born in Virginia to Sarah Boak (the elder sister of Willa Cather’s mother) and her first husband, Joseph D. Seymour. In 1883, Bess moved with Willa Cather’s family to Webster County, NE. Seymour lived in the Cather family home from 1883 to 1904, when she moved to the Webster County farm of her half brother, Will Andrews. Cather used her cousin’s name as a byline for the story “The Burglar’s Christmas” (1906), and it has been suggested that she served as a model for Aunt Tillie in The Song of the Lark (1915). Cather frequently mentions in letters to other family members that she received long letters from Seymour full of family news, and she urged her sister Elsie Cather to care for Seymour during her final illness and sent money to pay medical expenses.

Mellen, Mary Virginia Auld (1906-1982) (“Virginia,” “M.V.”). Cather's niece. Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld and James William Auld, Mary Virginia graduated from Red Cloud High School in 1924 and then spent a year at Dana Hall in Wellesley, MA, to qualify for admission to Smith College in Northampton, MA. In 1929 she received an A.B. in psychology from Smith and then moved to New York City, where she found work at Lord & Taylor before telling her aunt of her arrival. In 1930, probably with Willa Cather's help, she secured a position in the Circulation Department of the New York Public Library. In 1931, she entered the library's internal training school and in 1932 was assigned to the Tremont branch library in the Bronx. After Mary Virginia’s parents divorced in 1933 Cather took a quasi-parental role. She paid for vacations and when, in 1935, Mary Virginia married Richard (Dick) Mellen, a graduate of Harvard Medical School and roommate of her brother William Thomas Auld at Amherst College, she supervised wedding arrangements. After Dick was commissioned as a doctor in the Air Force, Mary Virginia—much to Cather’s regret—accompanied him to Chattanooga, TN, where he was assigned. In Cather's will, Mary Virginia was designated a beneficiary of the literary estate.

Wiener, Anna Cora (1857-after 1940). Cather’s New York City acquaintance. Born in New Jersey, daughter of Bohemian-born parents, jeweler Solomon Wiener and his wife, Anna Wiener grew up in a household that included Solomon’s siblings Joseph and Teresa. In 1887, Anna visited her uncle, Charles Wiener, Cather’s friend, in Red Cloud, NE. In 1898 widower Charles Wiener joined his siblings’ household on Fifth Avenue in New York City. In 1906 Anna Wiener married Charles Wiener, and Cather visited their household frequently until Charles’ death in 1917. Anna later moved to San Francisco, CA.

Clark, Douglas (c. 1865-after 1906). Sidney Cather Gore’s protégé. Probably born in Virginia, Douglas Clark became a member of Sidney Cather Gore’s household in Back Creek Valley, VA, in 1878. He was one of more than a dozen orphaned boys she raised; she wrote in her journals that he was like a son to her after her own sons left home. When Clark joined the Baptist Church, she was joyful. He married and had nine children by 1906. Willa Cather probably met Douglas Clark on family visits to her great-aunt Sidney Gore, who occasionally kept Cather updated about people she had known in Back Creek.

Gore, Walter T. (1883-1921). Stock-breeder; Cather’s cousin. Born in Frederick County, VA, the son of Perry and Laura Gore, and grandson of Sidney Cather Gore, Walter grew up on his parents’ farm. He worked as a bank clerk as a young man, marrying Nina Brown on October 6, 1910; they had no children. Returning to the farm, he took up fruit-raising and stock-breeding before his death in a tractor accident.

Burns, Lena Campbell Gore (1879-1955). Cather’s cousin. Born in Frederick County, VA, elder child of Perry and Laura Campbell Gore, Lena lived on the family farm until after her parents’ deaths, when she and her brother Walter moved to Winchester, VA. In 1914 she married Jacob A. Burns, of Heber Springs, AR, moving with him from there to Nowata County, OK, where she helped to raise a step-granddaughter.

Gore, James Howard (1856-1939). American mathematics professor; Cather’s cousin. Born in Back Creek, VA, youngest son of Mahlon and Sidney Cather Gore (Willa Cather’s great-aunt), James showed early interest in the sciences. He graduated from Columbian University (now George Washington University) in 1877 and did post-graduate work abroad, returning to teach mathematics and geodesy at Columbian and at the Corcoran Scientific School; he received a PhD in 1888. In 1889 he married Swedish-born Lillian Sparrendahl, whom Cather admired. They had one daughter, Sidney, who died at age fifteen. Gore was a founder of the National Geographic Society and was associated with various scientific expeditions, but he was not part of actual polar expeditions, as Cather’s letters seem to imply. He was a member of several foreign orders from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Cather stayed with the Gores for part of her 1901 visit to Washington, DC. In The Professor’s House (1925), Tom Outland finds that the people he has to deal with in Washington, D.C., are obsessed with receiving orders and decorations.

Gore, Sidney S. (1892-1907). J. Howard and Lillian Gore's daughter. Born in Washington, DC, to J. Howard Gore (Willa Cather’s cousin) and Lillian Gore, Sidney Gore studied in Switzerland and was fluent in German and French. She died at age fifteen from blood poisoning soon after an appendectomy.

Bentley, Alexander (1840-1908) (“Alex”). Father of Cather’s classmate. Born in New York, son of William Alexander Bentley and Sally Dunbar Bentley, Alexander Bentley served in the Civil War with the 12th New York Infantry, for which he received a pension in 1892 and an invalid pension in 1907. He married Mary Frances Anderson in Iowa in 1865; they had six children, the eldest being Cather’s classmate, Alec/Alex Bentley. In 1875, Bentley bought a thousand-acre tract of land in Inavale precinct in Webster County, NE. However, by 1885 he was living near Red Cloud and working as a laborer. Some kind of trouble scattered the family by 1900, with his wife and several of his children going to Wyoming to live; Bentley himself died in Hermosa, NM. Cather, who would have known the elder Bentley at least slightly in Red Cloud, said she thought it “fine” in the younger Alex Bentley to go see him.

Ferris, Mollie (c. 1864-1941). Cather family friend in Red Cloud. Ferris was a close friend of Cather’s mother. Willa Cather and Ferris served jointly as godmothers when Cather’s niece Helen Louise Cather was christened in Red Cloud, NE, in 1918. When Ferris died, Cather contributed money for a stained glass window in her honor in Grace Episcopal Church in Red Cloud.