Southwick, Helen Louise Cather (1918-2004). Cather’s niece. Helen was born in Red Cloud, NE, to Willa Cather’s brother James and his wife Ethel. Willa was a doting aunt on her visits to Red Cloud. In 1931, Helen moved with her family to Long Beach, CA, where she graduated high school and attended Long Beach City College. In 1939, Helen returned to Red Cloud to help care for her maternal grandmother and then enrolled in the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where she met her future husband, Philip Southwick. After graduating in 1941, she briefly returned to California to work in the personnel department of Douglas Aircraft company, but married Southwick in Lincoln in 1942, and then moved with him to Champaign, IL. When Philip’s employment took them to Plainfield, NJ, she frequently spent time with her aunt in New York City. In 1946, the Southwicks moved to Pittsburgh, PA, where their son James was born. In later years Helen worked as a school librarian and was active in the Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, NE. She was a beneficiary of Cather’s literary estate, and when Edith Lewis died in 1972 she bequeathed Cather books and manuscripts to Helen and her brother Charles Cather. Helen donated her share of these materials and Willa Cather’s letters to her to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.