Lewis, Edith Labaree (1881-1972). Magazine editor, advertising copywriter, and Cather's domestic partner. Born in Lincoln, NE, to Henry Euclid Lewis and Lillie Gould Lewis, Edith Lewis attended the preparatory school associated with the University of Nebraska, earning college credits from the University before transferring to Smith College in Northampton, MA, in 1899. She received an A.B. in English from Smith in 1902 and returned home to teach elementary school. She met Willa Cather in the summer of 1903 at the home of Sarah Harris, publisher of the Lincoln Courier. Moving to New York City soon afterward, Lewis settled into a studio on Washington Square and found work at the Century Publishing Company. Cather was her guest when she visited the city from Pittsburgh. In 1906, at Cather's suggestion, Lewis applied for a position as an editorial proofreader at McClure's Magazine, and the two women worked together on the McClure's staff for six years. In 1908, they moved into a shared apartment at 82 Washington Place, and then, in 1912, to Five Bank Street. Lewis left McClure's in 1915 to become managing editor of Every Week Magazine, where she stayed until the magazine folded in 1918. In 1919 she began a long career as an advertising copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson Co. In 1926 Edith Lewis acquired the land on which she and Cather built their cottage on Grand Manan Island. When they lost their apartment on Bank Street to subway construction in 1927, they shared quarters at the Grosvenor Hotel when they were both in New York City. In 1932 they took an apartment at 570 Park Avenue. Throughout their relationship, Lewis was closely involved in Cather's creative process, reading and editing her work in pre-publication forms. Cather's will appointed Lewis as executor of her literary estate and a beneficiary of her literary trust. Lewis authorized E.K. Brown as Cather's first biographer and published her own memoir of Cather, Willa Cather Living (1953). She remained in their Park Avenue apartment after Cather's death and died there after a long period of illness and invalidism. She is buried at Cather's side in Jaffrey, NH.

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.

Shotwell, Margaret Badollet (c.1885-after 1944). American poet and socialite. Born in Nebraska, Margaret Badollet married the Republican politician Franklin Shotwell. Margaret Shotwell was active in Omaha literary circles, initiating “Nebraska Writers Week” and writing the weekly column "Bibliophile by Badollet" in the Omaha Daily News. Shotwell’s controversial poem “Will Willa?,” which criticized Léon Bakst’s portrait of Willa Cather commissioned for the Omaha Public Library, was published in the Omaha Daily News and reprinted in Publishers Weekly.

Bakst, Léon (1866-1924). Russian painter and theatrical designer. Born in Russia, Lejb-Khaim Rosenberg decided to become an artist when he was twelve. He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. In 1889 he took the surname Bakst. In 1893 Bakst went to Paris to study for four years, becoming a part of Sergei Diaghilev’s avant-garde artistic group. He became known as a portraitist in the early twentieth century, then in 1909 turned to stage and costume design for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, the work for which he is now best known. In 1922 he visited the U.S., where his friend and patron Alice Warder Garrett had organized exhibitions of his work. Willa Cather met Bakst in Paris in 1923. When a women’s federation in Omaha was raising funds to have a portrait painted of her, Bakst suggested he do the portrait. Cather enjoyed talking with Bakst during the sittings, but, like other viewers, she had mixed reactions to the finished portrait.

Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and One of Ours (1922), partly because she was dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an important personal friendship.

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).

Matheny, Nannie V. Andrews (1869-before 1950). American farm wife. Born in Virginia, daughter of Sarah Boak Seymore Andrews and Joseph Andrews, Nannie Andrews came to Webster County, NE, in the early 1880s to work for the George P. Cather family, with whom she was connected through her aunt, Mary Virginia Boak Cather. In 1886 she married William J. Matheny at the home of George Cather’s father, William Cather. She and her husband farmed in the western Catherton precinct, near Campbell, in Franklin County, NE, where they were living in 1920. In the early 1930s they moved to Buffalo County, NE, where they farmed with the help of their unmarried son, Frank H. Matheny. Willa Cather visited the Mathenys on their farm in September 1893. Other family members kept in occasional touch with them.

Matheny, William Jesse (1863-before 1950). Webster County farmer. Born in Kansas, William Matheny came to Nebraska around 1880 and worked for William Cather on his farm in Webster County. In 1886 he married Nannie Andrews, daughter of Sarah Boak Andrews and Joseph Andrews at the home of William and Emily Caroline Cather in Red Cloud, NE. William and Nannie Matheny farmed and raised cattle in the western Catherton precinct, near Campbell, in Franklin County, NE, where they were living in 1920. In the early 1930s they moved to Buffalo County, NE, where they farmed with the help of their unmarried son, Frank H. Matheny. Willa Cather visited the Mathenys on their farm in September 1893. Other family members kept in occasional touch with them.

Bagina (c. 1890-after 1923). Italian cook. Born in Italy, Bagina moved to France c. 1920, where she worked for Isabelle McClung Hambourg and Jan Hambourg, who were living outside Paris at Ville d’Avray. Bagina and her husband lost what was probably their first child after a difficult delivery in summer 1923. Cather knew Bagina from her stay with the Hambourgs in early summer 1923.