Skip to main content

#2155: Willa Cather to Roscoe Cather, October 23, 1939

More about this letter…
Plain view:

Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions

Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.

Textual Feature Appearance
passage deleted with a strikethrough mark deleted passage
passage deleted by overwritten added letters overwritten passage
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
My dear Roscoe1:

It was more than kind of you not to let me know about this second operation5 until it was over and you had recovered from it. Within the last few weeks I have lost two old and dear friends; the fine Scotch doctor6 at Grand Manan7 whom the twins8 will remember with affection, because he liked to play with them. and tThis summer was delighted to hear about Elizabeth's9 baby10. Died of his heart—ill 15 minutes only. I should have to write a book to tell you what a fine man he was. And soon after I arrived home my lawyer, John B. Nash11, died suddenly. He has been my attorney ever since the early days on Bank Street12. My latest will (which he made last February) will remain in the vaults of his firm, Breed, Abbott & Morgan, 15 Broad Street; remember this. But I shall miss Mr. Nash in every possible way. He was the kindest of friends and advisors.

I do not see, my dear, why a man so thin as you and not very athletic, should have a rupture. But maybe you were just too thin. I hope you were able to get through it with a local, and did not have a complete anaesthetic again; they do take it out of one so.

If anything were lacking to convince me of the charm of Elizabeth's baby, Virginia's13 letter would surely do the trick. I never personally heard such enthusiasm from Virginia on any subject. That baby seems to have made everybody happy.

I have spent several mornings lately looking into the matter of monuments for Father14 and Mother15, as I promised you. Harrison Granite Company and Vermont Marble Company, I find the best. I will send you definite information about my experiences with them very soon, and will send you photographs of the stones which seem to me the most appropriate and the most in accordance with Father's and Mother's taste.

I must thank you by pen for the splendid photograph—the first good picture of you I have ever seen. Edith16 and I both think it an unusually telling likeness, and my secretary, Miss Bloom17 admired it.

I am deeply touched that Meta18 thought the striped stockings worthy of such honor! It was very sweet of her.

I enclose a snap-shot19 which Isabelle20 carried about the world with her for years—how many? It was among her papers when she died21 in Sorrento22. Her husband23 sent it to me from Naples24, along with some six hundred letters which I had written her in the forty-odd years of our friendship, and every little printed scrap of mine, from the days when I wrote for one dollar a column.

You must send the picture back to me. But why were not you in it instead of old Ben Brown25!

Lovingly W.
MADISON AVENUE OFFICE BANK OF NEW YORK MADISON AVENUE AT SIXTY—THIRD STREET NEW YORK, N. Y. FROM CATHER 570 PARK AVE3., NEW YORK CITY2 Mr. R. C. Cather1 First Savings Bank of Colusa COLUSA4 California NEW YORK, N. Y.2 OCT 25 1939 330 PM Photograph
Personal