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 |
If I had the wellest hand in the world instead of a very sick hand4 I could never tell you the pleasure
these beautiful violets have given me. They came on the morning of Christmas
Eve, among the first to com come, so I had
long joy of them before I got tired. They were more gorgeous this year than
ever before and filled my room and my sitting room with that moist
spring-like fragrance which is like nothing else on earth. They were the
Parma Violets this year (they are not always to be had in winter) and they
are much the sweetest of all.
On the same evening, from the same florist, came a box of yellow jonquils
from Charles Edwin5. He has been
sending them to me at Christmas time since he first came East, two years
before he ever meet met me. Where did he
ever learn nice ways and gentle manners? I often wonder.
My wretched hand went back on me because I had been working hard on a story6 for my London publisher, Cassell, to be finished for next Christmas7 with illustrations—my legendary kind of theme—Time about 1340 A.D. Interests me very much. I hope my hand will get better and let me go on with it. My hand (not the story!) is more painful than it has been before.
Lovingly, and so gratefully, dear Willie Mr. R. C. Cather1, First Savings Bank of Colusa, Colusa3, California. NEW YORK N. Y. STA. Y2 DEC 30, 1944 130 PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2223.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2223
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on both recto and verso. Includes one envelope, typewritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- December 29 [1944]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Cather significantly injured a tendon in her right thumb in November 1940 after signing hundreds of copies of her novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl. Her right hand was immobilized for months afterward, and the pain recurred often in later years.
These plans for Cather's manuscript, which was set in medieval Avignon and titled "Hard Punishments," are otherwise undocumented. The work was never published.
Person Annotations
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).
Cather, Charles Edwin (1923-2011). Cather’s nephew. Charles’s parents were James D. and Ethel Garber Cather, and he was likely born in Red Cloud, NE, where he spent the early years of his childhood. He was, as Willa Cather wrote to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, “the little nephew I love the best” who inspired her portrayal of the little boy Jacques in Shadows on the Rock (1931) (#1054). He moved with his family to California in the 1930s. Cather continued to be an indulgent aunt as he got older, writing him letters of advice about and lending him money for his education. He attended, but did not complete degrees from, the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY, and the Law School at the University of Colorado in Boulder. After his aunt’s death he completed undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, CA. He was a beneficiary of his aunt’s estate and was appointed her literary executor after Edith Lewis’s death.
Brockway, Virginia Cather (1912-1984) (“West Virginia”). Cather's
niece. Born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe Cather and Meta Schaper
Cather, Virginia graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper, WY, in
1929. She received an A.B. in English from Smith College in Northampton, MA,
in 1933, the same year Willa Cather received an honorary doctorate there. In
1934, she enrolled in the University of Chicago School of Social Services
and was, for a time, a social worker. She married John Hadley Brockway, a
Navy officer, in 1936. They moved frequently until his retirement from the
Navy. She had one child, son George. In letters, Willa Cather sometimes
calls her "West Virginia" to distinguish her from her cousin Mary Virginia
Auld because Virginia Cather's birthplace in Wyoming was farther west than
Mary Virginia's in Nebraska.
Brockway, John Hadley (1910-1991). U.S. Navy officer; Virginia Cather’s husband. Born in Douglas, WY, John Brockway was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1927 and on graduation was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy. In 1936 he married Virginia Cather, Willa Cather’s niece, and they had one child, George. The family moved frequently until his retirement from the Navy. He died in San Diego, CA.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Hard Punishments (unpublished) by Willa Cather
