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 | |
| 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 |
Dr. Hart5 urges me to add an explanatory postscript, saying that by six weeks in the hospital he definitely means six weeks in bed in the hospital, with as little bodily motion as possible. Both Dr. Stewart6 and Dr. Garbat7 have great confidence in Dr. Kimmel8. They urge you to call him in again, even if there is no new alarming symptom. All the doctors to whom I have shown Dr. Tillotson's9 letter10, feel that he has had very little experience in ailments of the heart and was very slow in making any reasonable diagnosis from the symptoms Roscoe11 showed before his attack. The physicians here say that any careful practitioner, even if not a specialist, would know that running a blood pressure of 220/120 for several months would call for immediate and expert examination of the heart. The very intelligent letter which Dr. Kimmel sent me states: "The blood pressure was 220/120 and had been running about this level for several months according to his own physician." From this sentence I would judge that Dr. Kimmel agrees with the heart specialist here, that Dr. Tilloston is not to be trusted very far with any heart ailment.
I am rushing this off to you and will not be able to sign it. Dr. Hart made his letter as gentle as possible, realizing that you must read it, but impressed upon me the fact that any exertion or unguarded movements which delayed the healing of the wound or opened it again, might be, and probably would be immediately fatal. I do not want to butt in, but I have done nothing but consult physicians here for the last week, and they all seem to take the case so much more seriously than your local doctor does. And two of the four who have been advising me are sincere friends of mine, who hate to see me under this anxiety and want to do all they can to relieve me and save me from a greater trouble. Forgive my language. I am pretty tired out after my last talk with kind and wise Dr. Hart.
WILLA CATHERPer Sarah J. Bloom12 Secretary W. S. Cather 570 Park Ave.3 New York City2 Mrs. R. C. Cather1, Colusa4, California. NEW YORK N.Y. CHURCH ST ANNEX.2 APR 25 1941 230-PM
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2268.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2268
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on on recto only. Includes one envelope, typewritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Meta Schaper Cather1
- Date letter was written
- April 25, 1941
- 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
570 Park Avenue (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis from December 11, 1932, until her death, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, near Central Park. They had apartment 7D. Lewis continued to live there until her own death.
In a letter to Meta Cather dated April 20, 1941, Willa Cather encloses a letter from Dr. Tillotson (#2267).
Person Annotations
Cather, Meta Schaper (1884-1973). Cather’s sister-in-law.
Meta Schaper was born in Plattsmouth, NE, the second daughter of
Robert and Julia Ramke Schaper. After graduating from the University of
Nebraska in Lincoln 1903, Meta Schaper taught at Havelock High School in her
hometown of Havelock, NE (now part of Lincoln). She met Roscoe Cather when
teaching in Fullerton, NE, and they married in 1907. They moved to Lander,
WY, in 1909, where she gave birth to three daughters, Virginia and twins
Margaret and Elizabeth. The family moved to Casper, WY, in 1921 and Colusa,
CA, in 1937. Willa visited Meta and Roscoe’s family in Wyoming several times
and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926 trip to
New Mexico with Meta, Roscoe, and their children and a 1941 San Francisco
vacation with Roscoe and Meta. Meta and Willa remained friends until Willa’s
death.
Hart, Theodore Stuart (1869-1951). American cardiologist. Born in Illinois, Theodore Hart was a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University's medical school. He taught at Columbia from 1903-1922 and was a staff member or consulting physician at a number of New York area hospitals. A leading heart specialist, Cather sought Hart's advice about her brother Roscoe Cather's health in 1941.
Stewart, Dr. New York-area physician. No further information is available about this person.
Garbat, Abraham L. (1885-1968). American physician. Born in Warsaw, Poland, Garbat immigrated to the U.S. in 1892 and was awarded an MD by Cornell University in 1906. He was awarded the Cartwright Prize of the School of Medicine of Columbia University in 1919 for his work on typhoid carriers and immunity. He was Cather’s personal physician in New York City from as early as 1934, and she consulted him about her brother Roscoe Cather’s heart ailment.
Kimmel, Charles B. (1906-1961). American physician. Born in Ohio, Charles Kimmel moved to Marysville, CA, in 1939 after completing his medical residency in Boston and worked at the Marysville Medical Clinic. Charles Kimmel provided care for Roscoe Cather in the early 1940s.
Tillotson, Joseph Elmer (1903-1957). American physician. Born in Ogden, UT, Joseph Tillotson was a doctor and head of Colusa Memorial Hospital in Colusa, CA, where he provided care to Cather's brother Roscoe Cather in the early 1940s.
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).
Bloom, Sarah J. (1889-1961). Cather's personal secretary. Born in New York in 1889 to Russian immigrants Solomon and Bertha Bloom, Sarah J. Bloom worked for Cather from some time in the 1920s until Cather's death and continued to work for Edith Lewis on matters pertaining to Cather's literary estate thereafter. Bloom typed Cather's literary manuscripts and managed Cather's correspondence, typing dictated letters and sometimes responding for Cather when she was traveling. Bloom’s work for Cather supplemented full-time office employment in New York City (for many years she worked for the New York State Public Service Commission). She thus came to Cather and Lewis's apartment on weekends to take dictation, pick up and deliver typescripts, and deliver typed letters for signature. She died in New York city in 1961.
Place Annotations
