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 |
I am proud as a peacock to be a great aunt! And I am so glad you have named the baby Margaret4. Her aunt Margaret5 was here in this apartment6 the day after she got the news and was in a flutter of excitement. She so hoped you would name the baby for her, but said it would probably be named for you and Lynn's7 mother8. She said she didn't see how she could wait for months to see you and the baby. I should just like to go and see that baby myself! Mary Virginia9 was here for dinner last night and was thrilled to hear about your having a daughter. Poor little M.V.—I sometimes fear she has had to wait too long to start a family—and worked too hard. It's a wise girl who marries a man with a job, who can go and "get the little rabbit skin"10. Kiss Margaret on her black head for me. I send you a world of love, dear.
Your Aunt Willie Mrs. Lynn S. Ickis1 1835 North Nobel Road East Cleveland3 Ohio NEW YORK, N.Y. STA Y2 MAR 30 1939 12 PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2361.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2361
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elizabeth Cather Ickis1
- Date letter was written
- March 30 [1939]
- 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.
An allusion to the popular nursery rhyme "'Bye, baby Bunting." A common version of the text reads: "Bye, Baby Bunting! Father's gone a-hunting, Gone to fetch a Rabbit-skin To wrap the Baby Bunting in."
Person Annotations
Ickis, Elizabeth Cather (1915-1978) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Elizabeth and her twin sister Margaret were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Elizabeth moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937 and married Lynn S.
Ickis, an electrical engineer, in April 1938. They lived in Cleveland, OH,
and had two children, Margaret and John.
Fernbacher, Margaret Ickis (1939- ). Cather's great niece. Born in Cleveland, OH, Margaret Ickis was the first child of Lynn Ickis and Elizabeth Cather Ickis (Willa Cather’s niece). In 1975, she married Frank Fernbacher, and the couple had one son, Michael. They lived for many years in Willoughby, OH. She likely met Willa Cather when she was a young child.
Shannon, Margaret Cather (1915-1996) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Margaret and her twin sister Elizabeth were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them, she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Margaret moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937. After she married
Richard Shannon in September 1938, she moved with him to Boston, MA, where
he earned an MBA from Harvard University in Cambridge. In 1940 they moved to
the New York City area, where their first child, Richard, was born in 1943.
The Shannons moved to Washington, DC, in 1944, where their daughter Kathryne
was born. Cather did not see Margaret again after she left New York, and
Margaret’s other three children, Patricia, Margaret, and Elizabeth, were
born after Cather’s death. Kathryne and Patricia became caretakers for a
large family archive of letters preserved by their mother, which they
donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the Roscoe and Meta Cather
Collection.
Ickis, Lynn S. (1913-2003). Elizabeth Cather's husband. Born in Denver, CO, Lynn Ickis graduated from the University of Colorado and received a master's degree from the Ohio State University. For most of his career he worked as an electrical engineer at General Electric in Cleveland, OH. He married Elizabeth Cather (Willa Cather’s niece) in 1938 and the couple had two children, Margaret and John.
Ickis, Janet Elizabeth Webster (1885-1967). Mother-in-law of Elizabeth Cather Ickis. Born in Iowa to Mary Elizabeth Waterman and George Bryson Webster, Janet Webster married Lynn S. Ickis and had two children, Lynn S. Jr. and John M. Her son, Lynn S. Ickis Jr., married Willa Cather’s niece Elizabeth Cather.
Mellen, Mary Virginia Auld (1906-1982) (“Virginia,” “M.V.”).
Cather's niece. Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld
and James William Auld, Mary Virginia graduated from Red Cloud High School
in 1924 and then spent a year at Dana Hall in Wellesley, MA, to qualify for
admission to Smith College in Northampton, MA. In 1929 she received an A.B.
in psychology from Smith and then moved to New York City, where she found
work at Lord & Taylor before telling her aunt of her arrival. In 1930,
probably with Willa Cather's help, she secured a position in the Circulation
Department of the New York Public Library. In 1931, she entered the
library's internal training school and in 1932 was assigned to the Tremont
branch library in the Bronx. After Mary Virginia’s parents divorced in 1933
Cather took a quasi-parental role. She paid for vacations and when, in 1935,
Mary Virginia married Richard (Dick) Mellen, a graduate of Harvard Medical
School and roommate of her brother William Thomas Auld at Amherst College,
she supervised wedding arrangements. After Dick was commissioned as a doctor
in the Air Force, Mary Virginia—much to Cather’s
regret—accompanied him to Chattanooga, TN, where he was assigned. In
Cather's will, Mary Virginia was designated a beneficiary of the literary
estate.
Place Annotations
