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.

Macaulay, John Francis (1876-1939). Canadian physician. Born in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, Canada, John Macaulay received his medical degree from McGill University in 1898. He took a position at the Saint John (New Brunswick) Public Hospital in 1904, and in 1906 married a nurse there, Marion Smith, from Grand Manan Island. For most of his career, he practiced on Grand Manan, where he attended to Cather and Edith Lewis several times. He was a popular member of the community, a man Cather said "gave out so much good will all the time, in a mere glance or a wave of the hand" (#3040).

Thomas, Emma Jane Stanley (1859-1940). Mother of Willie Thomas. Born in New Brunswick, Canada, to Hannah and Soloman Stanley, Emma Jane Stanley worked at a cotton factory before marrying Benjamin Thomas. The couple lived on Grand Manan Island and had several children: Willie, Arthur Wissworth, Alma May, Agnes D., and Elizabeth Gladys.  

Menuhin, Yehudi (1916-1999). Violinist and conductor. Born in New York City to Moshe Mnuchin and Marutha Sher Mnuchin, immigrant Russian Jews by way of Palestine who changed the spelling of their surname and moved the family to San Francisco in 1918, Yehudi started violin lessons at age four and made his first public appearance in 1922. His two younger siblings, Hepzibah and Yaltah, studied piano, although his parents prioritized the musical career of their son over their daughters. With the support of patron Sidney Ehrman, the Menuhin family followed Yehudi’s teacher Louis Persinger to New York City. Ehrman also sponsored Yehudi for a year of study in Paris, France, with Georges Enesco. Yehudi began attracting national attention in 1927 and recorded and toured the U.S. in 1929. That year at Carnegie Hall, his performance of concertos by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms with Bruno Walter and the Berlin Philharmonic inspired Albert Einstein to proclaim “now I know there is a God in Heaven”; Cather was also in the audience for this concert. In 1930, the Menuhin family took up residence in Paris, where Cather first met them in the home of Jan Hambourg and Isabelle McClung Hambourg and became a family friend; the children called her “Aunt Willa.” In the 1930s, the Menuhin family made the Ansonia Hotel its home base during their frequent stays in New York City. Cather took the Menuhin children on walks around Central Park, read Shakespeare with them, and gave them books as gifts. Yehudi’s sister Hepzibah accompanied her brother on piano; they made their first recording together in 1933 and often performed together. The family purchased a ranch in Los Gatos, CA, in 1935, and after a world tour that year, Yehudi withdrew from performing for 18 months and stayed at the ranch with his family. He returned to the concert stage in 1937 and met and married Nola Nicholas in 1938 (Hepzibah married Nola’s brother Lindsay). Yehudi and Nola had two children, Krov and Zamira. Cather enjoyed a late life visit from Hepzibah and Yehudi and their families in 1947. Cather corresponded regularly with the adult Yehudi, giving him personal advice, although only one original letter has surfaced. In 1947, Yehudi and Nola divorced and he married British ballerina Diana Gould, with whom he had two more children. Living in Europe, he continued his career as a performer and also became a conductor, established a school in England, and became a British citizen. He died in Berlin, Germany, while on tour.

Benthall, Zamira Menuhin (1939- ). Yehudi and Nola Menuhin’s daughter. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Zamira Menuhin and her brother Krov lived in the U.S. with their mother, Nola Menuhin, while their father Yehudi Menuhin toured internationally as a violinist. After her parents’ 1947 divorce, she moved frequently with her mother. In later life, she and her second husband, Jonathan Charles Mackenzie Benthall, became important patrons of the arts in Britain.