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 |
After Mr. Shannon4 telephoned me the good news5, I wrote out a telegram and went to the nearest Western Union. The operator threw my message back at me. "We can't send messages of this sort. In case of the death of a child I could send it, but nothing of this kind. Government orders.6" So, you see, your John's7 first questionable act, according to our noble government, is coming into the world alive!
Anyhow I'm delighted that he came that way, and that his little mother didn't have too hard a time. I know how proud your father8 will be to have two grandsons9.
Congratulations, my dear, and my true love to you.
Your Aunt WillieHow delighted little Margaret10 must be!
Mrs. Lynn S. Ickis1 16221Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2383.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2383
- 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
- [May 7, 1943]
- 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
John Ickis was born May 7, 1943.
During World War II, the US government used Western Union as a means of sending important telegrams to and from the war front, such as sending death notices to the families of fallen servicemen. At times of high traffic, regulations restricted what kinds of telegrams could be sent.
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.
Shannon, Richard S., Jr. (c. 1918-?) (“Dick”). Husband of Cather’s niece. Richard Shannon, born and raised in Denver, CO, and a 1938 engineering graduate of Stanford University, married Margaret Cather, daughter of Roscoe and Meta Cather, in September 1938. Shortly after their marriage the couple moved to Boston, MA, so that Richard could earn his MBA from Harvard. In 1940 his work took them to the New York City area, where their first child, Richard, was born in 1943. The Shannons moved to Washington, DC, in 1944, where daughter Kathryne was born. Their last child, Patricia, was born after Willa Cather’s death. The family settled in Denver, CO.
Ickis, John Cather (1943- ). Willa Cather's great nephew. Born in Cleveland, OH, John Ickis was the second child of Lynn Ickis and Elizabeth Cather Ickis (Willa Cather’s niece). He received his Master’s and Doctor of Business Administration from Harvard University and has consulted and taught around the world. He and his wife, Norma Emes, have three daughters.
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).
Shannon, Richard Stoll, III (1943-2004). Cather’s great nephew. Born in New York City to Richard Stoll Shannon, Jr., and Margaret Cather Shannon (Willa Cather’s niece), Richard Shannon, III, earned degrees in classics from Stanford University (BA 1966, MA 1969) and Harvard University (PhD 1973). He taught at the University of Michigan from 1973 to 1978, when he left academia for the business world. At the time of his death he was president of Shannon Management Co. and general partner of Pioneer Investment Co. in Englewood, CO.
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.
Place Annotations
