Boak, Rachael Seibert (1816-1893). Cather’s grandmother. Born in Frederick County, VA, to Jacob and Rhuhamah Seibert, Rachael Seibert married William Lee Boak in 1830, when she was about fifteen. In 1845 the growing family moved to Washington, DC. They had nine children, with six surviving to adulthood; one son was killed in the Civil War while serving in the Confederate Army. Widowed in 1854, Mrs. Boak moved back to Frederick County; Willa Cather was born in her house. Later she joined the Charles Cather household and moved with them to Nebraska. Rachel Boak’s parents were prototypes for Sapphira and Henry Colbert in Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940), and she herself was a prototype for Rachel Blake in that novel and for the title character in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932).

Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father. Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War. He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters, in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe, Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932).

Elder, Alice E. Stowell (1882-?). Cather's Red Cloud friend. Alice Stowell was born near Guide Rock, NE, daughter of Eugene A. and Helen Stevens Stowell, and became a friend of the Cather family children. The family moved from Red Cloud to California in 1887 and then to Massachusetts, where, in 1907, she married lawyer Edward Elder, with whom she had four children.

White, Arthur Watson (1843-after 1910). Nebraska farmer. Born in Ohio, Arthur White moved to Homer, IL, where he met and married Lora Josephine Stevens in 1870. The Whites moved to western Nuckolls County, NE, adjacent to Webster County, where they were neighbors of the Stowell family. They had six children, including Serena, Cather’s friend in high school.

White, Lora Josephine Stevens (1850-after 1910). Farm wife. Born in Homer, IL, the daughter of a physician, Lora married farmer Arthur Watson White in 1870. The Whites moved to western Nuckolls County, NE, adjacent to Red Cloud, where they were neighbors of the Stowell family. They had six children, including Serena, Cather’s friend in high school.

White, Serena (1871-1924). Cather’s friend in high school. Born in Illinois, Serena White came with her family to western Nuckolls County, NE, adjacent to Webster County, NE. She attended high school in Superior, NE, where John F. Curran was the principal; after he became principal at Red Cloud, NE, she briefly attended the high school there, becoming acquainted with Cather, Mary Miner, and others of their circle. Cather and other friends recorded their likes and dislikes in Serena’s Mental Portrait Album.

Hefflebower, David (1850-before 1940). Webster County farmer. Born in Ohio, David Hefflebower came with the earliest homesteaders to Webster County in 1870, farming three and a half miles west of Red Cloud, NE, on Indian Creek. He and his wife Mary had two sons, Willie and George, and a daughter, Stella. By 1930 he and his wife had retired to live in Red Cloud, while their son George farmed the original homestead.

Sherwood, Carrie Miner (1869-1971). Sherwood, Carrie Belle Miner (1869-1972) Civic leader; Cather's friend. Born in Waukon, IA, to James L. Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Carrie Miner was the eldest of their children. The family moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878, where the Miner Brothers store became the largest in town. Cather remembered meeting Carrie there. In 1884, Carrie, her mother, and siblings were confirmed in the Catholic church. In 1888, she studied music at St. Mary’s Academy at Notre Dame, IN. She married bank clerk Walter Sherwood in late 1889; they had two sons. The Sherwoods travelled often in the West, and visited Europe in 1930. They built a new house at 3rd and Seward streets in Red Cloud in 1908; Cather sometimes sent materials for Carrie to keep in its spacious attics. Carrie Miner Sherwood led local Red Cross work during the two World Wars, served on the Red Cloud school board and park commission, and was active in the League of Women Voters and in the Ladies Guild of Grace Episcopal Church. Cather corresponded with Carrie Miner Sherwood throughout her life and dedicated My Ántonia to Carrie, model for Frances Harling in the novel, and her sister Irene. Carrie was one of Mildred Bennett’s chief sources for The World of Willa Cather (1951), and was instrumental in setting up what is now the Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud.

Higby, Anson (1862-1926). Red Cloud clerk, businessman. Born in New York, Higby moved from Beatrice, NE, to Red Cloud before 1880. He worked as a clerk and bookkeeper and in 1882 he married Bernice Sherwood, sister of Walter Sherwood; she died in late 1883 after giving birth to a daughter, also named Bernice. Anson married Jennie Rowe in 1887. He resigned from Silas Garber’s Farmers and Merchants bank in 1891 to move to Deadwood, SD, then later to Basin, WY. Higby was probably one of the group of young men from whom Cather said she learned more about Anna Sadilek, prototype for the title character of My Ántonia (1918).

Rowe, Jane (1833-1911). Cather’s Red Cloud acquaintance. Born in Nova Scotia, Canada, to U.S.-born parents, Jane married Joseph W. Rowe about 1860. The family moved to Red Cloud in the early 1880s, taking a niece, Jennie, with them. Some time after Jennie married Anson Higby in 1887, Jane and Joseph moved to Phillips County, KS, where they farmed. At the end of her life, Jane lived with Jennie Higby in Deadwood, SD, and is buried there.

Garber, William Seward (1860-after 1920). American businessman. Born in Iowa, the only child of Silas and Rosella Dana Garber, William Garber was reared by his father’s family after his mother died and his father left Iowa. He attended the University of Nebraska in the late 1870s, and in 1885 he worked in another bank in Red Cloud, NE, before becoming cashier of his father’s bank, the Farmers and Merchants Bank in 1886. He married Winifred Richardson of Red Cloud in 1890, and they had three daughters. The young Cather observed their courtship with amusement. He and others owned a power plant in Red Cloud, and an arson at the plant was apparently designed to cover up shady business dealings. In the wake of the scandal W.S. Garber left Red Cloud, and he and Winifred separated in 1897; by 1910 they were reunited and living in Buffalo, NY. Garber later remarried and had another family.

Garber, Silas (1833-1905). American governor. Born into a large family in Ohio, Garber followed family members to settle in northeastern Iowa. There, in 1857 he married Rosella Dana. In 1860, their son William Seward Garber was born and in 1862 Rosella died. Garber enlisted in the Union army at the outbreak of the Civil War, rising to the rank of captain. On a visit to family in California in 1866, he met twelve year-old Lyra Wheeler, whom he married eight years later. In 1870 Garber led a band of settlers to open land in south-central Nebraska, founding the town of Red Cloud on his homestead and in 1874 he was elected governor of Nebraska. After serving two terms, he returned to Red Cloud, where he and Lyra lived just outside town. The grove of trees surrounding their house was a popular place for summer picnics and dances, which Cather attended. Garber founded the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Red Cloud in 1886; it failed in the Panic of 1893, and Garber’s health and fortune slowly declined. Cather knew Garber as the town’s most prominent citizen, and she portrayed him as Captain Forrester in A Lost Lady (1923).

Garber, Lyra Wheeler (1855-1921). Red Cloud resident. Born in Georgia, Lyra moved with her family to Illinois in 1856 and to California in 1859, where her father kept hotels in Nevada County; she first met Silas Garber there in 1866 when he was visiting his elder brother Jacob. Lyra reportedly attended a convent school in Grass Valley, CA, and a finishing school in San Francisco. In 1875, when Silas Garber was governor of Nebraska, he returned to Grass Valley and married Lyra Wheeler. After his term was up in 1878, the couple moved to Red Cloud, NE. Widowed in 1905, Lyra stayed there until 1912. In 1914 settled in Grangeville, ID, where a sister lived, and cut her ties to Nebraska. In 1915, she married Swan Anderson, a considerably-younger bank cashier. They moved to Oregon in 1918, where she died. Cather observed Silas and Lyra Garber during their Red Cloud years and made them the prototypes for Daniel and Marian Forrester in A Lost Lady (1923).

Seymour, Elizabeth (c. 1859-1934) (“Bess,” “Bessie”). Cather’s cousin. Bess Seymour was born in Virginia to Sarah Boak (the elder sister of Willa Cather’s mother) and her first husband, Joseph D. Seymour. In 1883, Bess moved with Willa Cather’s family to Webster County, NE. Seymour lived in the Cather family home from 1883 to 1904, when she moved to the Webster County farm of her half brother, Will Andrews. Cather used her cousin’s name as a byline for the story “The Burglar’s Christmas” (1906), and it has been suggested that she served as a model for Aunt Tillie in The Song of the Lark (1915). Cather frequently mentions in letters to other family members that she received long letters from Seymour full of family news, and she urged her sister Elsie Cather to care for Seymour during her final illness and sent money to pay medical expenses.

Adelsheim, Nellie (1872-after 1940). Cather’s childhood acquaintance. Born and reared in Iowa, Nellie began coming to Red Cloud in 1886 on extended visits to her aunt, Fannie Adelsheim Wiener. While there, she was part of the same social set as Cather and Mary and Margaret Miner, attending school and performing with them in locally produced plays. Cather observed her flirtations with local young men, but in early 1891, Nellie married New York City-born David Markstein, who may have lived in her home town of Sioux City. By 1898, they had had four children, David had died, and Nellie was living in New York City. She apparently remained there, living with her children, until her death.

Moore, Jessie (1881-after 1900). Cather’s childhood friend. Born in Lincoln, NE, to John H. Moore and his first wife, Harriett Moore, Jessie came with her parents to Red Cloud, NE, in 1882, when her father took charge of a bank there. After her mother died in 1884, she was taken care of by other relatives until her father’s marriage to Jessie Briggs in December 1885, after which she returned to Red Cloud to live. About the same age as Cather’s sister Jessica, Jessie was a frequent playmate of the Cather children. When her father’s bank closed in 1890, the family returned to Lincoln.