Gere, Mariel Clapham (1874-1960). Cather’s university friend; a teacher. Mariel Gere, eldest daughter of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, born in Lincoln, NE, entered the University of Nebraska's prep school in the same year Cather did. She and her sisters visited Cather several times in Red Cloud, NE. Both were members of the Union Literary Society until Gere joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority in 1892. Gere graduated in the science course and taught chemistry at Lincoln High until 1941. She also served on the Lincoln City Library board for many years. Cather and Gere remained friends and correspondents; Gere defended Cather from accusations that she had been arrogant and friendless during her university years.

Pound, Louise (1872-1958). American folklorist and university professor. Pound and Cather met when both were students at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Cather also knew Louise’s brother Roscoe and sister Olivia. Cather was deeply infatuated with Louise, who was both an outstanding student and an accomplished multi-sport athlete. Pound visited Cather in Red Cloud, NE, several times, but she apparently did not reciprocate Cather’s intense affection, and Cather’s lampoon of Roscoe Pound in “Pastels in Prose” (1894) caused a rift between the two women. Pound earned a BA from Nebraska in 1892, an MA in 1895, and a PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1900. She was a professor in the English department at the University of Nebraska, where she taught Cather's sister Elsie, until 1945. From 1954-55 she served as the first female president of the Modern Language Association.

Pound, Roscoe (1870-1964). American law professor. Born and raised in Lincoln, NE, Roscoe Pound received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in botany from the University of Nebraska 1888 and 1889, respectively. He studied a single year at Harvard Law School (1889-1890), returning to Lincoln in 1890, where he simultaneously practiced law and studied botany under Charles Bessey, receiving a PhD in 1897. In 1894 Cather published a lampoon of Pound as the sycophantic “University Graduate” in the Hesperian student newspaper; this lampoon has been credited with rupturing her relationship with the entire Pound family, including her friends, Roscoe’s sisters, Louise and Olivia Pound, who also studied at the university. Roscoe became, successively, instructor (1895), assistant professor (1899), and dean of the law school at the University of Nebraska (1903). As dean he instituted sweeping reforms, including the case study method of teaching he had learned at Harvard. He then served as professor at the law schools of Northwestern University (1907-1909), the University of Chicago (1909-1910), and Harvard University (1910-1920) and dean at Harvard (1920-1936). He was awarded an honorary degree by Nebraska in 1917, the same year that Cather was similarly honored, but there is no evidence of any other contact between them after 1894.

Hunt, Ebenezer W. (1851-1913). University of Nebraska professor; agriculturist. Born in New York, Hunt joined the faculty of the University of Nebraska in 1887 as a teacher of rhetoric and oratory. A brilliant and eccentric teacher, he resigned in 1893 because of his health, retiring to a farm in Otoe County, NE, with his second wife and three children. Cather wrote an essay on Thomas Carlyle for Hunt’s rhetoric class, which he sent to the Nebraska State Journal, where it appeared on March 1, 1891. Cather later claimed that the sight of her work in print gave her the desire to be a writer. Cather mentions Hunt a few times in her letters.

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).

Pound, Louise (1872-1958). American folklorist and university professor. Pound and Cather met when both were students at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Cather also knew Louise’s brother Roscoe and sister Olivia. Cather was deeply infatuated with Louise, who was both an outstanding student and an accomplished multi-sport athlete. Pound visited Cather in Red Cloud, NE, several times, but she apparently did not reciprocate Cather’s intense affection, and Cather’s lampoon of Roscoe Pound in “Pastels in Prose” (1894) caused a rift between the two women. Pound earned a BA from Nebraska in 1892, an MA in 1895, and a PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1900. She was a professor in the English department at the University of Nebraska, where she taught Cather's sister Elsie, until 1945. From 1954-55 she served as the first female president of the Modern Language Association.

Gere, Mariel E. Clapham (1838-1912). Cather’s friend; mother of her friends, the Gere sisters. Mariel Elizabeth Clapham was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Captain John Clapham and Mariel Goodwin Clapham. She corresponded with Charles Gere for several years before their marriage in 1871, when she came to Lincoln, NE. When Cather became friends with their daughters Mariel, Ellen, and Frances, she welcomed her to their home at 8th and D streets. Mrs. Gere, according to Cather, persuaded her to grow out her close-cropped hair.