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 |
Sept. 5 1891 My Dear Mariel1,—
I received your kind invitation last night, but had already promised
Louise4 to visit her before school
began and had written her to meet me Monday. It will be quite a white while until school begins, however, and
I had promised myself that I would have part of the time to discuss "African Farm5" with you, torture your sister6 by vague suggestions as to her
care of cats, and bore your mother7
endlessly by my "Huntian8
eulogies."
Now Mariel I am "packing" and I know you will excuse this brief scrawl for I am in such a rush that I can only stay to tell you that Kit Weston9 is in Boston10.
Yours— William Cather Jr. Miss Mariel Gere1 D & 9th Str Lincoln3 Neb. RED CLOUD NEBR.2 SEP 5 1891 5 PM note"Huntian Eulogies"
Sept 5 1891 LINCOLN NEBR. REC3 SEP 6 1891 9 AM
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0005.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0005
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mariel C. Gere1
- Date letter was written
- September 5, 1891
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (RG2639.AM), Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, NE
Person Annotations
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.
Gere, Ellen Bladen (1875-1941) (“Ned” or “Neddums”). Cather's friend. Ellen Gere, the second daughter of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, was born in Lincoln, NE. She visited Cather in Red Cloud, NE, with her sisters, and Cather included her in her correspondence in the 1890s. Ellen Gere entered the University of Nebraska in Lincoln around 1892, but graduated with the class of 1899. In the 1920s she adopted two children, believing, with her friend Dorothy Canfield, that women who wanted to be mothers did not have to be married.
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.
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.
Wing, Katherine Weston (1871-1903) (“Kit”). Cather’s friend. Born in Nebraska, Katherine was the third of four children born to J.B. and Helen Weston, who became well-to-do residents of Beatrice, NE, thirty miles south of Lincoln, NE. She entered the University of Nebraska in 1887, but withdrew for several years due to poor health. When she returned in 1891, she met Cather. She visited Cather in Red Cloud in the summers of 1891, 1894, and 1895, and Cather visited Weston in Beatrice in June, July, and December 1895, where Cather also enjoyed the company of Katherine’s younger brother Herbert (Bert). Katherine attended the library school of the University of Illinois as a member of the class of 1898 but withdrew in 1897. She then remained at home until her June 1902 marriage to Thomas E. Wing, a fellow 1894 University of Nebraska graduate. She moved with him to Scarsdale, NY, where she died of pneumonia in 1903.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Story of an African Farm (1883) by Ralph Iron
