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.

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, Elsie Margaret (1890-1964) (“Bobbie”). Cather’s sister. Born in Red Cloud, NE, shortly before Willa Cather graduated from high school, Elsie attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln from 1908 to 1910, before transferring to Smith College, in Northampton, MA, from which she graduated with an A.B. in English and Latin in 1912. She undertook graduate study at the University of Nebraska in 1914 and in 1916 received her A.M. with a major in philosophy and a minor in English. At both the undergraduate and the graduate level at Nebraska, she studied under Louise Pound. She began a career in high school teaching in 1912, when she took a position in Lander, WY, where her brother Roscoe then lived with his family. She also taught in Albuquerque, NM; Corning, IA; Cleveland, OH; and briefly Red Cloud, when illness in the family brought her home. Her longest tenure as a teacher was at Lincoln (NE) High School, where she began teaching in 1920, with Olivia Pound and Mariel Gere as colleagues. Willa Cather's expectation that Elsie be responsible for aging family and friends and for legal affairs after their parents' deaths sometimes brought the sisters into conflict. Elsie Cather retired from Lincoln High School in 1942. She died in Lincoln.

Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or “Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in Virginia to William Lee Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872. Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa, Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud, NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928 Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932), which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.

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, Frances C. (1877-1965). Cather's friend. Frances Gere, the youngest child of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, was born in Lincoln, NE. She entered the University of Nebraska in 1894 and graduated in 1898. Like her sisters, Mariel and Ellen, she joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and lived in Lincoln the remainder of her life.

Wiener, Fannie Meyer (1853-1893). Red Cloud civic and social leader. Born in France, Fannie came to the U.S. with her family, which settled in Pittsburgh, PA. She married Charles F. Wiener of Chicago, IL, in the late 1870s, and moved with him to Red Cloud, NE, in 1883. They had no children, but her nieces and nephews made frequent long visits. When the various church Ladies Aid societies quarreled about how to help the poor, Fannie Wiener was able to unite the women of the town in the Red Cloud Benevolent Association, in part because, being Jewish, she was outside of sectarian disputes. She fell ill early in 1893 and underwent several surgeries; she was taken to Chicago to convalesce, but died and was buried there. Cather portrayed Charles and Fanny Wiener as the Rosens in “Old Mrs. Harris.”