Nevin, Anne Paul (c. 1863-1942). Wife of Ethelbert Nevin. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, Anne Paul married Ethelbert Nevin in Boston, MA, in 1888, where their first child, Paul, was born the same year. Following her husband as he traveled for his musical career, she gave birth to their daughter Dorothy in Berlin, Germany, in 1892. In 1898, financial straits forced a move to Vineacre, the estate of her husband’s family in Sewickley, PA, near the Edgeworth station in suburban Pittsburgh. Cather met the Nevins that year, and in “Evenings at Vineacre,” published in the Lincoln Courier, she described Anne Nevin as “a good deal like her husband’s music” in her “idealism and delicate sympathy and sweetness.” In 1900, the Nevins moved to New Haven, CT, where Ethelbert died in 1901. After his death, Anne joined in the successful lobbying effort on behalf of the Copyright Act of 1909 and was active in the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. She died in Greenwich, CT.

Nevin, Ethelbert Woodbridge (1862-1901). American pianist and composer. Born in Sewickley, PA, near the Edgeworth station in suburban Pittsburgh, Ethelbert Nevin was the fifth of eight children born to Robert Peebles Nevin, publisher of the Pittsburgh Leader, and Elizabeth Duncan Oliphant, an accomplished pianist. He received musical training at home from his mother and would later study piano and composition in Boston, MA, Germany, and Italy. In 1888 he married Anne Paul in Boston, where, for a time, he was established as a performer and teacher; their son, Paul, was born there the same year. Their daughter, Dorothy, was born in Berlin in 1892. Nevin achieved success both as a performer and as a composer of pieces for solo piano, including “Narcissus” (1891), and songs accompanied by piano, especially “The Rosary” (1897), a setting for a Robert Cameron Rogers poem. In 1898, financial straits forced him to move his family to Vineacre, the family estate in Sewickley. At the time, Willa Cather worked for his father’s newspaper and she already knew his music; she quickly became his friend, proclaiming herself “prouder of his friendship than I have ever been of anything” (#0055). She reviewed his homecoming concert in Pittsburgh and wrote “An Evening at Vineacre” (1899) for the Lincoln Courier and “The Man Who Wrote Narcissus” (1900) for the Ladies Home Journal. Nevin died in in New Haven, CT, where he and his wife had gone to spend the winter of 1900-1901. He inspired several poems in April Twilights (1903) and is the prototype for Adriance Hilgarde in “‘A Death in the Desert’” (1903) and Valentine Ramsay in “Uncle Valentine” (1925).

Peattie, Elia Wilkinson (1862-1935). American writer. Born in Michigan, Elia Wilkinson moved to Chicago with her family as a child. She married journalist Robert Peattie in 1883, and they had four children. She became a reporter for Chicago newspapers in 1886, and she and Robert Peattie both took reporting jobs in Omaha, NE, in 1888. As a columnist and editorial writer for the Omaha World-Herald, she was one of the most prominent newspaperwomen in the state, and recognized Cather’s talent. After the Peatties moved back to Chicago in 1896, Elia became the Chicago Tribune’s literary critic until 1917, and was active in the city’s intellectual and progressive circles. She also wrote many novels and short stories. She praised Cather’s work and hosted her on her early trips through Chicago.

Peattie, Robert Burns (1857-1930). American newspaperman. Born in Wisconsin, son of John Peattie and Elizabeth Culross Peattie, Robert Peattie grew up in Chicago and went to work as a reporter. He married Elia Wilkinson in 1883, and they had four children. They moved to Omaha, NE, in 1888, where he was managing editor of the Omaha World and then the World-Herald. The family returned to Chicago in 1896, where both Robert and Elia Peattie wrote for the Chicago Tribune. Robert Peattie suffered ill health, retiring to Tryon, NC, in 1921, where he died. Although Robert Peattie may not have met Cather in Nebraska, she visited at the Peattie home in Chicago while travelling to and from Pittsburgh, PA.

Hambourg, Isabelle McClung (1877-1938). Cather’s longtime friend. Cather met Isabelle McClung, the daughter of a socially prominent, Pittsburgh (PA) family, in 1899 in the dressing room of actress Lizzie Hudson Collier. McClung seems to have been the first woman to reciprocate Cather’s romantic affections. In 1901, McClung invited Cather to live in her family’s large home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. She and Cather traveled together to Europe in 1902, and McClung accompanied Cather on a visit home to Nebraska in 1905. After Cather moved to New York City in 1906, she frequently visited McClung in Pittsburgh, finding the familiar house a congenial place to write, and McClung visited New York City, staying with Cather and Edith Lewis. Cather and McClung also rented a vacation cabin in Cherry Valley, NY, in 1911, and traveled together to Virginia in 1913. In late 1915, shortly after the death of her father, Judge Samuel McClung, Isabelle announced her intention to marry violinist Jan Hambourg. Cather reacted negatively to the marriage (which took place in 1916) but eventually reconciled herself to it, enjoying long visits with the Hambourgs in Toronto, Ontario, in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. Cather and Edith Lewis also spent time with the Hambourgs in Paris is 1930 and 1935. The latter trip occurred after Isabelle sought treatment in the U.S. for the kidney disease that killed her several years later in Italy. Her death came only four months after Cather’s brother Douglass died, leaving her feeling bereft. “No other living person cared as much about my work, through thirty-eight years,” she wrote her brother Roscoe (#2137). After Isabelle’s death, Jan sent to Cather the six hundred letters from Cather to Isabelle in his possession, and Cather destroyed them, although a few letters from Isabelle and Cather postcards to Isabelle are extant.

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.

Brooks, Miss. Cather's Pittsburgh acquaintance.Cather socialized with Miss Brooks in Pittsburgh in the late 1890s. No further information in available about this person.

Canfield, James Hulme (1847-1909). Educator, chancellor of the University of Nebraska. James Canfield was born in Ohio but grew up in Vermont and New York City. After graduating from Williams College in 1868, he went west, where he married Flavia Camp in 1873. Their children were James A. Canfield and Dorothy Canfield (Fisher). He was appointed professor of history at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1877; from there he was called to be chancellor of the University of Nebraska in 1891. Cather’s class made him an honorary member of their class, as they had all entered the university that year. A dynamic man, he was popular with the students and with people throughout Nebraska, a tireless campaigner for the value of the rapidly growing university to the state. Ohio State University called him to its presidency in 1895; from there he went to Columbia University as head librarian from 1899 until his death in 1909.

McClung, Samuel Alfred, Jr. (1880-1945) (“Alfred”). Pittsburgh lawyer; Isabelle McClung’s brother. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, to Samuel A. McClung and Fannie Merritt McClung, Samuel Alfred McClung, Jr., graduated from Shadyside Academy in 1900 and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1901, when his sister Isabelle invited Cather to move into the family’s home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, he was likely still at MIT, but by 1904 was a clerk at the First National Bank of Pittsburgh. He was admitted to the bar in Pittsburgh in 1911 and practiced law there. In 1917, he married Mary Caldwell Mellon Kampmann, a divorcee with two children and a member of the wealthy and influential Mellon family of Pittsburgh. They had three children together, Samuel III, Cynthia, and Isabelle. In the 1930s he retired from the practice of law, and he and his family lived on their farm in Cherry Valley, NY.