Fisher, Dorothy Canfield (1879-1958). American novelist; educational and social reformer. Dorothy Canfield and Willa Cather became friends in 1891 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Canfield's father, James Canfield, had come to serve as Chancellor. The family moved to Columbus, OH, in 1895 when James Canfield assumed the presidency of Ohio State University, from which Dorothy graduated in 1899. She then followed her father to New York City, where he became Librarian of Columbia University, and she pursued graduate study in Romance Languages at the University of Paris and Columbia, from which she earned a PhD in 1904. On Cather’s first trip to Europe, she spent time in France and England with Canfield, including an awkward visit to the home of poet A.E. Housman. Cather derived the central character of “The Profile” (1907) from Canfield’s friend Evelyn Osborne, whom Cather had met in Europe. Cather and Canfield became estranged for more than a decade because Canfield objected to the story’s planned inclusion in The Troll Garden (1905). Canfield married John Redwood Fisher in 1907, and their primary residence was Arlington, VT. Canfield Fisher had spent 1916-1918 in France engaging in war relief work, and Cather’s consultation with her about the accuracy of her depiction of wartime France in One of Ours (1922) led them to reconcile. In 1925 Canfield Fisher became a founding member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee. She published her novels (most of them very popular) under the name Dorothy Canfield but her various nonfiction works as Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

Gilder, Jeanette Leonard (1849-1916). American author and editor. Born in Flushing, NY, and erratically educated, Gilder began her professional life at age fifteen and soon discovered her vocation as a writer and editor. She was a correspondent and critic for several New York and New Jersey newspapers before starting The Critic (1881-1906) with her brother Joseph Gilder. Their journal, which reviewed the arts, was highly respected and known for its advocacy of American writers and artists. The sister of Century editor Richard Watson Gilder and the author of several books, including The Autobiography of a Tom-Boy (1900), Gilder died in New York. It is unclear if Cather ever met Gilder, but The Critic published three of Cather's poems and reviewed both April Twilights (1903) and The Troll Garden (1905). Gilder also published a review of April Twilights in the Chicago Tribune.

Rod, Édouard (1857-1910). French-Swiss author. Born and educated in Switzerland, Rod spent most of his adult life in Paris as a writer and editor. He published many books, both novels and works of criticism, and was the editor of Revue contemporaine.

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.

Sawyer, Edith McClung (1884-1958). Isabelle McClung Hambourg’s sister. The youngest child of a socially prominent Pittsburgh, PA, family, Edith McClung lived in the family home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood in 1901, when her older sister Isabelle invited Cather to join the household. Some time after her social debut in November 1903, Edith left for New York City to take a nursing course and then worked as a nurse in Hudson, NY. She married John Leroy Sawyer and in 1913 moved with him to his hometown of Cherry Valley, NY. She died in Cherry Valley.

McClung, Samuel A. (1845-1915) American jurist, Isabelle McClung’s father. Born in Alleghany County, PA, to a Presbyterian minister and his wife, Samuel McClung graduated from Washington College in 1863 and in 1868 was admitted to the bar and moved to Pittsburgh, PA. He was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1872 and was known for his conservatism. He married Fannie Merritt in 1874 and they had three children, Isabelle, Samuel Jr., and Edith. In 1901 Isabelle McClung invited Willa Cather to reside in the McClung family home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and she lived there until her 1906 move to New York City. Cather often returned there to write until Judge McClung’s death caused the sale of family home in 1916.

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.

McClung, Frances A. Merritt (1852-1913) (“Fannie”). Isabelle McClung’s mother. Born in Cherry Valley, NY, Fannie Merritt married Samuel A. McClung in 1874, and lived with him in Pittsburgh, PA, where they had three children, Isabelle, Samuel Jr., and Edith. In 1901 Isabelle McClung invited Cather to reside in the McClung family home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and Cather lived there until her 1906 move to New York City, often returning there to write. Fannie McClung died suddenly at home after an illness of a few hours.