0085Hambourg, 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.
0252
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.
0354McClung, 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.
0513McClung, 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.
0952McClung, 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.