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.

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.

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.

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, 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.

Lathrop, Susan Adele (1875-1956) (“Adele”). American educator; Cather’s acquaintance. Born in Connecticut, Adele Lathrop accompanied Willa Cather’s friend Louise Pound on a trip to Europe around 1900. Lathrop then visited Pound in Lincoln, NE, in 1901, and entered the University of Nebraska, graduating in 1904. In 1908, having received her M. A. from Wellesley College, she was appointed instructor in English at Wellesley. In 1911 she became assistant principal of Dana Hall, a preparatory school for girls in Wellesley, and from 1916 to 1928 served as the second president of Pine Manor Junior College, which had been established in 1911 as a post-graduate division of Dana Hall. Lathrop traveled frequently to Europe until late in the 1930s. In 1902, Lathrop was in London, England, and showed Willa Cather and Isabelle McClung around the city.

James, Henry (1843-1916). Expatriate American fiction writer and critic. Born in New York City to philosopher Henry James and Mary Robertson Walsh James, Henry, Jr., was educated in both the United States and Europe. After beginning his career in the U.S., he moved to Paris in 1875 and lived the rest of his life in Europe, primarily in England, but he also made regular extended trips to the Continent. James was influential as both a writer and a theorist of fiction and was known for fiction about Americans abroad and for representing the interior consciousness of his characters. In the Lincoln Courier in 1895, Willa Cather praised James as “that mighty master of language and keen student of human action and motives.” Cather followed James’s lead in many of her short stories of the 1890s and 1900s and in Alexander’s Bridge (1912); Witter Bynner, who worked for S. S. McClure, sent Cather’s story collection The Troll Garden (1905) to James. In “My First Novels [There Were Two],” however, Cather characterized her Jamesian phase as a false start. She never met James in person but narrowly missed meeting him at Annie Adams Fields’ summer home during his final visit to the U.S. in 1910-1911. James died in England, having renounced his American citizenship during World War I.