Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
I could give you a shaking right now, so I could. The morning paper3 says4 that your father5 was in town yesterday, and you never let me know about it. I just happened to see it by chance, as I naturally dont seek for church news or read reports of synods. Why did'nt you tell me?
I've had a beastly cold and been shut up in the house6 for weeks—that is, only going out to school7, and we have been surrounded by fogs the like of which were never seen in London8 and life has been altogether dismal. School goes well, and I like teaching better than ever, though for my part I like boys and girls who are accustomed to and expect to work, even if they are dirty. Those nice, clean, happy young folk of Allegheny are of the sort who go to private schools in Pittsburgh2, good families, nice homes, lots of money etc—but they have never worked in their lives and never will, could'nt if they would.
Let me know when your kid's story9 is to come out—I never get to see many of the magazines unless there is something I especially want to read.
I heard through Carl Randal10's wife11 that Stella's12 baby13 had come and that all is well with them. Thank Heaven for that! But is it a boy or a girl? She did'nt tell me.
Edith14 is "coming out" next week, and
since I've been well enough I've been leading a giddy life darting about to
teas and musicales and things. I'm not foolish enough, however, to imagine
that I'm a star at that sort of thing. I've seen quite sno enough of the "college" woman" who figures herself upon being "just
like other girls"—you know the combination I mean and how doleful it usually
is.
Let me hear a word from you and tell me why you did'nt let me know about your father.
Hastily but with all my love Willie. Miss Dorothy Canfield1 116 St and Seventh Ave New York15. [illegible]AC[?]PA,ST.[illegible] NOV 6 1A[?]2 NEW YORK, N.Y. STA. J15 NOV 7 1903 7—AMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0091.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0091
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Dorothy Canfield 1
- Date letter was written
- [November 11, 1906]
- Place letter was written
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Dorothy Canfield Collection (mss-975), University of Vermont, Bailey-Howe Library, Burlington, VT
Individual Annotations
The 5 November 1903 Pittsburgh Post reported that James Canfield addressed the Episcopal church congress in Pittsburgh on the topic of "The Training of the Clergy."
1180 Murray Hill Avenue (Pittsburgh, PA): Located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA, now part of the Murray Hill Avenue Historic District, 1180 Murray Hill was the home of Judge Samuel A. McClung and his family. Cather lived there at Isabelle McClung’s invitation from 1901 to 1906. She returned there to visit multiple times until 1915, often writing during these visits.
Cather was head of the English department at Allegheny High School in Allegheny, PA (which became part of Pittsburgh, PA, in 1907) from 1903 to 1906. Prior to that, she taught for two and a half years at Central High School in Pittsburgh.
This possibly references Canfield's "All For One and One For All," published in Smart Set in July 1904, which centers on the affairs of young people.
Person Annotations
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.
Randall, Karl C. (1874-1944). American electrical engineer;
Cather's college acquaintance. Born in Colorado Springs, Randall
attended the University of Nebraska with Cather and graduated in 1897. In
1899 he moved to Pittsburgh, PA, marrying Leola Vancil in 1902. The couple
had a daughter and three sons. He worked as an engineer and executive for
Westinghouse for forty years, patenting several inventions, and winning the
company's Order of Merit. He received an honorary Doctor of Engineering from
the University of Nebraska in 1941.
Randall, Leola Vancil (1874-1965). Clubwoman; Cather's
Pittsburgh acquaintance. Born in Bloomington, NE, to farmers and
educators Emma and Francis M. Vancil, Leola Vancil graduated from the
University of Nebraska in 1899. Soon after graduation, she moved to
Pittsburgh, PA, and in 1902 married Cather's classmate Karl C. Randall. The
couple had a daughter and three sons. Cather had some social interaction
with Randall when she lived in Pittsburgh.
Canfield, Stella Elliott (1876-1947). Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s sister-in-law. Born in Nebraska, the daughter of a china dealer, Stella Elliott entered the University of Nebraska with the class of 1898 and was for a time an instructor in the physical education department, then a new field for women. As the younger sister of one of Cather’s classmates, Charles A. Elliott, she may have known Cather at the university. She married James A. Canfield in 1899; they had two sons. She and Cather met occasionally in later years.
Robert Elliot Canfield (1903-1980). American
lawyer.Born in Columbus, OH, to James and Stella Elliott Canfield,
Robert E. Canfield was educated at Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School.
He married Angelica Singleton Gibbs in 1932, and the couple had two
children. Canfield was an attorney and paper industry executive in New York
City. The nephew of Cather's friend Dorothy Canfield Fisher, it is unclear
if Cather ever met Robert E. Canfield.
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.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Pittsburgh Post
