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 simply do not know how to turn to speak to
speak to you. I have just opened a letter from Dr. Tyndale5 telling me of your father’s6 death. At this distance, and
with nothing but that piece of paper to tell me of it, it just seems
incredible. I cannot believe it, much less realize it. Dear Mariel, it seems
to me that I have never known of a break in a family which seemed to me so
desolating. It just seemed to me, for a moment after I opened the letter,
as though you were all of you gone ow out of my life for always. I cant think of
your family except as all together, and it would be easier to realize any
other one of you away than your father. I keep feeling that I am writing to
you under some terrible mistake and that Dr. Tyndale’s letter somehow cannot
mean what it seems to. In most of the families I’ve known, the father, even
when he was beloved, was always a good deal of an outsider; it was easy to
think of the family without him. But Mr. Gere was so much a part of
everything that touched the lives of any of you, so much a part even of
your friends’ lives, that it wrings my heart to think of your being for a
moment without that tender and chivalrous affection. I feel that I dont want to go back to Lincoln3 any more, that I want to belive you all just as you used to be, around the fire in the library. It
seems as though I could not bear to go back and miss the your father’s smile. There is no other
like it in the world, none so wise or so serene or so kind. It is one of the
fortunate things of my life to have known it.
Of all the ber bereavements I’ve known,
Mariel, this
yours seems to me greatest, and its just because I
know how much you lose that I feel so helpless to speak to you. It seems
irrelevant to say anything at all. Only it makes one think how beautiful an
affection must have been when, so far away, one grieves so much to hear that
its ties are broken. Of your dear mother7, I simply dare not think.
Dear Mariel, I ask you to think of me sometimes when you are all together,
and to remember that for many years I have loved your father and every one
of you 1180
MURRAY HILL AVENUEvery dearly. I wish I could be there to do what I
could to help you through this hard winter. To your mother and to Neddy8 and Frances9 and you Imy love and
sympathy will go out every day. How many, many people must, like me, feel
drawn very close to you by their own sense of loss and pain.
Kiss your mother for me, Mariel. I have not the courage to write her now.
Willa Friday, October Seventh. Miss Mariel C. Gere1 849 D Street Lincoln3 Nebraska. PITTSBURG,PA;ST. R. P. O.2 OCT 10 1904 Oct 1904After Father's death LINCOLN, NEBR.3 OCT 12 1904 8—AM
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0099.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0099
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto and verso of first leaf and recto only of second leaf. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mariel C. Gere1
- Date letter was written
- October 7 [1904]
- Place letter was written
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (RG2639.AM), Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
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.
Person Annotations
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.
Tyndale, Julius Hilgard (1843-1929). Lincoln physician; Cather’s friend. Julius H. Tyndale was reared in Illinois, son of Sharon Tyndale and Mary Hilgard Tyndale. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and afterwards became a physician in New York City, specializing in diseases of the ear, nose, and throat, a practice which brought him into contact with actors and singers. He moved to Lincoln, NE, around 1893 to join his sister, Emma Tyndale Westermann, and her family. The Westermanns owned the Lincoln Evening News at the time, for which Tyndale wrote theater reviews. He was Cather’s friend and mentor as she began reviewing for the Nebraska State Journal and closely followed her career. Although they remained friends and correspondents until his death, there is only one brief letter from Cather known to be extant.
Gere, Charles Henry (1838-1904). Newspaper publisher; Cather's
employer during college. Charles H. Gere, born in New York,
graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, in 1861 and joined the
Union army. In 1865 he moved to Nebraska, where his family had moved.
Politically active in the Republican Party, he moved to Lincoln, NE, and
founded the city’s first newspaper, the Nebraska State
Journal. He married Mariel E. Clapham of Washington, D.C., in 1871.
While serving as a representative in the first state legislature, he helped
found the University of Nebraska, for which he served as regent from 1882 to
1892. Cather wrote for his newspaper when she was a university student, and
became a friend of Charles and Mariel Gere’s three daughters, Mariel, Ellen,
and Frances. She remembered Charles Gere’s “kindness, his easy wit, the ease
and charm of his personality.”
Gere, Mariel E. Clapham (1838-1912). Cather’s friend; mother of her
friends, the Gere sisters. Mariel Elizabeth Clapham was born in
Washington, D.C., the daughter of Captain John Clapham and Mariel Goodwin
Clapham. She corresponded with Charles Gere for several years before their
marriage in 1871, when she came to Lincoln, NE. When Cather became friends
with their daughters Mariel, Ellen, and Frances, she welcomed her to their
home at 8th and D streets. Mrs. Gere, according to Cather, persuaded her to
grow out her close-cropped hair.
Gere, Ellen Bladen (1875-1941) (“Ned” or “Neddums”). Cather's friend. Ellen Gere, the second daughter of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, was born in Lincoln, NE. She visited Cather in Red Cloud, NE, with her sisters, and Cather included her in her correspondence in the 1890s. Ellen Gere entered the University of Nebraska in Lincoln around 1892, but graduated with the class of 1899. In the 1920s she adopted two children, believing, with her friend Dorothy Canfield, that women who wanted to be mothers did not have to be married.
Gere, Frances C. (1877-1965). Cather's friend. Frances Gere,
the youngest child of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, was born in Lincoln,
NE. She entered the University of Nebraska in 1894 and graduated in 1898.
Like her sisters, Mariel and Ellen, she joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma
sorority and lived in Lincoln the remainder of her life.
Place Annotations
