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 |
Isn't it strange that people (and papers) always prefer a lie to the truth? I knew
Oley Iverson3
in
Bladen4. He
had been a chore boy in Uncle George Cather’s5 house, and Aunt Frank6 taught him. My mother7 never saw him. When I knew Oley he had
married one of Mr. Cramer’s8
daughters9 and he ran a garage in Bc Bladen.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0122.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0122
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Carrie Miner Sherwood1
- Date letter was written
- December 22 [unknown year]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Person Annotations
Sherwood, Carrie Miner (1869-1971). Sherwood, Carrie Belle
Miner (1869-1972) Civic leader; Cather's friend. Born in Waukon,
IA, to James L. Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Carrie Miner was the eldest
of their children. The family moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878, where the
Miner Brothers store became the largest in town. Cather remembered meeting
Carrie there. In 1884, Carrie, her mother, and siblings were confirmed in
the Catholic church. In 1888, she studied music at St. Mary’s Academy at
Notre Dame, IN. She married bank clerk Walter Sherwood in late 1889; they
had two sons. The Sherwoods travelled often in the West, and visited Europe
in 1930. They built a new house at 3rd and Seward streets in Red Cloud in
1908; Cather sometimes sent materials for Carrie to keep in its spacious
attics. Carrie Miner Sherwood led local Red Cross work during the two World
Wars, served on the Red Cloud school board and park commission, and was
active in the League of Women Voters and in the Ladies Guild of Grace
Episcopal Church. Cather corresponded with Carrie Miner Sherwood throughout
her life and dedicated My Ántonia to Carrie, model
for Frances Harling in the novel, and her sister Irene. Carrie was one of
Mildred Bennett’s chief sources for The World of Willa
Cather (1951), and was instrumental in setting up what is now the
Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud.
Iverson, Oley (1877-1950). Webster County, NE, farmer and garage operator. Born in Minnesota of Norwegian immigrant parents, Oley came to Nebraska in the 1890s. In 1898 he served in the 3rd Regiment of the Nebraska Volunteers in the Spanish-American War. Circa 1900 he worked as a farm hand for Cather’s uncle George P. Cather. In 1904 he married Hattie Cramer, from near-by Batin precinct. By 1910 he was selling cars in the town of Bladen, NE, and then operated a garage there. He returned to farming in the late 1930s, but continued to live in Bladen, where he died.
Cather, George P. (1847-1938). Farmer; Cather’s uncle. Born
in Back Creek Valley, VA, George was the eldest child of William and Emily
Caroline Smith Cather. He married Frances (Franc) Smith in 1873, and they
moved west to become two of the early settlers of northwestern Webster
County, NE, followed by many family members and neighbors from Back Creek,
including George’s parents, his sisters, and his brother Charles and family.
After early struggles, George and Franc Cather prospered, rearing five
children: Carrie, Blanche, Grosvenor P., and twins Oscar and Frank. George
was a partial prototype for Nat Wheeler in Cather’s One of
Ours (1922), and his son Grosvenor was the main prototype for
Claude Wheeler, the novel’s protagonist.
Cather, Frances Amanda Smith (1845-1922) (“Franc”). Cather’s
aunt. Born in Boston, MA, Franc graduated from Mount Holyoke
Female Seminary in South Hadley, MA, in 1870. Franc worked both as a private
tutor and as a teacher at Winchester Female Institute in Winchester, VA. In
1873 she and George Cather married and moved to Webster County in Nebraska,
where they raised their five children—Grosvenor, Blanche, Carrie, and
twins Frank and Oscar. Willa and Franc Cather maintained a warm relationship
and were regular correspondents until Franc’s death, exchanging letters
about family matters and about Willa’s writing. Elements of the life of her
New-England-born aunt inspired the character Aunt Georgiana in Willa
Cather’s story “A Wagner Matinee” (1904), and Franc’s son Grosvenor was the
prototype for Claude Wheeler in One of Ours (1922),
making Frances the prototype for Claude’s mother, Evangeline Wheeler.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the Virginia to William Lee
Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and
was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872.
Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War
while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
Cramer, William B. (1848-1910). Webster County farmer. Born in Ohio, William Cramer came to Webster County, NE, in 1873 with his sister, Sarah Britton, and her family. He married Malinda Adelia Garloch in 1876; they had five children. In 1884, the Cramers built a nine-room frame house on their farm in Batin precinct, one of the first frame houses in the area. They retired to Red Cloud before 1910; both William and Adelia were buried in Bladen, NE. Cather’s cousin, Will Andrews, rented the Cramer farm c. 1910, and she visited him and his mother, Sarah Andrews, and his sister, Bessie Seymour, while they lived there.
Iverson, Hattie Cramer (1880-1961). Webster County, NE, telephone operator. Born on a farm in the Batin area of Webster County, the second daughter of settlers from Ohio, Hattie married neighbor Oley Iverson in 1904; they lived in Bladen, NE, in Webster County for the rest of their lives. Oley sold cars and operated a garage there for many years before turning to farming in the late 1930s. Hattie was a census enumerator for Bladen in 1920 and 1930; by 1940 she was a telephone operator for the local company. After Oley Iverson’s death in 1950, Hattie married William M. Wegmann, a long-time Bladen physician.
Place Annotations
