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 |
Last week I heard from Isabelle3 that you have lost your father4. What a hard two years you have had, one loss after another. I cant tell you how sorry I am that you have been called to go through another sorrow of this kind. I cant help thinking of your poor mother5, who is so gallant and spirited by nature, and who has had such a bitter trial of her courage. Please remember me to her and express my sympathy to her.
You will probably not be in New York2 very soon now, as your mother will be your first consideration. Perhaps I shall see you in Pittsburgh6 before the autumn is over. I hope so. I would like to tell you about the pleasant visits I had with Mrs. Wharton7 and Mrs. Holdship8 when I was home last month.
Please accept, dear Mrs. Vermocken, my affectionate sympathy.
Faithfully Willa Cather September twenty-fifth.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0139.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0139
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elizabeth Moorhead Vermorcken1
- Date letter was written
- September 25 [1908]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by William J. Moorhead death on September 9, 1908
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Literary and Historical Manuscripts (MA 1342 (2)), Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY
Person Annotations
Vermorcken, Elizabeth Moorhead (c.1866-1955). American writer and academic. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Elizabeth Moorhead married Frederick Vermorcken in 1891, although the marriage did not last long, and she soon returned to Pittsburgh. In 1910 she began an eighteen-year teaching career as an Assistant Professor of English at Carnegie Technical Schools in Pittsburgh while also writing short stories and articles that appeared in national magazines. After retiring from teaching in 1928, she wrote three novels. After moving to Florence, Italy, in the 1930s, she began writing The Whirling Spindle (1942), about her family and friends in Pittsburgh, where she returned after Italy’s entry into WWII. Vermorcken likely met Cather in Pittsburgh in 1905, and they remained friends after Cather moved to New York City. Vermorcken wrote the first biographical account of Cather’s Pittsburgh years, These Too Were Here: Louise Homer and Willa Cather (1950).
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.
Moorhead, William Jefferson (1840-1908). American businessman; father of Elizabeth Vermorcken. Born in Pennsylvania, William Moorhead served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, rising to the rank of captain. He married Emily Black in 1864; they had five children. The family lived in Pittsburgh, PA, where William Moorhead became a well-to-do iron manufacturer, as well as a bank director and trustee of various organizations. In 1900 the Moorheads lived on Lilac Street, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where Willa Cather also lived. He died in Boston, MA, and was buried in Pittsburgh. The eldest child, Elizabeth Moorhead Vermorcken, became a friend of Willa Cather, who sent her a note of condolence on her father’s death.
Moorhead, Emily Butler Black (1844-1929). Mother of Elizabeth Vermorcken. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Emily Black married William Moorhead in 1864; they had five children who lived to adulthood. The eldest child, Elizabeth Moorhead Vermorcken, became a friend of Willa Cather, who admired Emily Moorhead’s courage and spirit. Widowed in 1908, Emily Moorhead shared her household with her divorced daughter, Elizabeth Vermorcken, and other family members.
Wharton, Fanny Electa Bakewell (1863- 1954). Willa Cather's Pittsburgh acquaintance. Born in Pennsylvania, Fanny Bakewell was the daughter of lawyer William Bakewell and his wife Jane Campbell Bakewell. She married tile manufacturer Charles B. Wharton in 1887, and they had one son, William B. Wharton, born in 1888. The Whartons lived with Fanny Wharton’s parents in 1900, next door to her sister, Jane Holdship, on Murray Hill Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, near the McClung home at 1180 Murray Hill Avenue, where Willa Cather lived. After Fanny Wharton was widowed in 1917, she and her son lived with the Holdships for a time. She travelled extensively with her sister Jane B. Holdship in the 1920s and 1930s. Cather visited the Whartons and the Holdships on a trip to Pittsburg in 1908.
Holdship, Jane Campbell Bakewell (1867-1956). Willa Cather's Pittsburgh acquaintance. Born in Pennsylvania, Jane Bakewell was the daughter of lawyer William Bakewell and his wife Jane Campbell Bakewell. She married businessman George Irwin Holdship, of a well-known Pittsburgh family, in 1889. They lived at 1155 Murray Hill Avenue in Pittsburgh, PA, for many years, near the McClung home at 1180 Murray Hill Avenue, where Willa Cather lived. The Holdships were also friends of Elizabeth Moorhead Vermorcken; George Holdship served as an usher at her wedding. Jane Holdship, widowed in 1928, travelled extensively with her sister Fanny Wharton in the 1920s and 1930s. Cather visited the Whartons and the Holdships on a trip to Pittsburgh in 1908.
Place Annotations
