Cather, Charles Douglas (1880-1938) (“Douglass”). Cather’s brother. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Charles was third child and second son of Charles and Virginia Cather. As an adolescent, Douglass Cather helped his father supervise rented farm properties and worked as a messenger for the local Burlington & Missouri Railroad office. In 1897 he left Red Cloud for a position in Sterling, CO, and then took a position with at the Cheyenne, WY, office of the Burlington Railroad. In 1908 he traveled to Mexico, an experience that his sister gave to Emil Bergson in O Pioneers! (1913). By 1910 he was working for the Santa Fe railroad and living in Winslow, AZ, where Willa Cather visited him in 1912. He later achieved success in the oil business in California. Although he never married, Cather notes that during the last six or seven years of his life he had a relationship with Dorothy Rogers. Douglass visited Cather in New York City in December of 1937. His death in June 1938 left her devastated. Douglass served as a prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932) and Hector the messenger boy brother in “The Best Years” (1948). His years working for the Burlington also inspired Cather’s many railroad worker characters in her novels, including Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925). Few letters from this important sibling relationship have survived.

Cather, James Donald (1886-1966) (“Jim”). Cather’s brother. James was born in Red Cloud, NE, the fifth child and third son of Charles and Virginia Cather. James moved to Wyoming in 1907 to work with his brothers Douglass and Roscoe. In 1913 he married Ethel Garber, and owned and operated clothing stores first in Red Cloud and then Holyoke, CO, where the family settled for a time 1920 before returning to Red Cloud in 1922. The couple had two children, Helen Louise and Charles Edwin. In 1930 the family moved to California so James could work in the oil business with Douglass and his partners. Willa’s relationship with James was more distant than that with her brothers Douglass and Roscoe, who were closer to her own age, although she was very fond of his children.

Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother. Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA, where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926 trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932).

Cather, John (1892-1959) (“Jack”). Cather’s brother. Born and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Jack was the seventh child and fourth son of Charles and Virginia Cather. He was nearly two decades younger than Willa Cather, and she was a doting older sister when he was a small boy. Because she missed him after her 1896 move to Pittsburgh, PA, she wrote several poems about him and the story “Jack-a-Boy” (1901). After graduating from Red Cloud High School in 1912, Jack studied for two years at University of Nebraska in Lincoln. With Willa Cather’s encouragement, in 1914 he enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh to study engineering. Willa Cather was then living in New York City but traveled to Pittsburgh to help him settle in and enjoyed visiting him and supported his decision to change his major to theater. It is not clear whether he graduated from Carnegie Tech but the British government trained him as a chemist so he could inspect munitions factories. While working in Smethport, PA, he met Irma Wells, and they married in 1918. They had two children, Catherine and Ella Faye. After World War I, he worked as a chemical engineer in the oil industry in Cincinnati, OH, Casper, WY, and Bradford, PA. In 1936 he moved to Whittier, CA, and became a business partner with his brothers Douglass and James in an oil production company. He died in Long Beach, CA. Willa Cather mentions him frequently in letters, but she seems to have had little contact with him and his family in later years, and no letters from her to him have surfaced.

Goudy, Alexander K. (1847-1906). Cather’s high school teacher. Alexander Goudy was born in Ohio and educated in Illinois. He came to Pawnee City, NE, as principal of the high school in 1874. He married Alice Dailey in 1882 and they both taught at the Nebraska State Normal School in Peru, NE; he served as Nemaha County superintendent of schools before going to Red Cloud, NE, in 1888. In 1890 he was elected Nebraska state superintendent of schools, and in that capacity enacted the state’s free textbook law. Alice Dailey Goudy, his wife, worked with him as a high school principal in Red Cloud and as assistant state superintendent. After Goudy’s second term ended in 1894, he taught school in Lincoln until suffering a stroke around 1900 and retiring to Nemaha County.

Case, Oliver C. (1852-1904). American attorney. Born near Rochester, NY, Case studied at the Iowa Law College before coming to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878. His successful practice led to election to the state legislature in 1882, and to appointment as the city attorney. In 1890 he married then-county superintendent of schools, Eva King. Because of ill health he stopped practicing law and his wife returned to teaching. He remained, however, a popular and influential citizen, and Cather valued his advice and encouragement.

Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father. Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War. He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters, in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe, Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932).

Florance, Beatrix Elizabeth Mizer (1875-1963) (“Trixie,” “Trix”). Cather’s childhood friend. Beatrix Mizer was born in Ohio in a German-American family. They moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1884. Cather later recalled that when she first enrolled in school in Red Cloud, “Trix Mizer was the prettiest little girl I had ever seen.” They acted together in an 1888 production of “Beauty and the Beast” at the Red Cloud Opera House. Mizer graduated from Red Cloud High School in 1893 and studied voice at the Chicago Conservatory of Music 1897-1898, qualifying as a music teacher, and at the Chicago College of Music 1899-1900. She married Sidney Florance in 1903. In 1909 the couple moved to Red Cloud, where they settled and raised a family. Beatrix’s Chicago musical studies and return to Red Cloud may have inspired elements of Cather’s novel Lucy Gayheart (1935). Cather’s correspondence with both Florances began as early as 1914 and extended through the 1940s.

Emigh, Edwin C. (1875-after 1940) (“Eddie”). American dentist; Cather’s Red Cloud schoolmate. The Emigh family came from Illinois, where Edwin was born, to Red Cloud, NE, where he attended the Red Cloud schools. His father Jerome S. Emigh was a dentist, and he became one also, settling by 1920 in Grand Island, NE, to practice. He married Alice E. Remsburg, a music teacher, in 1906. Cather, writing of her first day of school in Red Cloud, remembered noticing how smitten Eddie Emigh was with pretty Trix Mizer.

Tulleys, John (1875-1935). American accountant. Born in Nebraska, the second son of James and Sophia Tulleys, John Tulleys was educated in the Red Cloud, NE, schools. With Cather and Alex Bentley, he was one of three 1890 graduates from the high school. He taught in local schools, then worked as a printer in Red Cloud and in Lead, SD, where he met Laura Marr, whom he married in 1904. After working in the state auditor’s office in Lincoln, NE, he formed his own auditing firm in Lincoln, which he sold in the 1920s after legal difficulties; he moved to the West Coast and died in Seattle, WA.

Cather, Charles Douglas (1880-1938) (“Douglass”). Cather’s brother. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Charles was third child and second son of Charles and Virginia Cather. As an adolescent, Douglass Cather helped his father supervise rented farm properties and worked as a messenger for the local Burlington & Missouri Railroad office. In 1897 he left Red Cloud for a position in Sterling, CO, and then took a position with at the Cheyenne, WY, office of the Burlington Railroad. In 1908 he traveled to Mexico, an experience that his sister gave to Emil Bergson in O Pioneers! (1913). By 1910 he was working for the Santa Fe railroad and living in Winslow, AZ, where Willa Cather visited him in 1912. He later achieved success in the oil business in California. Although he never married, Cather notes that during the last six or seven years of his life he had a relationship with Dorothy Rogers. Douglass visited Cather in New York City in December of 1937. His death in June 1938 left her devastated. Douglass served as a prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932) and Hector the messenger boy brother in “The Best Years” (1948). His years working for the Burlington also inspired Cather’s many railroad worker characters in her novels, including Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925). Few letters from this important sibling relationship have survived.

Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother. Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA, where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926 trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932).

Ducker, William (1835-1893) (“Will”). Anglo-American storekeeper; Cather’s friend. Born in Lancashire, England, Ducker came to Illinois with his three brothers in the late 1860s, settling in Illinois. He married Emma J. Lyon and they had four children, Estelle (Stella), Will, Jessie, and Bessie. In 1885 the William Ducker family moved to Red Cloud, NE, where he joined two of his brothers who owned the Chicago Store (a dry goods store) and built a large house on the northwest edge of town. Ducker served on the board of the Red Cloud National Bank and was elected town treasurer in 1891. He befriended Cather and read Latin with her. He died suddenly, a few hours after talking to her; his obituary noted that he “had a fine education and could speak several languages.”