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 |
10954 FISHER'S PEAK NEAR TRINIDAD, COLO.
COPR FRED HARVEY
POST CARD
"PHOSTINT" CARD. TRADE MARK- REG.U.S.PAT.OFF.
MADE ONLY BY DETROIT PUBLISHING CO.
The conspicuous flat topped peak on the range to the east of
Trinidad is known as Fisher's Peak. On the right rises a ruddy cliff, called
Simpson's Rest. Upon its top a party of pioneers was besieged by Indians in the
early days and one of the survivors named Simpson chose to be buried there many
years after. A rude monument surmounts the Rest, which may be seen from the
train.
THIS SPACE MAY BE USED FOR MESSAGE
St. Huberts 3
New
York
Miss Elizabeth
Sergeant1
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0286.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0286
- Contents
- Document is one leaf with an image of Fisher's Peak in Trinidad, CO, on recto. Handwritten message on verso of postcard.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant1
- Date letter was written
- September 11 [1914]
- Place letter was written
- Trinidad, Colorado, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Literary and Historical Manuscripts (MA 1602), Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY
Person Annotations
Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley (1881-1965). American journalist and
author. Born and raised in Winchester, MA, a suburb of Boston,
Elizabeth Sergeant graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1903. In 1910,
Pauline Goldmark sent her to Cather at McClure’s
Magazine with a proposed article, published as “Toilers of the
Tenements,” and Cather and Sergeant became lifelong friends. In 1914
Sergeant became one of the original contributors to the New Republic. While on assignment in France in 1917 she was
injured by a land mine; her injury and recuperation were the subject of Shadow-Shapes: Journal of a Wounded Woman (1920). She
moved to New Mexico in 1920 and became involved with the Taos artists colony
and advocated for Native American rights, but her work frequently took her
back to New York City. She included Cather in her collection of portraits of
prominent Americans, Fire under the Andes (1927).
Sergeant studied with Carl Jung and Toni Woolf in Zurich, Switzerland, from
1929 to 1931. When she returned to the U.S. she sold her house in New Mexico
and settled in New York City, writing many magazine articles about authors
and psychological topics. She later moved to Rockland County, NY. Cather’s
letters to Sergeant comment frequently on both her own and Sergeant’s
writing and testify to a strong and lively friendship maintained despite
Sergeant's being a committed reformer and far to the left of Cather
politically and culturally. Sergeant’s Willa Cather: A
Memoir (1953) includes extensive paraphrases of Cather’s letters to
her.
Broe, Mrs. There is insufficient evidence for a definitive identification, but this may be Margaret Louise Broe (1875-1920), who married farmer Charles Robert Broe, of Keene Valley, Essex County, NY, around 1903; they had three sons. Cather addressed a letter to Elizabeth Sergeant in care of Mrs. Broe at St. Hubert’s, a hamlet that is part of Keene, a town in the Adirondack mountains with many summer visitors.
Place Annotations
