Fisher, Dorothy Canfield (1879-1958). American novelist; educational and social reformer. Dorothy Canfield and Willa Cather became friends in 1891 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Canfield's father, James Canfield, had come to serve as Chancellor. The family moved to Columbus, OH, in 1895 when James Canfield assumed the presidency of Ohio State University, from which Dorothy graduated in 1899. She then followed her father to New York City, where he became Librarian of Columbia University, and she pursued graduate study in Romance Languages at the University of Paris and Columbia, from which she earned a PhD in 1904. On Cather’s first trip to Europe, she spent time in France and England with Canfield, including an awkward visit to the home of poet A.E. Housman. Cather derived the central character of “The Profile” (1907) from Canfield’s friend Evelyn Osborne, whom Cather had met in Europe. Cather and Canfield became estranged for more than a decade because Canfield objected to the story’s planned inclusion in The Troll Garden (1905). Canfield married John Redwood Fisher in 1907, and their primary residence was Arlington, VT. Canfield Fisher had spent 1916-1918 in France engaging in war relief work, and Cather’s consultation with her about the accuracy of her depiction of wartime France in One of Ours (1922) led them to reconcile. In 1925 Canfield Fisher became a founding member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee. She published her novels (most of them very popular) under the name Dorothy Canfield but her various nonfiction works as Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

Bourne, Randolph (1886-1918). American critic and essayist. Bourne became associated with the newly founded the New Republic magazine in 1914. Cather admired his criticism and especially the resistance to melting-pot Americanization of immigrants expressed in his essay "Trans-National America," published in Atlantic Monthly in 1916. She was also pleased with Bourne's anonymous review of The Song of the Lark (1915) and his review of My Ántonia (1918), and she regretted his early death in the flu pandemic. It is not clear whether Cather ever met Bourne, but he was a close friend and correspondent of her friend Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant.

Fremstad, Olive (1871-1951). Swedish-American opera singer. Born in Sweden, Ann Olivia Rundquist was adopted by a Scandinavian-American couple, the Fremstads, who raised her first in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway, and then in Minnesota. She moved to New York City to study piano in 1890 and then to Germany to study voice with Lilli Lehmann. After a successful career in Europe as a mezzo-soprano, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1903, where she specialized in singing soprano roles in operas by Richard Wagner. Willa Cather first met Fremstad in 1913 while researching “Three American Singers,” an article for McClure’s Magazine in which Cather clearly prefers Fremstad as “the most interesting kind of American” over Geraldine Farrar and Louise Homer. Through 1916 Cather and Fremstad were in close and regular contact in person and through letters, although Cather’s letters to Fremstad have not been located and their friendship evidently cooled. Fremstad inspired many aspects of the story, personality, and career of Thea Kronborg, heroine of The Song of the Lark (1915), and she approved of the novel, although Cather did not want readers to identify the character too closely with her. Fremstad married and divorced twice. During the period Cather and Fremstad were in regular contact Fremstad lived as a couple with Mary Watkins (later Cushing) who, after Fremstad’s death, published a biography of her, The Rainbow Bridge (1954).

Garden, Mary (1874-1967). Scottish-American opera singer. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Mary Garden and her family came to the U.S. when she was nine; they moved to Chicago in 1888. Wealthy patrons, the Mayers, supported her studies in Chicago and France until 1899, when Garden began studying with Sibyl Sanderson. She made her Paris debut in 1900; famous for her beauty, she was also praised for her dramatic and technical abilities. Garden created the leading roles in many contemporary operas by composers such as Debussy, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, and others, including Camille Erlanger’s Aphrodite. In 1907 she made her New York debut; in 1910 she went to Chicago to sing in various Chicago grand opera companies. She retired in 1934, returning to Scotland, where she died. Some aspects of Garden’s life are reflected in Cather’s “Coming, Aphrodite!”

Lind-Goldschmitt, Johanna Maria (1820-1887) (“Jenny Lind,” “the Swedish Nightingale”). Swedish singer. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Jenny Lind’s talent was recognized early, and she began singing in public when she was ten. She performed with the Royal Swedish Opera, damaging her voice from overuse. Singing teacher Manuel Garcia, brother of Malibran and Viardot, helped her recover. Lind retired from the operatic stage in 1849. In 1850 showman P.T. Barnum arranged a concert tour of America for her. She continued it under her own management, returning to Sweden, where she donated the proceeds to various charities. She married her accompanist, Otto Goldschmidt, in 1852; they had three children.

McClung, Samuel A. (1845-1915) American jurist, Isabelle McClung’s father. Born in Alleghany County, PA, to a Presbyterian minister and his wife, Samuel McClung graduated from Washington College in 1863 and in 1868 was admitted to the bar and moved to Pittsburgh, PA. He was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1872 and was known for his conservatism. He married Fannie Merritt in 1874 and they had three children, Isabelle, Samuel Jr., and Edith. In 1901 Isabelle McClung invited Willa Cather to reside in the McClung family home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and she lived there until her 1906 move to New York City. Cather often returned there to write until Judge McClung’s death caused the sale of family home in 1916.

Hambourg, Mark (1879-1960). Russian-British concert pianist. Born in Russia, Mark Hambourg moved to London, England, with his family in 1889, where he made his debut as a pianist in 1890. Sponsored by Ignacy Jan Paderwesi, he studied under Theodor Lescheititzky in Vienna from 1891 to 1894 and began his first world tour in 1895. He married violinist Dorothea Muir Mackenzie in 1907. He performed as a soloist and also with his brothers, violinist Jan Hambourg and cellist Boris Hambourg, in the Hambourg Trio.

Fields, Annie Adams (1835-1915). Literary hostess, author, and social reformer. At age 20, Annie Adams married James T. Fields, partner in the Boston publishing house of Ticknor & Fields. Both before and after her husband’s death in 1881, Fields often entertained important American, British, and European authors at her home at 148 Charles Street in Boston, MA. After James’ death, Sarah Orne Jewett, whose books were published by Ticknor & Fields, began sharing Annie’s homes at 148 Charles Street and Manchester-on-the-Sea, MA. Cather met Fields in Boston in 1908, a meeting Cather described in "The House on Charles Street," an essay reviewing Memories of a Hostess (a volume of selections from Fields' journals, 1922). A revised version of this essay, retitled "148 Charles Street," appeared in Not Under Forty (1936). After Jewett’s death in 1909, Fields edited The Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), which included several letters to Cather. Fearing that 148 Charles Street would become a museum after her death, Fields requested that it be torn down.