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.

Cather, Meta Schaper (1884-1973). Cather’s sister-in-law. Meta Schaper was born in Plattsmouth, NE, the second daughter of Robert and Julia Ramke Schaper. After graduating from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln 1903, Meta Schaper taught at Havelock High School in her hometown of Havelock, NE (now part of Lincoln). She met Roscoe Cather when teaching in Fullerton, NE, and they married in 1907. They moved to Lander, WY, in 1909, where she gave birth to three daughters, Virginia and twins Margaret and Elizabeth. The family moved to Casper, WY, in 1921 and Colusa, CA, in 1937. Willa visited Meta and Roscoe’s family in Wyoming several times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926 trip to New Mexico with Meta, Roscoe, and their children and a 1941 San Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. Meta and Willa remained friends until Willa’s death.

Ickis, Elizabeth Cather (1915-1978) (half of the “twinnies”). Cather’s niece. Elizabeth and her twin sister Margaret were born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters to them she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time. Elizabeth moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937 and married Lynn S. Ickis, an electrical engineer, in April 1938. They lived in Cleveland, OH, and had two children, Margaret and John.

Shannon, Margaret Cather (1915-1996) (half of the “twinnies”). Cather’s niece. Margaret and her twin sister Elizabeth were born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters to them, she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time. Margaret moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937. After she married Richard Shannon in September 1938, she moved with him to Boston, MA, where he earned an MBA from Harvard University in Cambridge. In 1940 they moved to the New York City area, where their first child, Richard, was born in 1943. The Shannons moved to Washington, DC, in 1944, where their daughter Kathryne was born. Cather did not see Margaret again after she left New York, and Margaret’s other three children, Patricia, Margaret, and Elizabeth, were born after Cather’s death. Kathryne and Patricia became caretakers for a large family archive of letters preserved by their mother, which they donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection.

Gere, Mariel Clapham (1874-1960). Cather’s university friend; a teacher. Mariel Gere, eldest daughter of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, born in Lincoln, NE, entered the University of Nebraska's prep school in the same year Cather did. She and her sisters visited Cather several times in Red Cloud, NE. Both were members of the Union Literary Society until Gere joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority in 1892. Gere graduated in the science course and taught chemistry at Lincoln High until 1941. She also served on the Lincoln City Library board for many years. Cather and Gere remained friends and correspondents; Gere defended Cather from accusations that she had been arrogant and friendless during her university years.

Gere, Ellen Bladen (1875-1941) (“Ned” or “Neddums”). Cather's friend. Ellen Gere, the second daughter of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, was born in Lincoln, NE. She visited Cather in Red Cloud, NE, with her sisters, and Cather included her in her correspondence in the 1890s. Ellen Gere entered the University of Nebraska in Lincoln around 1892, but graduated with the class of 1899. In the 1920s she adopted two children, believing, with her friend Dorothy Canfield, that women who wanted to be mothers did not have to be married.

Gere, Frances C. (1877-1965). Cather's friend. Frances Gere, the youngest child of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, was born in Lincoln, NE. She entered the University of Nebraska in 1894 and graduated in 1898. Like her sisters, Mariel and Ellen, she joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and lived in Lincoln the remainder of her life.

Jones, Will Owen (1862-1928). Newspaper editor. Will Owen Jones was born in Wisconsin and came to Nebraska by 1880. He worked for the Nebraska State Journal while attending the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, graduating in 1886. That year he became city editor of the paper, then associate editor in 1889 (the year he married pianist Edith M. Doolittle), and then managing editor in 1892. He was close to Charles and Mariel Gere, the owners of the Nebraska State Journal, and the Jones’s only child, Mariel Jones, was named for Mrs. Gere. Cather took his journalism course at the university in 1893 and wrote to him often early in her career, although he could be severe in his criticism of some of her work.

Holsman, Elizabeth A. Tuttle (1872-1956) (“Bessie”). American painter. Born in Nebraska, Bessie Tuttle lived in Hastings, NE, before coming to Lincoln, NE, about 1889 to study art at the University of Nebraska, where she became a member of Kappa Alpha Theta; she was active in social circles that included some of Willa Cather’s friends, such as Katherine Weston and the Westermann family. Tuttle studied three years at the Chicago Art Institute, returning to Lincoln in 1895 to teach art. In 1897 she married architect Henry K. Holsman of Chicago, where they went to live; they had three sons. Cather noted in a 1916 letter (#0366) that Sarah Harris claimed that Cather and Bessie Tuttle were geniuses.

Tyndale, Julius Hilgard (1843-1929). Lincoln physician; Cather’s friend. Julius H. Tyndale was reared in Illinois, son of Sharon Tyndale and Mary Hilgard Tyndale. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and afterwards became a physician in New York City, specializing in diseases of the ear, nose, and throat, a practice which brought him into contact with actors and singers. He moved to Lincoln, NE, around 1893 to join his sister, Emma Tyndale Westermann, and her family. The Westermanns owned the Lincoln Evening News at the time, for which Tyndale wrote theater reviews. He was Cather’s friend and mentor as she began reviewing for the Nebraska State Journal and closely followed her career. Although they remained friends and correspondents until his death, there is only one brief letter from Cather known to be extant.

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.