Sherwood, Carrie Belle Miner (1869-1972) Civic leader; Cather's friend. Born in Waukon, IA, to James L. Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Carrie Miner was the eldest of their children. The family moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878, where the Miner Brothers store became the largest in town. Cather remembered meeting Carrie there. In 1884, Carrie, her mother, and siblings were confirmed in the Catholic church. In 1888, she studied music at St. Mary’s Academy at Notre Dame, IN. She married bank clerk Walter Sherwood in late 1889; they had two sons. The Sherwoods travelled often in the West, and visited Europe in 1930. They built a new house at 3rd and Seward streets in Red Cloud in 1908; Cather sometimes sent materials for Carrie to keep in its spacious attics. Carrie Miner Sherwood led local Red Cross work during the two World Wars, served on the Red Cloud school board and park commission, and was active in the League of Women Voters and in the Ladies Guild of Grace Episcopal Church. Cather corresponded with Carrie Miner Sherwood throughout her life and dedicated My Ántonia to Carrie, model for Frances Harling in the novel, and her sister Irene. Carrie was one of Mildred Bennett’s chief sources for The World of Willa Cather (1951), and was instrumental in setting up what is now the Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud.

Bourda, Joséphine Marie Bernardine Brun (1892-1959). Cather’s maid. Raised in Lourdes in the Pyrénées region of France, Joséphine’s father Jean-Marie Brun ran a restaurant. In 1909 she married Alphonse Bourda, and they had two children, Marie, born 1910, and Clémentine, born 1912. In 1913 Joséphine, Alphonse, and Joséphine’s father immigrated to the U.S., leaving Marie and Clémentine behind with relatives. Alphonse and Joséphine’s third child, Jeanette, was born in New York City in late 1913. Soon after, Joséphine found work cooking and keeping house for Willa Cather and Edith Lewis in their Five Bank Street apartment. In 1919 the Bourda family was reunited in New York and Joséphine stopped working, but by late 1921, she was back working half days until sometime after 1925. She resumed working for Cather and Lewis in 1932 when they moved to a new apartment at 570 Park Avenue, but in 1935, she and her husband decided to return to France because of his failing health. Cather considered Joséphine a personal friend and praised her as “an artist in her way” (#0563). Cather and Bourda evidently corresponded after her return to France but their letters have not surfaced. She died in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre.

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.

Hambourg, Jan (1882-1947). Russian-born violinist; Isabelle McClung’s husband. Hambourg moved with his family to Toronto, Ontario, in 1910, where he was the head of the violin department at the Hambourg Conservatory and performed as part of the Hambourg Trio. He married Isabelle McClung in April 1916. Cather reacted negatively to both Hambourg and the marriage, but she gradually came to accept him. Beginning in the 1920s, Hambourg left the family conservatory and focused on solo violin performance in Europe. Cather enjoying long visits with Isabelle and Jan in Toronto in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. She dedicated The Professor’s House (1925) to him (“For Jan, because he likes narrative”) and asked him to make musical corrections to Lucy Gayheart (1935). When Isabelle died, Jan sent to Cather the three hundred letters from Cather to Isabelle in his possession, and Cather destroyed them.

Wiener, Charles F. (1847-1917). American businessman. Born in Bohemia, Wiener came to the U.S. with his family in 1860; he enlisted in the Navy during the Civil War, then joined his family in Chicago, IL. He married Fannie Meyer; they had no children. In 1883 Wiener bought a clothing store in Red Cloud, NE, where they became prominent citizens; for a time during Cather’s childhood they lived across the street from the Charles F. Cather home. Wiener was elected mayor of Red Cloud in 1893, the year his wife died, and county commissioner in 1896. In 1897 he sold his store and moved to New York, living with an elder brother and going into the real estate business with a nephew; he remarried in 1906. Cather regarded Wiener as a friend from her youth until his death, visiting him while they both lived in New York; she portrayed him and Fanny Wiener as the Rosens in “Old Mrs. Harris.”

Wiener, Richard G. (1854-1937). American physician. Born in New York, a son of physician Solomon Wiener, Richard Wiener received his A.B. in 1875 from New York University and his medical degree from Columbia College (later Columbia University) in 1878. He came to Red Cloud, NE, in June 1893 to assist in an operation on his aunt, Fannie Wiener, who died a few months later. He married Fannie Hirsch in 1884 and they had four sons. When Cather was living in New York City in the early twentieth century, she met Richard Wiener through his uncle, Charles F. Wiener, who had moved there.

Sembrich, Marcella (1858-1935). Polish soprano. Born Prakseda Marcelina Kochánska in what is now Ukraine, Sembrich studied violin and piano until 1875, when her teachers discovered her voice. She studied in Italy before making her debut in Athens, Greece, in 1877. She sang at the Dresden Royal Opera House before spending five years at Covent Garden in London, England, where she became a favorite. Her first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City was in 1883, but she did not become established there until 1898, singing until retiring in 1909. She gave concerts until 1917, and taught other singers, such as Alma Gluck, in the 1920s. Like actress Helena Modjeska, Sembrich was a devoted Polish patriot.

Wiener, Fannie Hirsch (1862-19 ). American wife and mother. Born in New York to German-born parents, Fannie married physician Richard G. Wiener in 1884; they had four sons. Cather knew her through Charles F. Wiener and his nephew, Richard, Fannie’s husband.

Sherwood, Walter Allen (1867-1941). Red Cloud banker; Carrie Miner Sherwood's husband. Walter Sherwood, born in Wisconsin, came with his family to Webster County in 1879. He worked in Silas Garber’s Farmers and Merchants bank in Red Cloud after his marriage to Carrie Miner in 1889; they had two sons, Clement Miner and Philip. After the failure of the Garber bank, Sherwood became cashier of the new People’s Bank, organized by his father-in-law, J.L. Miner, and eventually president of the bank.

Gund, Margaret Miner (1875-1936). Cather’s childhood friend; iris breeder. Born in Iowa, the third surviving daughter of James L. and Julia Erickson Miner, Margaret grew up in Red Cloud, NE, where she was one of Cather’s close friends. She played the role of Beauty in the children’s play Beauty and the Beast in 1888, while Cather played the merchant, her father; she also sang and played the violin in various local musical performances. In 1896 she met bank cashier Frederick Gund at a dance in Blue Hill, NE; they were married in December 1900. The couple lived in Blue Hill, where their four children were born and she cultivated iris plants. When the bank closed in 1932, the couple—their children grown—moved to Crawford, NE. Margaret Miner Gund died in Chicago, IL, and is buried in Lincoln, NE. Cather portrayed her as Sally Harling, the tomboy, in My Ántonia (1918).