Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
Dear Irene1:
I forgot to tell you that Newbranch4 told me that hundreds of people on Saturday afternoon5 thought by "smart"6 I meant shrewd! He said I should have said "classy" to be understood, or "swell"!
I'm glad I came down here2, dear Irene, because it gives such happiness to Dr. Tyndale7 and dear Max8—even if his wife9 does call me selfish, grasping woman!
Goodnight, dear girl WillieInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0557.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0557
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Irene Miner Weisz1
- Date letter was written
- [October 31, 1921]
- Place letter was written
- Lincoln, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Irene Miner Weisz Papers, 1912-1958 (Midwest MS Cather-Weisz), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
Under the sponsorship of the Fine Arts Society, Cather lectured on 29 October 1921 at the Fontenelle Hotel in Omaha. Before the lecture, she spoke at a dinner given in her honor by the Omaha chapter of the League of Women Voters at the Brandeis tea room.
Cather was reported to have said in her lecture at the Fontenelle that "There are no short cuts in art. Art has nothing to do with smartness. Times may change, inventions may alter a world, but birth, love, maternity, and death cannot be changed." She was also reported to have defended cottonwood trees against those prejudiced against them who proclaimed, "They are not smart."
Person Annotations
Weisz, Irene Miner (1881-1971). Musician; Cather’s lifelong
friend. Born in Red Cloud, NE, the youngest child of James L.
Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Irene Miner was educated in Red Cloud,
graduating in 1898 and played with the Cather children as part of the play
town of Sandy Point and in amateur theatricals. She studied piano with local
teachers, such as Mrs. P.E.B. Sill, then went to the Chicago College of
Music from 1899 to 1901. She met clerk Charles Weisz, later president of the
A.F. Shaw insurance company, there; they married in late 1915, settling in
Chicago. She visited Red Cloud frequently, but also travelled in the
American West and then to Europe in 1921 and around the world in 1934.
Cather corresponded with Irene Miner Weisz for many years and sometimes
stayed with her in Chicago when travelling to and from the West. My Ántonia is dedicated to Irene, model for Nina
Harling in the novel, and to her sister Carrie Miner Sherwood.
Newbranch, Harvey E. (1875-1959). Newspaper editor; Cather’s university classmate. Harvey Newbranch was born in Iowa; his family moved to Nebraska and in 1892 he entered the University of Nebraska, following Cather as editor of the Hesperian student newspaper and graduating in 1896. That same year he married classmate Evalena Rolofson; they had four daughters. In 1898 Newbranch began working for the Omaha, NE, World-Herald as its Lincoln correspondent. Subsequently he worked in Omaha as reporter, editorial writer, and finally editor beginning in 1910. In 1920 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorial condemning the mob that lynched an African American man. Cather kept in occasional touch with the Newbranches, and in 1929 her letter to Newbranch as editor about the demise of small town opera houses was published in the World-Herald’s diamond jubilee edition.
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.
Westermann, Max (1865-1924). Accountant and Assistant Finance Secretary. Born in Illinois to Louis and Emma Tyndale Westermann, Max Westermann and his twin brother Fritz came to Lincoln, NE, in 1885. He began work as a clerk in the finance department with the University of Nebraska in 1889 and married Louise Schoular in 1902. He worked at the university until his death of a heart attack. Cather knew the Westermann family, whom she portrayed as the Ehrlich family in One of Ours (1922), when she was a student at the university; she occasionally stayed with Max and Louise Westermann when she visited Lincoln and autographed a photograph of herself to them.
Westermann, Louise Schoular (1878-1928). American Teacher. Born in Illinois, Louise taught before her 1902 marriage to Max Westermann. After their children Emma and John entered school, Louise returned to teaching, first at the University of Nebraska, and then, after she was widowed in 1924, at Lincoln High. Cather, who had known Max Westermann and his family (whom she portrayed as the Ehrlich family in One of Ours [1922]) when she was a student at the University of Nebraska, occasionally stayed with Max and Louise Westermann when she visited Lincoln, and autographed a photograph of herself to them.
Place Annotations
