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 |
This5, from the Boston Transcript6, is about the miniature painter7 whom you met here2, and who does not like the Futurists' treatment of flowers! You see she holds her own, doing Old Fashioned Flowers the old fashioned way!
With love Willie. Mrs. E. A. Creighton1 Red Cloud3 Nebraska NEW YORK, N.Y.2 DEC 1 1921 1 30 PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0564.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0564
- Contents
- Document is one leaf. Includes one handwritten envelope and one enclosure.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mary Miner Creighton 1
- Date letter was written
- December 1 [1921]
- Accompanying this letter
-
Includes one enclosed clipping titled "Old-Fashioned Flowers" by W. H. D.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Irene Miner Weisz Papers, 1912-1958 (Midwest MS Cather-Weisz), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
5 Bank Street (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis beginning in 1912, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Subway construction forced Cather and Lewis to relocate in 1927.
Person Annotations
Creighton, Mary S. Miner (1873-1968). Clubwoman; Cather’s
friend from childhood. Born in Iowa, Mary Miner was the second
daughter of James and Julia Miner, neighbors of the Cather family in Red
Cloud, NE. Willa Cather later recalled that when she first moved into town
with her family and enrolled in school in 1885, “Margie Miner was so jolly I
wanted awfully to know her.” They became lifelong friends and
correspondents, and Mary’s sisters Irene and Carrie were equally close to
Cather. Mary Miner wed local physician E. A. Creighton in 1900 and lived the
rest of her life in Red Cloud. She was the prototype for Julia Harling in
My Ántonia (1918).
Hills, Laura Coombs (1859-1952). American painter.
Born in the coastal town of Newburyport, MA, Hills began studying
painting as a child. Early in her career she exhibited works in oil,
watercolor, and pastel, illustrated children’s books, and undertook design
work. From the 1890s she became a noted painter of miniatures on ivory; in
the 1920s diminishing eyesight caused her shift to pastels of flowers.
Throughout her life Hills spent her summers in Newburyport. In 1903 she
moved her winter studio to 66 Chestnut Street in Boston; artist Karoline
Bernheimer shared the space while Hills’ sister Lizzie handled domestic
duties. When Cather was on assignment in Boston for McClure’s Magazine in 1907, she took an apartment on Chestnut
Street, leading to a lifelong friendship and correspondence.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"Old Fashioned Flowers: Delightful Collection of Pastels by Miss Hills at Copley Gallery—Original and Exquisite Works," Boston Transcript (November 1921), by W. H. D. [William Howe Downs]
Boston Evening Transcript
