Boak, Rachael Seibert (1816-1893). Cather’s grandmother. Born in Frederick County, VA, to Jacob and Rhuhamah Seibert, Rachael Seibert married William Lee Boak in 1830, when she was about fifteen. In 1845 the growing family moved to Washington, DC. They had nine children, with six surviving to adulthood; one son was killed in the Civil War while serving in the Confederate Army. Widowed in 1854, Mrs. Boak moved back to Frederick County; Willa Cather was born in her house. Later she joined the Charles Cather household and moved with them to Nebraska. Rachel Boak’s parents were prototypes for Sapphira and Henry Colbert in Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940), and she herself was a prototype for Rachel Blake in that novel and for the title character in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932).

Cather, William (1823-1887). Farmer; Cather’s grandfather. Born in Back Creek Valley, VA, a son of James and Ann Howard Cather, William Cather farmed and also raised sheep. He married Emily Anne Caroline Smith in 1846, and they had two sons and three daughters who survived to adulthood. In 1851, William Cather built a brick house he named “Willow Shade,” where Willa Cather lived in her early childhood. William Cather and his wife sided with the Union during the Civil War; after the war, William Cather served his community as sheriff and funded schools. After visiting his eldest son, George P. Cather, in Nebraska in 1874, he decided to settle there, eventually bringing their surviving children, including Charles F. Cather, Willa’s father. Later William turned his Webster County farmland over to Charles, and he and his wife moved to Red Cloud, NE, taking their orphaned grandchildren Kyd Clutter and Retta Ayre, with them. Cather portrayed her paternal grandparents as Grandfather and Grandmother Burden in My Ántonia (1918).

Boak, William Lee Washington (1805-1854). American politician; Cather’s grandfather. Born in a part of Virginia that is now West Virginia, Boak married Rachel Seibert in 1830. At least six of their nine children lived to adulthood, including the youngest, Mary Virginia Boak, Cather’s mother. Boak represented Berkeley County in the Virginia House of Delegates for three terms, ran a hotel in Martinsburg, WV, and then moved with his growing family to Washington, DC, around 1845, where he worked for the federal government and presided over a boarding house kept by his wife. He was the prototype for Michael Blake in Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).

Cather, Emily Ann Caroline Smith (1827-1900) (“Caroline”). Cather’s paternal grandmother. Born in Back Creek, VA, Caroline was a daughter of George and Ann Ellis Smith, and a granddaughter of Jeremiah Smith, one of the pioneering settlers and largest landowners of the region. She married William Cather, also of Frederick County, VA, in 1846, and they had at least seven children, of whom George, Charles, twins Alverna and Alfaretta, and Virginia (Jennie) survived to adulthood; all of their daughters died young, apparently from tuberculosis. The prevalence of this disease in the family contributed to the family’s move in 1877 to what they believed was the healthier climate of Nebraska, following their eldest son George and his wife Frances. William and Caroline Cather moved from the Catherton area of Webster County, NE, to Red Cloud, NE, with two of their grandchildren, Kyd Clutter and Retta Ayre, whom they raised. William and Caroline were prototypes for the Burden grandparents in My Ántonia (1918).

Cather, James (1795-1875). Willa Cather’s great-grandfather. Born in the Gainesboro area of Frederick County, VA, James Cather was a son of Jasper Cather and Sarah Moore Cather. He married Nancy Ann Howard in 1819, and they had eight children, of whom four died of tuberculosis. James Cather was well-known in his community

Cather, Nancy Ann Howard (1798-1878). Cather’s great-grandmother. Born in Frederick County, VA, to Anthony Howard and Nancy Clarke Howard, Nancy Ann Howard married James Cather in 1819. They had six children: Perry, John, William A. (Willa Cather’s paternal grandfather), Clark, Sidney Cather Gore, and Adaline Cather Purcell. James and Nancy Ann Cather were Quakers, and opposed slavery; they took a ten-year old African American girl into their household as an indentured servant. Nancy Ann Cather taught her to weave so that she could earn her living as a free African American when the indenture ended when she was eighteen. Willa Cather, who was four when Nancy Ann Cather died, probably had few direct memories of her.

Smith, Ann Ellis Albin (1788-1871). Cather’s great-grandmother. Born in Virginia, Ann Ellis was a daughter of Morris Ellis II and Susan Lee Williams Ellis. She married James Albin in 1809, with whom she had five children. After his death in 1819 she married George Smith; they had five children, including Emily Ann Caroline Cather, Willa Cather’s grandmother. After his death in 1844, Ann Smith lived next to Emily Ann Caroline and her husband William Cather. She is buried in the Hopewell Quaker Burial Grounds in Frederick County, VA.

Smith, George (1769-1844). Cather’s great-grandfather. Born in Frederick County, VA, a son of Captain Jeremiah Smith and Elizabeth Ann Snyder Smith, George Smith married Ann Ellis Albin in 1819. They had five children, among them Emily Ann Caroline Smith Cather, Willa Cather’s grandmother.

Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or “Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in 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.

Seibert, Jacob Funk (1779-1858). Virginia miller; Cather’s great-grandfather. Born in Berkeley County, VA, son of John and Elizabeth Funk Seibert, Jacob Seibert became a miller. After the death of his first wife, Mary Myers, he married Ruhamah Lemmon in 1813. They had ten children, including Cather’s maternal grandmother, Rachel Seibert Boak. The family moved to Frederick County, VA, about 1836, where Jacob Seibert ran the mill on Back Creek. After his daughter Rachel was widowed in 1854, he provided a house for her in which Cather was born. He served as a model for the miller Henry Colbert in Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).