Whicher, Harriet Fox (1890-1966). Mount Holyoke College English Professor. Harriet Fox earned a BA from Barnard College at Columbia University in New York City in 1910 and an MA from Columbia in 1911. She was an instructor in the Barnard College and Smith College English Departments before she began a long career teaching English at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, from 1918 to 1944. Her long friendship with Cather began in 1922 when she and her husband, George Frisbie Whicher, met Cather at the Bread Loaf School of English, a summer program of Middlebury College in Vermont. Cather enjoyed the company of their two sons, John Fox Whicher and Stephen Emerson Whicher, and she corresponded with Harriet and George until late in life. After Harriet Whicher’s retirement from teaching she worked as a freelance copy editor at McGraw Hill and edited a collection of her deceased husband’s essays and speeches.

Barlow-Brewster, Achsah (1878-1945). Expatriate American painter. Born in New Haven, CT, Achsah Brewster graduated in 1902 from Smith College, where Edith Lewis had become her roommate in 1899, inaugurating a long friendship. After college, Achsah moved to New York City to study painting at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art. After she returned from a year of study in France, fellow student (and later poet) Vachel Lindsay introduced her to Earl Brewster. She may have met Willa Cather as early as 1904, when Cather, visiting New York from Pittsburgh, stayed with Edith Lewis on Washington Square. In 1910, she and Earl Brewster married and moved to Europe, returning to the U.S. only once, in 1923. From 1910 through 1935, they lived in various locations in France (where their daughter Harwood was born in 1912) and in Italy (where they met D. H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda in 1921), while also traveling widely in Europe and to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and India. Edith Lewis visited Achsah and Earl in Ravello, Italy, in 1914 and 1920 and in Cyr-sur-Mer, France, in 1930 (with Cather) and 1935. When Earl, Achsah, and Harwood moved to Paris in the early 1920s, they became friend Isabelle McClung Hambourg and Jan Hambourg. In 1935, Achsah and Earl moved to the Himalayan region of India, where she died ten years later after a long illness.

Brewster, Earl (1878-1957). Expatriate American painter. Born in Chagrin Falls, OH, Earl Brewster attended the Cleveland Institute of Art for a year before moving to New York City in 1899 to study at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art. He married fellow painter Achsah Barlow in 1910. They immediately moved to Europe, returning to the U.S. only once, in 1923. From 1910 through 1935, Earl and Achsah lived in France (where their daughter Harwood was born in 1912) and Italy (where they met D. H. Lawrence in 1921), while traveling widely in Europe and to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and India. Edith Lewis visited Achsah and Earl in Ravello, Italy, in 1914 and 1920 and in Cyr-sur-Mer, France, in 1930 (with Cather) and 1935. When Earl, Achsah, and Harwood moved to Paris in the early 1920s, they became friend Isabelle McClung Hambourg and Jan Hambourg. Earl had begun studying eastern religions early in his life, including the Vedanta school of Hindu religious philosophy, and he incorporated Buddhist iconography into his paintings. In 1935, the Brewsters moved to the Himalayan region of India, where he died more than two decades later.