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 |
For the last month I have been leading a rather frivolous and very crowded life in Paris2—so busy that I've not written to anyone, not even to my mother3. Now I have come back to the country to rest a little before sailing.
I sail on the Berengaria (Cunard) on November 17, and will carry the portrait4 with me in my cabin. I have the proper customs declaration, sworn to by the painter5.
I shall send the picture on to you within a few days after I reach New York6. If Bakst wants it for his exhibition in December, he must take the matter up with the owners of the painting. I will send it to you unframed, and will have it shipped by a responsible dealer in New York.
As to the frame; Bakst suggests a deep frame, eight or ten inches in depth, and a dull gold, or dark old gold in color. He particularly advises against a bright gold.
My father's7 address is simply C. F. Cather, Red Cloud Nebraska8; and my niece Mary Virginia Auld9 also lives in Red Cloud.
I have a photograph10 for you, taken in Bakst's studio, which I will send you from my own apartment at 5 Bank street11. Photographs sent from here are so likely to be broken in the mail. I do hope you will like the picture that has cost you so much trouble. I have taken several painter friends to see it, and they assure me that it's an admirable painting. As a likeness I think it only fair—but it does not bungle or hesitate. It presents one aspect of the person clearly and forcibly. I have enjoyed working with Bakst and getting better acquainted with you, so on the personal end I am the gainer.
Faithfully yours Willa Cather Mr. J. M. Vinsonhaler1Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0704.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0704
- Contents
- Dcument is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Duncan M. Vinsonhaler 1
- Date letter was written
- November 9 [1923]
- Place letter was written
- Paris, Île-de-France, France2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (6494), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
Cather and Léon Bakst in his studio, 1923. Photograph by Henri Manuel. At the bottom Cather has inscribed the picture to her sister: "For Elsie, a picture of Bakst and me in his beautiful studio. Willa Cather. Paris, October 1, 1923." Archives Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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
Vinsonhaler, Duncan MacArthur (1867-1954). American judge. Born in Missouri, Duncan MacArthur Vinsonhaler married Isabelle Ellison in Kirksville, MO, in 1889, and received a law degree from Michigan University in 1891. Vinsonhaler served as judge of Douglas County, Nebraska (1900-1906) and as a senior member of the firm Vinsonhaler, McGuckin & Caldwell in Omaha, NE. In 1922 Vinsonhaler wrote Willa Cather a letter praising One of Ours (1922), and in 1923 Vinsonhaler and Cather corresponded about Léon Bakst’s portrait of Cather commissioned by a group of women in in Omaha, NE.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the 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.
Bakst, Léon (1866-1924). Russian painter and theatrical
designer. Born in Russia, Lejb-Khaim Rosenberg decided to become
an artist when he was twelve. He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of
Arts. In 1889 he took the surname Bakst. In 1893 Bakst went to Paris to
study for four years, becoming a part of Sergei Diaghilev’s avant-garde
artistic group. He became known as a portraitist in the early twentieth
century, then in 1909 turned to stage and costume design for Diaghilev and
the Ballets Russes, the work for which he is now best known. In 1922 he
visited the U.S., where his friend and patron Alice Warder Garrett had
organized exhibitions of his work. Willa Cather met Bakst in Paris in 1923.
When a women’s federation in Omaha was raising funds to have a portrait
painted of her, Bakst suggested he do the portrait. Cather enjoyed talking
with Bakst during the sittings, but, like other viewers, she had mixed
reactions to the finished portrait.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Mellen, Mary Virginia Auld (1906-1982) (“Virginia,” “M.V.”).
Cather's niece. Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld
and James William Auld, Mary Virginia graduated from Red Cloud High School
in 1924 and then spent a year at Dana Hall in Wellesley, MA, to qualify for
admission to Smith College in Northampton, MA. In 1929 she received an A.B.
in psychology from Smith and then moved to New York City, where she found
work at Lord & Taylor before telling her aunt of her arrival. In 1930,
probably with Willa Cather's help, she secured a position in the Circulation
Department of the New York Public Library. In 1931, she entered the
library's internal training school and in 1932 was assigned to the Tremont
branch library in the Bronx. After Mary Virginia’s parents divorced in 1933
Cather took a quasi-parental role. She paid for vacations and when, in 1935,
Mary Virginia married Richard (Dick) Mellen, a graduate of Harvard Medical
School and roommate of her brother William Thomas Auld at Amherst College,
she supervised wedding arrangements. After Dick was commissioned as a doctor
in the Air Force, Mary Virginia—much to Cather’s
regret—accompanied him to Chattanooga, TN, where he was assigned. In
Cather's will, Mary Virginia was designated a beneficiary of the literary
estate.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Portrait of Willa Cather by Léon Bakst (1923).
