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.

Whicher, John Fox (1919-1972) (“Jack”). American attorney. Born in New York City, younger son of George and Harriet Fox Whicher, John Whicher grew up in Amherst, MA, where his father taught at Amherst College. After graduating from college, John became an actor briefly before enlisting in the U.S. Army in April 1942; he rose to the rank of captain. After the war he became an attorney. Later he and his wife, Susan Whicher, settled in Dallas, TX, where he died. Cather knew John Whicher through her friendship with his parents.

Whicher, Stephen Emerson (1915-1961). American professor of literature. Born in New York City, eldest son of George and Harriet Fox Whicher, Stephen Whicher graduated in 1936 with honors from Amherst College, where his father taught. He received his MA from Columbia University in 1937, and his PhD from Harvard in 1942. He married Elizabeth Trickey in 1940, and they had four children. He served in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II, resuming his academic career after the war. Whicher taught at Swarthmore College and Cornell University. Cather knew Stephen Whicher through her friendship with his parents.

Frost, Robert (1874-1963). American poet and educator. Cather recognized and praised Frost's first two volumes of poetry, A Boy's Will (1913; 1915 in the U.S.) and North of Boston (1914 in both England and the U.S.) as early as 1915. She wrote him a letter of admiration that year in which she recognized the combination of newness with traditional elements that is still regarded as characteristic of Frost's work. After having met Frost and his wife, she attended a dinner in honor of his birthday in 1925. Like Cather, Frost is often seen as a transitional figure between late-Victorian and modernist styles. He used traditional forms and meter and his primary subject matter was rural New England, but he wrote with a directness and use of vernacular that identifies him with the "New American Poetry." Frost taught at Amherst College (Amherst, MA) from 1916 to 1938 and was awarded four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry.