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 |
I would like to write you about a hundred pages—so I’ll write the length of one cigarette, as I’ve not had one today. I have bought and expressed forty-odd Christmas presents into eight different states. You see I’ve such a big family and have lived in so many places. I almost feel as if I’d known Willis Gleed3, too. You used to talk of him so much. I have the longest line of aged friends whom I have to remember at this season—country people, to whom it means so much. My little niece4 at Smith is going to Red Cloud5 for Christmas, and is coming back to me for a week at New Years! As a tripper she rivals Queen Marie6. The Queen, by the way, stopped half an hour7 at my little town, and the assembled populace presented her with a bunch of roses—and “One of Ours”8. I was somehow deeply touched. All goes well at home, though mother9 has been ailing a little. The Wyoming10 nieces11 are in fine form, they were with me in New Mexico12 this summer.
My new book13 will begin in the January Forum14—I’ve been years getting the material together, and I’ve never had such happiness in writing a book before. I’ll send you the first number. Sorry about the mistakes in french—please excuse.
My love and all the deep wishes of my heart to you for a joyful Christmas and all human happiness in the year to come.
WillaInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0865.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0865
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Dorothy Canfield Fisher1
- Date letter was written
- [December 15 or 22, 1926]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Written on a Wednesday in December 1926, this was likely written on December 15 or 22, before Mary Virginia Auld's return to Red Cloud, NE, for her holiday from Smith College.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Dorothy Canfield Collection (mss-975), University of Vermont, Bailey-Howe Library, Burlington, VT
Individual Annotations
According to newspaper accounts, Queen Marie stopped her train at the Hastings, NE, Burlington station on 11 November 1926 between 8:30 and 8:40AM. During those ten minutes, children from Red Cloud, NE (where the queen had planned to stop before her itinerary changed) presented her a bouquet of flowers and a copy of Cather's One of Ours inscribed, "Presented to Marie the Queen of Rumania by the American Legion and Women's Auxillary of post 238 of Red Cloud, Neb., in grateful memory of your service during the world war. Dated Armistice Day, 1926."
Person Annotations
Fisher, Dorothy Canfield (1879-1958). American novelist; educational
and social reformer. Dorothy Canfield and Willa Cather became
friends in 1891 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Canfield's
father, James Canfield, had come to serve as Chancellor. The family moved to
Columbus, OH, in 1895 when James Canfield assumed the presidency of Ohio
State University, from which Dorothy graduated in 1899. She then followed
her father to New York City, where he became Librarian of Columbia
University, and she pursued graduate study in Romance Languages at the
University of Paris and Columbia, from which she earned a PhD in 1904. On
Cather’s first trip to Europe, she spent time in France and England with
Canfield, including an awkward visit to the home of poet A.E. Housman.
Cather derived the central character of “The Profile” (1907) from Canfield’s
friend Evelyn Osborne, whom Cather had met in Europe. Cather and Canfield
became estranged for more than a decade because Canfield objected to the
story’s planned inclusion in The Troll Garden (1905).
Canfield married John Redwood Fisher in 1907, and their primary residence
was Arlington, VT. Canfield Fisher had spent 1916-1918 in France engaging in
war relief work, and Cather’s consultation with her about the accuracy of
her depiction of wartime France in One of Ours (1922)
led them to reconcile. In 1925 Canfield Fisher became a founding member of
the Book of the Month Club selection committee. She published her novels
(most of them very popular) under the name Dorothy Canfield but her various
nonfiction works as Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
Gleed, James Willis (1859-1926) ("Willis"). American attorney. Born in Vermont, Gleed migrated to Kansas as a teenager, and received degrees from the University of Kansas and Columbia University Law School. He eventually settled in Topeka, KS, where he and his brother established a law firm. He married Grace Greer in 1886 and the couple had three daughters. A professor of law at the University of Kansas and active in the community and politics, Gleed was among the most prominent lawyers in Kansas in the early twentieth century. From 1905 to 1926, Gleed was general counsel for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. A friend of the James Canfield family, Gleed addressed University of Nebraska students on the first day of the 1893 academic year (which Cather may have attended) and was the godfather of Dorothy Canfield Fisher.
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.
Marie Alexandra Victoria (1875-1938). Queen of Romania. Born into the British royal family, Marie was married to Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania in 1893 and became Queen in 1914. A popular Queen, she was instrumental in persuading Romania to enter World War I in alliance with Britain, France, and Russia, and served throughout the war as a nurse, helping wounded soldiers daily. In the autumn of 1926, she and two of her children toured the U.S., where she was received with fanfare in a variety of cities. The author of many books, she spent the last years of her life excluded from politcal life by her husband's successors.
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.
Brockway, Virginia Cather (1912-1984) (“West Virginia”). Cather's
niece. Born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe Cather and Meta Schaper
Cather, Virginia graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper, WY, in
1929. She received an A.B. in English from Smith College in Northampton, MA,
in 1933, the same year Willa Cather received an honorary doctorate there. In
1934, she enrolled in the University of Chicago School of Social Services
and was, for a time, a social worker. She married John Hadley Brockway, a
Navy officer, in 1936. They moved frequently until his retirement from the
Navy. She had one child, son George. In letters, Willa Cather sometimes
calls her "West Virginia" to distinguish her from her cousin Mary Virginia
Auld because Virginia Cather's birthplace in Wyoming was farther west than
Mary Virginia's in Nebraska.
Ickis, Elizabeth Cather (1915-1978) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Elizabeth and her twin sister Margaret were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Elizabeth moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937 and married Lynn S.
Ickis, an electrical engineer, in April 1938. They lived in Cleveland, OH,
and had two children, Margaret and John.
Shannon, Margaret Cather (1915-1996) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Margaret and her twin sister Elizabeth were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them, she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Margaret moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937. After she married
Richard Shannon in September 1938, she moved with him to Boston, MA, where
he earned an MBA from Harvard University in Cambridge. In 1940 they moved to
the New York City area, where their first child, Richard, was born in 1943.
The Shannons moved to Washington, DC, in 1944, where their daughter Kathryne
was born. Cather did not see Margaret again after she left New York, and
Margaret’s other three children, Patricia, Margaret, and Elizabeth, were
born after Cather’s death. Kathryne and Patricia became caretakers for a
large family archive of letters preserved by their mother, which they
donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the Roscoe and Meta Cather
Collection.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
One of Ours (1922) by Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
Forum
