Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 have had a bad bronchitis again and life has been extraordinarily difficult. I wish
I had written you before all these troubles came along, but I had so confidently hoped
to be home3 for Christmas. I am so glad to know that you were successful with the window4 for Mr. Bates5. I realize what a lot of work it takes to put anything of that kaind through. I like the design you sent for Father's6 window7 very much, and I would have written you about it long before this, but Douglass8 and Elsie9 have been so over-burdened with all the cares of Mother's10 illness that I could not take it up with them. I will go out to see Mother just as
soon as I can,—in a very few weeks,—and then I will be able to talk over the window
design with them. Meanwhile, I will send the drawing back to you, because in a hotel
room there is no place to keep anything.
I wish you would tell me how Dr. Creighton11 is in health, dear Carrie. He has helped so many people along that it does seem as if he ought to be well and happy. I wish I could 'doctor' him a little, if he needs it. I'll write you again, dear friend, when I am feeling more human. I pray that everything is well with you and with those you love.
Yours always WillieHere is a small check for the church12—I expected to send more, but so many illnesses this last year have been a heavy drain on those of us who are able to pay at all. But I'll always send something.
W.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0957.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0957
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only, with a handwritten postscript.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Carrie Miner Sherwood1
- Date letter was written
- January 21 [1929]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Willa Cather's mother had a stroke in early December, 1928; Cather went to visit her in California in February 1929, indicating this letter was written in 1929.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
Cather contributed to the installation of the stained glass window above the altar in Grace Episcopal Church in Red Cloud, NE, in honor of Reverend John Mallory Bates.
Cather was planning to purchase a stained glass window in honor of her father to be installed in Grace Episcopal Church in Red Cloud, NE, but did not end up doing so until 1937.
Grace Episcopal Church (Red Cloud, NE): Built in 1883, the Cather family joined Grace Episcopal Church in 1922. Cather and her siblings commissioned the installment of two stained glass windows in honor of each of their parents, as well as the altar rail in honor of their brother Douglass.
Person Annotations
Sherwood, Carrie Miner (1869-1971). Sherwood, Carrie Belle
Miner (1869-1972) Civic leader; Cather's friend. Born in Waukon,
IA, to James L. Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Carrie Miner was the eldest
of their children. The family moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878, where the
Miner Brothers store became the largest in town. Cather remembered meeting
Carrie there. In 1884, Carrie, her mother, and siblings were confirmed in
the Catholic church. In 1888, she studied music at St. Mary’s Academy at
Notre Dame, IN. She married bank clerk Walter Sherwood in late 1889; they
had two sons. The Sherwoods travelled often in the West, and visited Europe
in 1930. They built a new house at 3rd and Seward streets in Red Cloud in
1908; Cather sometimes sent materials for Carrie to keep in its spacious
attics. Carrie Miner Sherwood led local Red Cross work during the two World
Wars, served on the Red Cloud school board and park commission, and was
active in the League of Women Voters and in the Ladies Guild of Grace
Episcopal Church. Cather corresponded with Carrie Miner Sherwood throughout
her life and dedicated My Ántonia to Carrie, model
for Frances Harling in the novel, and her sister Irene. Carrie was one of
Mildred Bennett’s chief sources for The World of Willa
Cather (1951), and was instrumental in setting up what is now the
Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud.
Bates, John Mallory (1846-1930). Red Cloud-based Episcopal clergyman.
Born and educated in Connecticut, Rev. Bates worked as an Episcopal
priest in New England for several years before moving west, first to Kansas
and then to Nebraska. He became rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Red
Cloud, NE, in 1903, while also serving as missioner of the Republican
Valley. He retired as rector and missioner in 1920 but continued to serve as
priest-in-charge at Grace Church until his death. He befriended the Cather
family long before Willa Cather and her parents were confirmed as members of
Grace Church in 1922. An amateur botanist and ornithologist, he shared Willa
Cather’s interest in the native plants and birds of Nebraska and is reputed
to have offered corrections to perceived botanical mistakes in her fiction.
His herbarium, held by the University of Nebraska State Museum, incorporates
specimens collected by Cather.
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).
Cather, Charles Douglas (1880-1938) (“Douglass”). Cather’s
brother. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Charles
was third child and second son of Charles and Virginia Cather. As an
adolescent, Douglass Cather helped his father supervise rented farm
properties and worked as a messenger for the local Burlington & Missouri
Railroad office. In 1897 he left Red Cloud for a position in Sterling, CO,
and then took a position with at the Cheyenne, WY, office of the Burlington
Railroad. In 1908 he traveled to Mexico, an experience that his sister gave
to Emil Bergson in O Pioneers! (1913). By 1910 he was
working for the Santa Fe railroad and living in Winslow, AZ, where Willa
Cather visited him in 1912. He later achieved success in the oil business in
California. Although he never married, Cather notes that during the last six
or seven years of his life he had a relationship with Dorothy Rogers.
Douglass visited Cather in New York City in December of 1937. His death in
June 1938 left her devastated. Douglass served as a prototype for one of the
twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932) and Hector
the messenger boy brother in “The Best Years” (1948). His years working for
the Burlington also inspired Cather’s many railroad worker characters in her
novels, including Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925). Few letters from this
important sibling relationship have survived.
Cather, Elsie Margaret (1890-1964) (“Bobbie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Red Cloud, NE, shortly before Willa Cather
graduated from high school, Elsie attended the University of Nebraska in
Lincoln from 1908 to 1910, before transferring to Smith College, in
Northampton, MA, from which she graduated with an A.B. in English and Latin
in 1912. She undertook graduate study at the University of Nebraska in 1914
and in 1916 received her A.M. with a major in philosophy and a minor in
English. At both the undergraduate and the graduate level at Nebraska, she
studied under Louise Pound. She began a career in high school teaching in
1912, when she took a position in Lander, WY, where her brother Roscoe then
lived with his family. She also taught in Albuquerque, NM; Corning, IA;
Cleveland, OH; and briefly Red Cloud, when illness in the family brought her
home. Her longest tenure as a teacher was at Lincoln (NE) High School, where
she began teaching in 1920, with Olivia Pound and Mariel Gere as colleagues.
Willa Cather's expectation that Elsie be responsible for aging family and
friends and for legal affairs after their parents' deaths sometimes brought
the sisters into conflict. Elsie Cather retired from Lincoln High School in
1942. She died in Lincoln.
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.
Creighton, Ernest A. (1871-1934). Cather family physician. Born in Ontario, Canada, E. A. Creighton graduated from the medical school of Western University in 1899, and came to Red Cloud, NE, soon after, boarding with the Cathers' family friend Mollie Ferris and her brother. He married Mary S. Miner on July 28, 1900, and they built a house close by her parents’ house. Cather wrote that she felt her parents were in good hands with him.
Place Annotations
