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 |
QUEBEC2 January 2nd Dear Fanny Butcher1
I am so, so sorry to hear about your father3. I know what it's like to lose one's father4—and the loss has not grown any less, though it's nearly two years now.
I'm doubly sorry to have failed you, under the circumstances. But I won't always fail you. When I'm a little the master of my fate again, and am not always on the way to California5, or getting ready to be on the way, then I can give myself the luxury of obliging my real friends sometimes. I look forward to that state as a prisoner toward liberty
Faithfully & affectionately Willa CatherI'll be in N.Y.6 in a week or ten days from this date.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0999.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0999
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Fanny Butcher1
- Date letter was written
- January 2 [1930]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is established by Cather's reference to the death of her father as having happened almost two years earlier and by her presence in Quebec City in January 1930.
- Place letter was written
- Québec City, Quebec, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Fanny Butcher Papers, 1830-1984 (Midwest MS Butcher), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Person Annotations
Bokum, Frances Amanda Butcher (1888-1987) (“Fanny”).
American newspaper critic and bookstore owner. Born in Fredonia,
KS, Butcher moved to Chicago, IL, as a child. She received an A.A. from
Lewis Institute in 1908 and a BA from the University of Chicago in 1910. In
1911, Floyd Dell of the Chicago Evening Post assigned
her to review Alexander’s Bridge (1912). Cather wrote
the anonymous reviewer care of the Post, beginning
their correspondence and friendship. From 1913 until her retirement in 1963,
Butcher wrote for the Chicago Tribune, becoming
literary editor in 1922. She ran Fanny Butcher Books in Chicago from 1919
until 1927, when she sold it to Doubleday. Cather frequently saw Butcher
when she changed trains in Chicago and closely followed Butcher’s reviews of
her works, often writing to her about them. She also relied on Butcher’s
knowledge of the book business and particularly book distribution in the
Midwest. Their extant correspondence begins in 1920, although in her memoir
Many Lives—One Love (1972), Butcher
paraphrases earlier letters. Butcher married Richard Drummond Bokum in 1935.
Butcher, Lewis Oliver (c. 1863-1930). American artist, Fanny Butcher’s father. Born in Indiana, Lewis Butcher and his wife Hattie were living in Fredonia, KS, when their daughter Fanny was born. Lewis Butcher was a painter of portraits and watercolors. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, around 1891, and Fanny continued to live with her parents into adulthood.
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).
Place Annotations
