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 have been in Canada3 for some time and no mail was forwarded to me during my absence.
I am leaving New York2 in a few days for Pasadena4, where I now spend much of my time. My mother5 has been an invalid in a sanitarium6 there for three years. She is completely paralyzed on one side, and her state of helplessness has compelled me to drop all outside interests. With much regret, I feel that I must decline your very kind invitation to become one of the Committee of Southern Authors.
You were kind enough to say that the use of my name on the Committee would not entail any duties. But unfortunately the use of one's name on any committee means many invitations from other societies and committees, and a great many letters from people who seem to write to one merely because seeing one's name reminds them of one's existence. However good your intentions might be, you could not prevent this. For the present, while my mother is in this condition, I want to eliminate in so far as possible all intrusions from the outside, and even the use of my name on your Committee would result in intrusions of this kind. I know by experience that when one's name is printed on a committee list, many unforeseen complications may ensue, and for the next year or so I would like to be forgotten completely.
Very sincerely yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1040.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1040
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- James Southall Wilson 1
- Date letter was written
- March 3, 1931
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (#6494-6494-i), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
Las Encinas Sanitarium (Pasadena, CA): Established in 1904 by Dr. James H. McBride, the Southern California Sanitarium for Nervous Disorders was renamed Las Encinas Hospital for Nervous Disorders in 1917, and finally to Las Encinas Sanitarium in 1928. Willa Cather’s mother, Mary Virginia Boak Cather, spent the last three years of her life here, where Cather visited her in 1929, 1930, and 1931.
Person Annotations
Wilson, James Southall (1889-1963). English professor. Born in Surry County, VA, James Wilson earned a BA (1904) from the College of William and Mary, MA (1905) from the University of Virginia, and PhD from Princeton (1906). After teaching at the College of William and Mary, he became Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English at Virginia in 1919, where he taught until his 1951 retirement. He founded the Virginia Quarterly Review and was responsible for building the university’s collections of Poe materials. In 1931, Cather declined an invitation from Wilson to join the Committee of Southern Authors.
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.
Place Annotations
