Canby, Henry Seidel (1878-1961). American critic and editor. Born to a prominent Wilmington, DE, family, Canby received a BA (1899) and PhD (1905) from Yale University. He began teaching English at Yale in 1900 and was editor of the Yale Review from 1911 to 1922. In 1920 he founded the Literary Review of the New York Post, which became an independent magazine, the Saturday Review of Literature, in 1924; he served as editor until 1936. He became editor in chief of the Book-of-the-Month Club on its founding in 1926. Canby married Marion Ponsonby Gause, also of Wilmington, in 1907, and they had two sons. Cather’s acquaintance with the Canbys seems to predate 1922, when her cordial correspondence with the Canbys began. In the Literary Review she published "The House on Charles Street" (1922) and in the Saturday Review a letter to Wilbur Cross on Shadows on the Rock (1931) and an essay on Thomas Mann (1936).

Laval, François de (1623-1708). First bishop of Quebec. Born in Montigny-sur-Avre, France, François de Laval was ordained a priest in 1647 and was consecrated vicar apostolic of New France in 1658. He arrived at Quebec the following year, organized the parochial system of New France, and founded the Séminaire de Québec later in 1663. In 1674, Laval became the first bishop of Quebec and served until 1688 when he resigned due to poor health. He continued to live at his seminary in Quebec until his death. Cather included Laval as a character in Shadows on the Rock (1931).

Scherman, Isaac Harry (1887-1969) ("Harry"). American editor, businessman, and writer. Scherman was born in Montreal, Canada, the fourth of five children born to Katharine Harris and Jacob Gershon Scherman. His family moved to the U.S. in 1888, and after his parents separated Harry Scherman and two of his siblings were placed in the Jewish Orphanage Home in Atlanta, GA, where his brother died in 1897. Scherman attended Central High School in Philadelphia, PA, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Early in his career he worked for the American Hebrew newspaper and as a copy editor for the J. Walter Thompson Company. In 1916 he established the Little Leather Library publishing company, and in 1926 he co-founded the Book-of-the-Month Club, which promoted the early work of writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, and J. D. Salinger. He also published a number of books about U.S. economics including The Promises Men Live By: A New Approach to Economics (1938) and The Real Danger in Our Gold (1940). While Cather refused to allow her novels to be distributed by book clubs for much of her career, she gave the Book-of-the-Month Club permission to distribute Shadows on the Rock (1931) and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).

Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or “Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in 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.