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 |
My new secretary4 is not always discriminating, but she did re-consider and send me your letter. (Of course if she did not handle most of my letters I would get no rest at all.) I am very glad indeed to give Father Malone5 permission to hand my letter to him on to you. I am glad to receive your request, because it gives me news of Father Malone. His gracious letter to me I have always treasured. Will you give him my cordial regards, and tell him I hope my new book will interest him. I have had letters from several historians who are authorities on the early history of Quebec6, and they tell me they have been unable to find any inaccuracies in the historical detail.
Very cordially yoursWilla Cather WHALE COVE GRAND MANAN2 NEW BRUNSWICK CANADA Mr. Charles McAllister Wilcox1 Denver3 Colorado U. S. A. NORTH HEAD N.B.2 AU 12 31 AMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1067.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1067
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Charles McAllister Wilcox1
- Date letter was written
- August 10 [1931]
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- 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
Person Annotations
Wilcox, Charles McAllister (1870-1932). Denver merchant and banker. Born in San Francisco, CA, the youngest son of Brigadier General Orlando Wilcox and Maria Farnsworth Wilcox, Charles Wilcox graduated from the University of Michigan in 1889. He settled in Denver, CO. In 1906 he married Marie DePassa Roberts, of Kansas City, MO; they had one child, Elaine Wilcox Odescalchi. As president of the Daniels & Fisher department store in Denver, and its owner from 1918 until his retirement in 1928, Wilcox was one of the most prominent and civically active men in the city. Wilcox also collected rare books. Although not a Catholic, his wife was; he apparently wrote Cather about Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).
Bloom, Sarah J. (1889-1961). Cather's personal secretary. Born in New York in 1889 to Russian immigrants Solomon and Bertha Bloom, Sarah J. Bloom worked for Cather from some time in the 1920s until Cather's death and continued to work for Edith Lewis on matters pertaining to Cather's literary estate thereafter. Bloom typed Cather's literary manuscripts and managed Cather's correspondence, typing dictated letters and sometimes responding for Cather when she was traveling. Bloom’s work for Cather supplemented full-time office employment in New York City (for many years she worked for the New York State Public Service Commission). She thus came to Cather and Lewis's apartment on weekends to take dictation, pick up and deliver typescripts, and deliver typed letters for signature. She died in New York city in 1961.
Malone, Thomas H. (1858-1935). American Roman Catholic priest. Born to Irish immigrant parents in Waterloo, NY, Thomas Malone graduated from Niagara University and studied for the priesthood at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Troy, NY. He was ordained in 1884, and came to serve in Denver, CO, in 1885. With the Rev. William O’Ryan, Malone wrote The History of the Catholic Church in Colorado (1889), covering the Colorado career of Bishop Machebeuf (prototype for Father Vaillant in Cather’s 1927 novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop). Malone was editor of Catholic newspapers in Colorado from 1890-1899. In 1894 he was briefly excommunicated by Bishop Matz, but was exonerated and reinstated in the priesthood by Archbishop Chappelle of Santa Fe. He continued to preach and also served on Colorado’s Board of Charities and Corrections. Malone wrote to Cather about Death Comes for the Archbishop; she later gave him permission to give her letter of reply (#0920) to Charles McAllister Wilcox, and asked Wilcox to convey her greetings to Malone (#1067).
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
