Menuhin, Yehudi (1916-1999). Violinist and conductor. Born in New York City to Moshe Mnuchin and Marutha Sher Mnuchin, immigrant Russian Jews by way of Palestine who changed the spelling of their surname and moved the family to San Francisco in 1918, Yehudi started violin lessons at age four and made his first public appearance in 1922. His two younger siblings, Hepzibah and Yaltah, studied piano, although his parents prioritized the musical career of their son over their daughters. With the support of patron Sidney Ehrman, the Menuhin family followed Yehudi’s teacher Louis Persinger to New York City. Ehrman also sponsored Yehudi for a year of study in Paris, France, with Georges Enesco. Yehudi began attracting national attention in 1927 and recorded and toured the U.S. in 1929. That year at Carnegie Hall, his performance of concertos by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms with Bruno Walter and the Berlin Philharmonic inspired Albert Einstein to proclaim “now I know there is a God in Heaven”; Cather was also in the audience for this concert. In 1930, the Menuhin family took up residence in Paris, where Cather first met them in the home of Jan Hambourg and Isabelle McClung Hambourg and became a family friend; the children called her “Aunt Willa.” In the 1930s, the Menuhin family made the Ansonia Hotel its home base during their frequent stays in New York City. Cather took the Menuhin children on walks around Central Park, read Shakespeare with them, and gave them books as gifts. Yehudi’s sister Hepzibah accompanied her brother on piano; they made their first recording together in 1933 and often performed together. The family purchased a ranch in Los Gatos, CA, in 1935, and after a world tour that year, Yehudi withdrew from performing for 18 months and stayed at the ranch with his family. He returned to the concert stage in 1937 and met and married Nola Nicholas in 1938 (Hepzibah married Nola’s brother Lindsay). Yehudi and Nola had two children, Krov and Zamira. Cather enjoyed a late life visit from Hepzibah and Yehudi and their families in 1947. Cather corresponded regularly with the adult Yehudi, giving him personal advice, although only one original letter has surfaced. In 1947, Yehudi and Nola divorced and he married British ballerina Diana Gould, with whom he had two more children. Living in Europe, he continued his career as a performer and also became a conductor, established a school in England, and became a British citizen. He died in Berlin, Germany, while on tour.

Creighton, Mary S. Miner (1873-1968). Clubwoman; Cather’s friend from childhood. Born in Iowa, Mary Miner was the second daughter of James and Julia Miner, neighbors of the Cather family in Red Cloud, NE. Willa Cather later recalled that when she first moved into town with her family and enrolled in school in 1885, “Margie Miner was so jolly I wanted awfully to know her.” They became lifelong friends and correspondents, and Mary’s sisters Irene and Carrie were equally close to Cather. Mary Miner wed local physician E. A. Creighton in 1900 and lived the rest of her life in Red Cloud. She was the prototype for Julia Harling in My Ántonia (1918).

Topham, Joseph (1848-1923). Webster County farmer. Born in England, Joseph Topham married Elizabeth Emery in 1870 in St. Neot’s, Huntingdonshire, England; they had nine children. The family came to the U.S. in 1880, settling in the Guide Rock area of Webster County, NE. In 1910 Joseph Topham bought the Garber place just outside Red Cloud, NE, for $10,100, from Silas Garber’s widow, Lyra Garber. The Garber place and Silas and Lyra Garber served as prototypes for the Forrester place and Daniel and Marian Forrester in Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady (1923). Through her father Charles F. Cather, Willa Cather loaned money to Joseph Topham and his heirs, a business relationship lasting for at least fourteen years.