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 |
It was just more than kind of you to take such an interest in our perplexities and go scouting about among neighboring hotels. And you even took the pains to reserve rooms in Miss Lewis4’ name! That was awfully canny of you. I use her name so much that it’s really a disgrace. Smith College5 can be counted on for no sort of consideration, I assure you. A phlegmatic Miss Clark6 has written me several letters of notification, as if I were asking for a job.
Now to pleasanter subjects. If we are able to get to South Hadley7 on Friday at all, I expect we
will be pretty tired, so let us not make any engagement for Friday. We’d
love to dine with you on Saturday night, and perhaps we could stop and pick
up West Virginia8. I haven’t evern written to the poor child since she was
here2
for Christmas. I have to neglect
nearly everything I really want to do nowadays. Perhaps I can have a long
talk with you at Amherst3, and then
you will understand what a rushing winter I’ve had. I had to get sick to get
any rest at all. Surely, I’ll be glad to see the Frosts9, but I would like to have just one dinner with you and
Mr. Whicher10 and the boys11. We can have a good time out
of this, even if Smith does try to high-hat me with a degree I never
needed!
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1180.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1180
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. Includes one typewritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Harriet Fox Whicher1
- Date letter was written
- May 22, 1933
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Literary and Historical Manuscripts (MA 2419), Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
Private women's liberal arts college in Northampton, MA, one of the "Seven Sisters" group of private women's colleges in the northeast U.S. Elsie Cather, Mary Virginia Auld Mellen, Virginia Cather Brockway, and Edith Lewis were all graduates, and Cather received an honorary degree from Smith in 1933.
Person Annotations
Whicher, Harriet Fox (1890-1966). Mount Holyoke College English
Professor. Harriet Fox earned a BA from Barnard College at
Columbia University in New York City in 1910 and an MA from Columbia in
1911. She was an instructor in the Barnard College and Smith College English
Departments before she began a long career teaching English at Mount Holyoke
College in South Hadley, MA, from 1918 to 1944. Her long friendship with
Cather began in 1922 when she and her husband, George Frisbie Whicher, met
Cather at the Bread Loaf School of English, a summer program of Middlebury
College in Vermont. Cather enjoyed the company of their two sons, John Fox
Whicher and Stephen Emerson Whicher, and she corresponded with Harriet and
George until late in life. After Harriet Whicher’s retirement from teaching
she worked as a freelance copy editor at McGraw Hill and edited a collection
of her deceased husband’s essays and speeches.
Lewis, Edith Labaree (1881-1972). Magazine editor,
advertising copywriter, and Cather's domestic partner. Born in
Lincoln, NE, to Henry Euclid Lewis and Lillie Gould Lewis, Edith Lewis
attended the preparatory school associated with the University of Nebraska,
earning college credits from the University before transferring to Smith
College in Northampton, MA, in 1899. She received an A.B. in English from
Smith in 1902 and returned home to teach elementary school. She met Willa
Cather in the summer of 1903 at the home of Sarah Harris, publisher of the
Lincoln Courier. Moving to New York City soon
afterward, Lewis settled into a studio on Washington Square and found work
at the Century Publishing Company. Cather was her guest when she visited the
city from Pittsburgh. In 1906, at Cather's suggestion, Lewis applied for a
position as an editorial proofreader at McClure's
Magazine, and the two women worked together on the McClure's staff for six years. In 1908, they moved
into a shared apartment at 82 Washington Place, and then, in 1912, to Five
Bank Street. Lewis left McClure's in 1915 to become
managing editor of Every Week Magazine, where she
stayed until the magazine folded in 1918. In 1919 she began a long career as
an advertising copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson Co. In 1926 Edith Lewis
acquired the land on which she and Cather built their cottage on Grand Manan
Island. When they lost their apartment on Bank Street to subway construction
in 1927, they shared quarters at the Grosvenor Hotel when they were both in
New York City. In 1932 they took an apartment at 570 Park Avenue. Throughout
their relationship, Lewis was closely involved in Cather's creative process,
reading and editing her work in pre-publication forms. Cather's will
appointed Lewis as executor of her literary estate and a beneficiary of her
literary trust. Lewis authorized E.K. Brown as Cather's first biographer and
published her own memoir of Cather, Willa Cather
Living (1953). She remained in their Park Avenue apartment after
Cather's death and died there after a long period of illness and invalidism.
She is buried at Cather's side in Jaffrey, NH.
Clark, Annetta I. (c. 1883-1961). Secretary to the Smith College
president. Clark graduated from Smith College in Northampton,
MA, in 1904 and worked as assistant registrar of her alma mater from 1907
until she was appointed private secretary to Laurenus Clarke Seelye,
president of the college, in 1909. She continued to serve as secretary to
each successive president and to the board of trustees until her retirement
in 1952. As secretary to William Allen Nielson, she corresponded with Cather
in 1931, offering Cather an honorary degree from the college, which she
declined, and again in 1933 when Cather accepted an honorary degree.
Brockway, Virginia Cather (1912-1984) (“West Virginia”). Cather's
niece. Born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe Cather and Meta Schaper
Cather, Virginia graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper, WY, in
1929. She received an A.B. in English from Smith College in Northampton, MA,
in 1933, the same year Willa Cather received an honorary doctorate there. In
1934, she enrolled in the University of Chicago School of Social Services
and was, for a time, a social worker. She married John Hadley Brockway, a
Navy officer, in 1936. They moved frequently until his retirement from the
Navy. She had one child, son George. In letters, Willa Cather sometimes
calls her "West Virginia" to distinguish her from her cousin Mary Virginia
Auld because Virginia Cather's birthplace in Wyoming was farther west than
Mary Virginia's in Nebraska.
Frost, Robert (1874-1963). American poet and educator. Cather
recognized and praised Frost's first two volumes of poetry, A Boy's Will (1913; 1915 in the U.S.) and North of Boston (1914 in both England and the U.S.)
as early as 1915. She wrote him a letter of admiration that year in which
she recognized the combination of newness with traditional elements that is
still regarded as characteristic of Frost's work. After having met Frost and
his wife, she attended a dinner in honor of his birthday in 1925. Like
Cather, Frost is often seen as a transitional figure between late-Victorian
and modernist styles. He used traditional forms and meter and his primary
subject matter was rural New England, but he wrote with a directness and use
of vernacular that identifies him with the "New American Poetry." Frost
taught at Amherst College (Amherst, MA) from 1916 to 1938 and was awarded
four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry.
Frost, Elinor Miriam White (1872-1938). Wife of Robert Frost. Born in Lawrence, MA, Elinor White and Robert Frost met in high school. Pledging their devotion to one another soon after graduation, they were married in 1895 after White completed a degree at St. Lawrence University. The couple had six children, four of whom lived to adulthood. A reserved woman, Elinor White Frost did not welcome the fame that came to her husband, but she had considerable impact on his poetry, as Frost incorporated her words and perspectives into his verse.
Whicher, George Frisbie (1889-1954). Amherst College English
professor. After receiving a PhD from Columbia University in
1913, Whicher taught at Amherst College, his alma mater, from 1915 to 1954.
The most notable of his many books and translations was a critical biography
of Emily Dickinson, This Was a Poet (1938). Whicher
sometimes taught at the Bread Loaf School of English, a summer program of
Middlebury College in Vermont. He and his wife, Harriet Fox Whicher, met
Cather there in 1922 when she came to give four lectures about writing.
Cather enjoyed the company of their two sons, John Fox Whicher and Stephen
Emerson Whicher, and she corresponded with Harriet and George until late in
life.
Whicher, John Fox (1919-1972) (“Jack”). American attorney. Born in New York City, younger son of George and Harriet Fox Whicher, John Whicher grew up in Amherst, MA, where his father taught at Amherst College. After graduating from college, John became an actor briefly before enlisting in the U.S. Army in April 1942; he rose to the rank of captain. After the war he became an attorney. Later he and his wife, Susan Whicher, settled in Dallas, TX, where he died. Cather knew John Whicher through her friendship with his parents.
1608Whicher, Stephen Emerson (1915-1961). American professor of literature. Born in New York City, eldest son of George and Harriet Fox Whicher, Stephen Whicher graduated in 1936 with honors from Amherst College, where his father taught. He received his MA from Columbia University in 1937, and his PhD from Harvard in 1942. He married Elizabeth Trickey in 1940, and they had four children. He served in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II, resuming his academic career after the war. Whicher taught at Swarthmore College and Cornell University. Cather knew Stephen Whicher through her friendship with his parents.
Place Annotations
