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 |
LOWER NEW YORK
R Ruzicka
AMERICAN ARTISTS GROUP, N.Y.
NO. 1014 R. R. C 1935.
Mr. & Mrs C. W.
Weisz5
3270 Lake Shore Drive
Chicago6
Ill.
NEW YORK,N.Y.STA Y2
DEC 18 1935
330PM
Jacket for Lucy
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1284.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1284
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso of an illustration of New York City drawn by Rudolph Ruzicka. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Irene Miner Weisz and Charles W. Weisz 1
- Date letter was written
- [December 18, 1935]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Irene Miner Weisz Papers, 1912-1958 (Midwest MS Cather-Weisz), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Person Annotations
Weisz, Charles W. (1874-after 1940). Insurance executive in Chicago; Irene Miner Weisz’s husband. Charles W. Weisz was born in Illinois, the son of German-born parents. After graduating from the Springfield, IL, high school, he went to work in Chicago, IL. He met Irene Miner when they lived at the same rooming house when she came to Chicago to study. They were married in 1915 and lived in Chicago, where he rose to become president of an insurance company by 1930. Willa Cather frequently stopped to see them as she traveled to and from the West.
0083
Weisz, Irene Miner (1881-1971). Musician; Cather’s lifelong
friend. Born in Red Cloud, NE, the youngest child of James L.
Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Irene Miner was educated in Red Cloud,
graduating in 1898 and played with the Cather children as part of the play
town of Sandy Point and in amateur theatricals. She studied piano with local
teachers, such as Mrs. P.E.B. Sill, then went to the Chicago College of
Music from 1899 to 1901. She met clerk Charles Weisz, later president of the
A.F. Shaw insurance company, there; they married in late 1915, settling in
Chicago. She visited Red Cloud frequently, but also travelled in the
American West and then to Europe in 1921 and around the world in 1934.
Cather corresponded with Irene Miner Weisz for many years and sometimes
stayed with her in Chicago when travelling to and from the West. My Ántonia is dedicated to Irene, model for Nina
Harling in the novel, and to her sister Carrie Miner Sherwood.
Ruzicka, Rudolph (1883-1978) (“Rudolf”). Czech-American wood
engraver, illustrator, painter, and type designer. Born in
Kourim, Bohemia, Rudolf (later also spelled Rudolph) Ruzicka moved with his
family to Chicago, IL, in 1894, where he took drawing lessons at the Hull
House School, apprenticed as a wood engraver, and studied at the Art
Institute of Chicago. In 1903 he moved to New York City and worked engraving
bank notes while taking classes at the Art Students’ League and the New York
School of Art. Cather likely first met Ruzicka around 1910, when his
classmate painter Earl Brewster married Edith Lewis’s college classmate
Achsah Barlow. Ruzicka married Filomena Sprova in Prague, Czhecoslovakia, in
1914, and they had two daughters, Tatiana and Veronica. He is best known for
his collaborations on fine press editions and for his type design,
including, beginning in 1935, linotype fonts. He produced designs for the
dust jackets of Obscure Destinies (1932), Lucy Gayheart (1935), and Sapphira
and the Slave Girl (1940), and Cather and Lewis sent out Christmas
cards featuring his designs in 1915, 1916, and 1935. Ruzicka attended
Cather’s funeral and helped Edith Lewis design Cather’s tombstone. Ruzicka
lived in various locations in Westchester County, NY, until his wife died c.
1961 and he moved to Norwich, VT, to live with his daughter, Veronica Laing.
He died in Hanover, NH.
Weisz, Charles W. (1874-after 1940). Insurance executive in Chicago; Irene Miner Weisz’s husband. Charles W. Weisz was born in Illinois, the son of German-born parents. After graduating from the Springfield, IL, high school, he went to work in Chicago, IL. He met Irene Miner when they lived at the same rooming house when she came to Chicago to study. They were married in 1915 and lived in Chicago, where he rose to become president of an insurance company by 1930. Willa Cather frequently stopped to see them as she traveled to and from the West.
0083
Weisz, Irene Miner (1881-1971). Musician; Cather’s lifelong
friend. Born in Red Cloud, NE, the youngest child of James L.
Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Irene Miner was educated in Red Cloud,
graduating in 1898 and played with the Cather children as part of the play
town of Sandy Point and in amateur theatricals. She studied piano with local
teachers, such as Mrs. P.E.B. Sill, then went to the Chicago College of
Music from 1899 to 1901. She met clerk Charles Weisz, later president of the
A.F. Shaw insurance company, there; they married in late 1915, settling in
Chicago. She visited Red Cloud frequently, but also travelled in the
American West and then to Europe in 1921 and around the world in 1934.
Cather corresponded with Irene Miner Weisz for many years and sometimes
stayed with her in Chicago when travelling to and from the West. My Ántonia is dedicated to Irene, model for Nina
Harling in the novel, and to her sister Carrie Miner Sherwood.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Lucy Gayheart (1935) by Willa Cather
