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 |
Please tell your mother3 I did not forget that
her birthday was in July, but I then had Roscoe's4
twin daughters5 from Wyoming6 visiting me here. They are lovely girls
and I was so busy showing them about this little island in the North Atlantic7 that I had no time to write
letters. I have a little house8 on this
island, on the cliffs overlooking the sea,—built it six years ago. This summer
I brought up in my trunk the counterpane9
you girls10 made for me, and
you should see how lovely it looks on my hand-carved
wood walnut bed that came over from England11. That quilt has given me a lot of
pleasure, and brings you all often to my mind.
Give your dear mother my best love, and I send a lot to you girls who are so good to her.
Your old friend Willa CatherMy house is a very simple little cottage, no bath room, but lots of sea and sky and green forest and it is never hot here.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1321.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1321
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Lydia Lambrecht1
- Date letter was written
- August 10 [1936]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The year of this letter is derived from Margaret and Elizabeth Cather's first visit to Grand Manan in 1936.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
Willa Cather and Edith Lewis's Grand Manan cottage. Philip L. and Helen Cather Southwick Collection, Archives Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.
See #1249.
Person Annotations
Lambrecht, Lydia (1875-1960). Daughter of Cather’s Webster County friend, Charlotte Lambrecht. Lydia Lambrecht was born in Illinois, daughter of Carl and Charlotte Lambrecht, who had both emigrated from Germany. The family moved to the Catherton area of Webster County, NE, in 1878. Lydia and her sister, Pauline, both of whom lived with their mother and brother Julius on the family farm, made Cather a quilt after she admired one while visiting their house.
Lambrecht, Charlotte Preussner (1851-1941). Cather’s Webster County neighbor and friend. Charlotte Preussner was born in Germany and came with members of her family to the U.S. She married Carl F. Lambrecht in 1874 in Freeport, IL. The Lambrechts came to the Catherton area of Webster County, NE, in 1878, homesteading south of the Cather family’s lands. Their eight children were similar in age to the children of the Charles Cather family. In later life, Charlotte Lambrecht was one of the old friends to whom Willa Cather would send presents.
Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother.
Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High
School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high
school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of
schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he
married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an
abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret
and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe
became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA,
where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in
the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank
until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several
times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926
trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San
Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle
family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was
one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a
prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Ickis, Elizabeth Cather (1915-1978) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Elizabeth and her twin sister Margaret were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Elizabeth moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937 and married Lynn S.
Ickis, an electrical engineer, in April 1938. They lived in Cleveland, OH,
and had two children, Margaret and John.
Shannon, Margaret Cather (1915-1996) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Margaret and her twin sister Elizabeth were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them, she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Margaret moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937. After she married
Richard Shannon in September 1938, she moved with him to Boston, MA, where
he earned an MBA from Harvard University in Cambridge. In 1940 they moved to
the New York City area, where their first child, Richard, was born in 1943.
The Shannons moved to Washington, DC, in 1944, where their daughter Kathryne
was born. Cather did not see Margaret again after she left New York, and
Margaret’s other three children, Patricia, Margaret, and Elizabeth, were
born after Cather’s death. Kathryne and Patricia became caretakers for a
large family archive of letters preserved by their mother, which they
donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the Roscoe and Meta Cather
Collection.
Lambrecht, Lydia (1875-1960). Daughter of Cather’s Webster County friend, Charlotte Lambrecht. Lydia Lambrecht was born in Illinois, daughter of Carl and Charlotte Lambrecht, who had both emigrated from Germany. The family moved to the Catherton area of Webster County, NE, in 1878. Lydia and her sister, Pauline, both of whom lived with their mother and brother Julius on the family farm, made Cather a quilt after she admired one while visiting their house.
0071Lambrecht, Pauline (1877-1953). Daughter of Cather’s Webster County friend, Charlotte Lambrecht. Pauline Lambrecht was born in Illinois, daughter of Carl and Charlotte Lambrecht, who had both immigrated from Germany. The family moved to the Catherton area of Webster County, NE, in 1878. Pauline and her sister, Lydia, both of whom lived with their mother and brother Julius on the family farm, made Cather a quilt after she admired one while visiting their house.
0072Lambrecht, Charlotte Preussner (1851-1941). Cather’s Webster County neighbor and friend. Charlotte Preussner was born in Germany and came with members of her family to the U.S. She married Carl F. Lambrecht in 1874 in Freeport, IL. The Lambrechts came to the Catherton area of Webster County, NE, in 1878, homesteading south of the Cather family’s lands. Their eight children were similar in age to the children of the Charles Cather family. In later life, Charlotte Lambrecht was one of the old friends to whom Willa Cather would send presents.
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.
