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 |
What a joy to hear from you - - - and how I wish we might meet again in this this world which is whirling to destruction so fast that we have not time to breathe, much less do any work.
How much better times were, how much more hopeful, that winter day when I
dined with you and your dear father5
in Brooklyn on the day before you set off for on your long voyage to the Golden Horn6.
What wonder that one turns back to those times? Who would not like to remember a happy world having once known it? I do want to see you and to talk with you of those dear people whom we used to know. Please send me your permanent address, so that I can telegraph you when I go through Boston3 on my way to Canada7. We might meet at Mrs. Gardner8's house? Oh Wonderful!
Affectionately always Willa CatherAlmost no one on earth has my real address, but I so joyfully give it you.
Mrs. Henri Raffy1 339 Beacon Street Boston3 Mass. NEW YORK, N. Y. STA. Y2 MAR 10 1937 1030 AMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1358.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1358
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Katharine Foote Raffy 1
- Date letter was written
- [March 10, 1937]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- MA 2203, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
570 Park Avenue (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis from December 11, 1932, until her death, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, near Central Park. They had apartment 7D. Lewis continued to live there until her own death.
Person Annotations
Raffy, Katharine Foote (1881-1970). American soprano. Born in Boston to composer Arthur Foote and Kate Knowlton, Katharine Foote trained and performed as a soprano. Cather apparently met Katherine Foote and her father in Boston in 1908 through Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett. In 1916 Katharine Foote went to France as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, caring for wounded soldiers in hospitals, an experience documented in her book 88 bis and V.I.H.: Letters from Two Hospitals (1919). She married Frenchman Henri Raffy, whom she had met during her V.A.D. service. Katharine Raffy persuaded her father to write his autobiography late in his life, and she arranged for its 1946 publication and wrote a preface to it.
Foote, Arthur William (1853-1937). American composer, pianist, and
organist. Born and raised in Salem, MA, Arthur Foote studied
piano and music theory at the New England Conservatory of Music and Harvard
University; he received a BA from Harvard in 1874 and an MA in 1875. He
traveled regularly to Europe in the summer, attending the first Bayreuth
Festival and the premiere of Richard Wagner’s Ring des
Nibelungen. In 1880, he married Kate Grant Knowlton, and they had
one daughter, Katharine. In Boston, he was part of the social circle of
Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett; Cather apparently met him in 1908
at 148 Charles Street.
Gardner, Isabella Stewart (1840-1924). American art collector. Born in New York City, Isabella Stewart attended a finishing school in Paris, where she met her classmate's brother John (Jack) Lowell Gardner II, whom she married in 1860 and settled with in Boston. After the early death of their son, Isabella and John Gardner began the first of many visits abroad, where they began to collect art and antiques. In 1898, after her husband’s death, Isabella pursued their plans to build a museum in Boston to house their collections; she had living quarters on the fourth floor. The museum opened to the public in 1903. Cather visited it in March 1908, but it is unclear whether she ever met Gardner.
Place Annotations
