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 a great disappointment to me not to be able to get to Jaffrey4 this winter, when the winter was so especially fine, but I was so long delayed and held back by influenza that as soon as I could sit at a desk I longed to get to work again more than I wanted anything else. I am delighted to hear that you were able to sell the McCoy farm to the right kind of people. You will have a hard time keeping undesirable people out of the village, and I am sorry to hear that two rather questionable people have bought houses so near the Common. As yet, I have not been able to make any definite plans for the summer or fall. I have only one object just now, and that is to get the best possible place to work in5. There is certainly no place where I enjoy the autumn season as I do in Jaffrey, and I hope I can get round to you by September, wherever else I spend the summer.
Please tell Eleanor6 that I was
delighted with Kurt7's photograph.
What a strapping little fellow he has become.! I
certainly enjoyed being his neighbor last spring.
With all my good wishes to you, Eleanor and Mrs. Shattuck8, believe me,
Always sincerely yours, Willa Cather Mr. George Austermann,1 Shattuck Inn3, Jaffrey4, New Hampshire. NEW YORK.N.Y STA Y2 APR 01 1938 2 PM CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1405.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1405
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. Includes one typewritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- George Austermann 1
- Date letter was written
- March 31, 1938
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (#6494-6494-i), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
Shattuck Inn (Jaffrey, NH): Hotel built in 1910 in Jaffrey, N,H owned and operated by E. C. Shattuck until his death in February 1933, when operation was taken over by his daughter, Eleanor Shattuck Austermann, and her husband George Austermann. Cather stayed at the Shattuck Inn many times, often with Edith Lewis, finding it a useful place to work. In 1947, Cather wrote of the Shattuck Inn: “I have never found any place where I could work in such peace and happiness as in the little rooms up in the top of the Shattuck Inn” (#1748).
Cather was beginning work again on Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940).
Person Annotations
Austermann, George (1899-1982). Hotelkeeper, the Shattuck
Inn. George Austermann, born in Missouri, married Eleanor
Shattuck in 1927; they had four sons, one of whom died in 1933. That same
year, after his wife’s father died, they took over the management of her
family’s hotel, the Shattuck Inn, in Jaffrey, NH, where Cather had been a
regular summer or fall guest since 1917.
Austermann, Eleanor C. Shattuck (1903-1994). Hotelkeeper,
the Shattuck Inn. Eleanor Shattuck was born in New Hampshire,
the eldest of Edmund and Helen E. Shattuck’s three children. She married
George Austermann in 1927; they had four sons, one of whom died in 1933.
That same year, her father died and she and her husband took over management
of the Shattuck Inn, her family’s hotel in Jaffrey, NH, where Cather had
been a regular summer or fall guest since 1917.
Austermann, Kurt (1937- ). George and Eleanor Austermann's son. Born in New Hampshire, Kurt Austermann was the fourth-born and youngest child of George and Eleanor Austermann. He grew up in Jaffrey, NH, and later moved to Oregon and served as a spokesperson for both the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.
Shattuck, Helen E. Spofford (1882-1954). Hotelkeeper, the Shattuck Inn. Helen Spofford was born in Dublin, NH, and in 1903, she married Edmund Cutter Shattuck, the proprietor of the Shattuck Inn in Jaffrey, NH. The couple had three children, Eleanor, Daniel, and Richard. Eleanor and her husband George Austermann operated the inn after Edmund Shattuck’s death in 1933, and Helen Shattuck continued to live at the inn until her death. Cather was a regular guest at the inn beginning in 1917 where she became acquainted with Helen Shattuck.
Place Annotations
