Menuhin, Yaltah (1921-2001). Pianist. Born in San Francisco, CA, to Moshe and Marutha Sher Menuhin, immigrant Russian Jews by way of Palestine, Yaltah began studying piano at the age of three. The studies and career of her older brother, violinist Yehudi, dominated the family (their second child, Hepzibah, was also a pianist). In 1930, the Menuhin family took up residence in Paris, where Cather first met them in the home of Jan Hambourg and Isabelle McClung Hambourg and became a family friend; the children called her “Aunt Willa.” In the 1930s, the Menuhin family made the Ansonia Hotel its home base during their frequent stays in New York City. Cather took the Menuhin children on walks around Central Park, read Shakespeare with them, and gave them books as gifts. The family purchased a ranch in Los Gatos, CA, in 1935. As Yaltah grew older and wanted to pursue her own musical career, her relationship with her mother grew difficult—Marutha supported Hepzibah’s role as Yehudi’s accompanist but believed a solo career inappropriate for a woman (even though many recognized that Yaltah was the most gifted musician of the three children). In June 1938, just shy of her seventeenth birthday and apparently under duress from her mother, Yaltah married William Stix, a lawyer from St. Louis, MO, who worked in Washington, DC; Cather attended the wedding. In 1939 Yaltah first separated from and then divorced Stix. In 1941, she eloped with U.S. Army officer Benjamin Rolfe. Her parents publicly disavowed the marriage and she and her mother stopped speaking to one another. The Rolfes had two children, Robert and Lionel. None of Cather’s extant letters to Yaltah mention the turmoil surrounding her marriage, divorce, and remarriage, however. Yaltah’s final marriage to American pianist Joel Ryce was long and happy, and during it she pursued a performing career. According to her son Lionel Rolfe, she treasured her letters from Cather and often reread them. She eventually gave them to him so he could sell them and use the funds to support his aspiration to become a writer.

Barrie, James Matthew (1860-1937). British journalist, novelist, and playwright. Barrie is best known for his character Peter Pan, first created in the play Peter Pan (1904) and later the subject of the novels Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906) and Peter Pan and Wendy (1911). His earliest success as an author was in regional sketches based on his childhood memories of Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, Scotland. His novel Sentimental Tommy (1896), about a boy who clings to childhood, seems to have inspired the title of Cather's early story "Tommy the Unsentimental" (1896). After establishing contact with Cather indirectly in the early 1930s through Stephen Tennant, Barrie began corresponding with her directly, and Barrie expressed particular admiration for Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and My Ántonia (1918). Of the latter, Barrie wrote to her, "Your Antonia? No, she is my Antonia, and though I have just found her I have always known her" (#1870). After his death Cather stated that she had several letters from Barrie in her possession, but no such letters have been found.

Menuhin, Yehudi (1916-1999). Violinist and conductor. Born in New York City to Moshe Mnuchin and Marutha Sher Mnuchin, immigrant Russian Jews by way of Palestine who changed the spelling of their surname and moved the family to San Francisco in 1918, Yehudi started violin lessons at age four and made his first public appearance in 1922. His two younger siblings, Hepzibah and Yaltah, studied piano, although his parents prioritized the musical career of their son over their daughters. With the support of patron Sidney Ehrman, the Menuhin family followed Yehudi’s teacher Louis Persinger to New York City. Ehrman also sponsored Yehudi for a year of study in Paris, France, with Georges Enesco. Yehudi began attracting national attention in 1927 and recorded and toured the U.S. in 1929. That year at Carnegie Hall, his performance of concertos by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms with Bruno Walter and the Berlin Philharmonic inspired Albert Einstein to proclaim “now I know there is a God in Heaven”; Cather was also in the audience for this concert. In 1930, the Menuhin family took up residence in Paris, where Cather first met them in the home of Jan Hambourg and Isabelle McClung Hambourg and became a family friend; the children called her “Aunt Willa.” In the 1930s, the Menuhin family made the Ansonia Hotel its home base during their frequent stays in New York City. Cather took the Menuhin children on walks around Central Park, read Shakespeare with them, and gave them books as gifts. Yehudi’s sister Hepzibah accompanied her brother on piano; they made their first recording together in 1933 and often performed together. The family purchased a ranch in Los Gatos, CA, in 1935, and after a world tour that year, Yehudi withdrew from performing for 18 months and stayed at the ranch with his family. He returned to the concert stage in 1937 and met and married Nola Nicholas in 1938 (Hepzibah married Nola’s brother Lindsay). Yehudi and Nola had two children, Krov and Zamira. Cather enjoyed a late life visit from Hepzibah and Yehudi and their families in 1947. Cather corresponded regularly with the adult Yehudi, giving him personal advice, although only one original letter has surfaced. In 1947, Yehudi and Nola divorced and he married British ballerina Diana Gould, with whom he had two more children. Living in Europe, he continued his career as a performer and also became a conductor, established a school in England, and became a British citizen. He died in Berlin, Germany, while on tour.

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.

Garibaldi, Giuseppe Maria (1807-1882). Italian patriot and general. Born in Nice, Italy, as a young man, Garibaldi joined in the movement for the liberation of Italy from its Austrian and French conquerors. Sentenced to death in 1834, he escaped to South America, spending fourteen years in exile, leading revolutionary movements in Brazil and Uruguay. During this time he adopted the red shirt and poncho which characterized him and his followers in South America and in Italy, to which he returned in 1848, commanding troops in the wars leading eventually to the unification of Italy under King Vittorio Emmanuel in 1861. Garibaldi was widely admired throughout the world for his commitment to revolutionary ideals of freedom and for his military leadership. Cather said she had read G.M. Trevelyan’s three-volume biography of Garibaldi twice.