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 strange things one does when one is ill! The unsigned check was the most foolish of my several mistakes. I am glad it went to a friend and not to a stranger.
The prospect of your trip3 to Japan4 delights me. The weather here2 and at Atlantic City5 is still so damp that my doctor6 will not let me go away until the rains and fogs cease.
Affectionately Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1448.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1448
- Contents
- Document is photocopy of one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- George Allen Beecher1
- Date letter was written
- [April 14, 1939]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The handwritten note at the top of the letter seems likely, as Cather was recovering from illness in Atlantic City in the spring of 1939.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Bernice Slote, English Papers, 1870-1978 (RG/12-10-16), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Bishop Beecher had worked with the Japanese-American community in the North Platte, NE, area since the early 1920s.
Person Annotations
Beecher, George Allen (1868-1951). Western Nebraska Episcopal Bishop.
Born in Illinois, Beecher moved with his family to Kearney, NE, at
age 14. He studied for the Episcopal priesthood at the Philadelphia (PA)
Divinity School, graduating in 1892, and then spent fifty-one years in
Nebraska as a deacon, priest, and finally Bishop of the Missionary District
of Western Nebraska. Willa Cather met him in Red Cloud, NE, in December 1922
when he presided at her and her parents’ confirmation as members of Grace
Episcopal Church. She and Bishop Beecher corresponded frequently
thereafter.
Garbat, Abraham L. (1885-1968). American physician. Born in Warsaw, Poland, Garbat immigrated to the U.S. in 1892 and was awarded an MD by Cornell University in 1906. He was awarded the Cartwright Prize of the School of Medicine of Columbia University in 1919 for his work on typhoid carriers and immunity. He was Cather’s personal physician in New York City from as early as 1934, and she consulted him about her brother Roscoe Cather’s heart ailment.
Place Annotations
