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 |
Your sad little note3 came to me nearly a week ago. I have thought a great deal about you since it came, and have been hoping that when you got home you found things peaceful and painless, even if they were inevitable. When my father4 died I had been in New York2 only a week from the day that I had said good-bye to him at home. I reached the little town5 again about three o'clock in the morning. Friends met me and took me in their car to the door. All the family were asleep, the door open. I went up to Father's room without waking anyone. He was lying on a coach in the bay window. I had several unforgettable hours with him before anyone in the house awoke. When the red dawn broke it flushed his face with the rosy color which he always had, and he looked so entirely himself and so happy. I often think that, really, death must be a very happy thing, whether it is followed by consciousness or unconsciousness.
I am wandering about trying to say something to you in an indirect way. Those things cannot be said directly. But I am thinking of you with all the warmth of an old friendship, and some day I feel sure that I can make you understand why it was that I could not see much of you, or anybody else, this winter.
WillaInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1544.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1544
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- June 7, 1941
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Zoë Akins Papers, 1878-1959 (mssAU 1-5456), Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
Individual Annotations
Presumably a note about her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Green Akins, being terminally ill. See #1549 for Cather's condolences in September.
Person Annotations
Akins, Zoë (1886-1958). American poet, playwright, and screenwriter.
Akins’ friendship with Cather started in 1909, when she submitted
verse to McClure’s magazine, which Cather rejected,
advising her to stay with playwriting. Akins subsequently moved from her
hometown of St. Louis, MO, to New York City and achieved success as a
playwright. She moved to California in the 1930s, adding screenwriting to
her accomplishments. Her play The Old Maid (1935), an
adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. In
1932, Akins married Captain Hugh Rumbold, a British theatrical designer and
director; he died eight months later. Cather and Akins carried on a lifelong
correspondence, with Cather writing affectionate letters that included both
commentary on her own works and criticism of Akins’.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Place Annotations
