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#1562: Willa Cather to Lydia Lambrecht, December 8, 1941

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⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ My dear Lydia1:

I did not know of your dear mother's3 death until some weeks after it occurred. I wanted to write you then, but my right hand4 and arm were still in a metal brace5 and I was making every possible effort to travel to California6 to be with my brother Roscoe7, who was in a hospital with a very serious illness. I spent the summer there near him, and did not return to New York2 until late this fall. Roscoe is now well enough to attend to his business and leads a normal life again.

This year I shall not be able to do the little Christmas shopping that I loved to do for your mother. Although my hand has perfectly recovered again, a solid year of illness put me so far behind in everything that I shall not be able to remember my friends at Christmas time this winter. I am enclosing a small check with which I hope you can get some little convenience that you need, and with it I send all my good wishes or friendly feelings for you that are just as strong as they were during your mother's lifetime. I shall never forget my last visit8 to her in the beautiful snowstorm. It was almost like a fairy tale. I have lost many, many dear friends since that winter, and I shall always be sorry that I did not get to see your mother again. The year that my brother Douglass9 died, I lost six10 of my oldest and closest friends11, and life has been rather a hard drive since then.

Please write me and let me know whether the rains of this summer gave you a good garden and good crops. Please tell me whether you have a new cook stove. You wrote me once that your stove was pretty far gone, and ever since I have wanted to get you a new one. But I have had so many demands from ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ so many directions, that I have not been able to get round to it.

Always your true friend, Willa Cather