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 |
I'm sure this will interest you. I have been a contributor to the fund3 since the beginning. After you have read it, you might let Mrs. Creighton4 see it. Evelyn Vesty5 used to take her often to the National Gallery—the worst place in the world for concerts, I should think!
Affectionately WillaI'm so glad you heard Marian Anderson6.
This may interest you? Do not return FROM CATHER 570 PARK AVE.7, NEW YORK CITY2 Mrs. Sidney Florance1 Red Cloud8 Nebraska NEW YORK,N.Y.2 FEB 24 1942 12-M These about Willa CatherSalvia[?]Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1574.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1574
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only. Includes one handwritten envelope and two enclosed letters concerning the Myra Hess Fund.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Beatrix Mizer Florance 1
- Date letter was written
- February 23 [1942]
- Accompanying this letter
-
Includes two enclosed letters, one dated July 3, 1941, typed on National Gallery Concerts letterhead, and the other dated February 7, 1942, from Arthur Mendel, Secretary of the Myra Hess Fund.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Irene Miner Weisz Papers, 1912-1958 (Midwest MS Cather-Weisz), Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Individual Annotations
The Myra Hess Fund, described in the enclosures. The fund paid musicians to give concerts in the National Gallery in London, simultaneously giving them work and contributing to wartime morale.
570 Park Avenue (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis from December 11, 1932 until her death, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, near Central Park. They had apartment 7D. Lewis continued to live there until her own death.
Person Annotations
Florance, Beatrix Elizabeth Mizer (1875-1963) (“Trixie,”
“Trix”). Cather’s childhood friend. Beatrix Mizer was born in
Ohio in a German-American family. They moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1884.
Cather later recalled that when she first enrolled in school in Red Cloud,
“Trix Mizer was the prettiest little girl I had ever seen.” They acted
together in an 1888 production of “Beauty and the Beast” at the Red Cloud
Opera House. Mizer graduated from Red Cloud High School in 1893 and studied
voice at the Chicago Conservatory of Music 1897-1898, qualifying as a music
teacher, and at the Chicago College of Music 1899-1900. She married Sidney
Florance in 1903. In 1909 the couple moved to Red Cloud, where they settled
and raised a family. Beatrix’s Chicago musical studies and return to Red
Cloud may have inspired elements of Cather’s novel Lucy
Gayheart (1935). Cather’s correspondence with both Florances began
as early as 1914 and extended through the 1940s.
Creighton, Mary S. Miner (1873-1968). Clubwoman; Cather’s
friend from childhood. Born in Iowa, Mary Miner was the second
daughter of James and Julia Miner, neighbors of the Cather family in Red
Cloud, NE. Willa Cather later recalled that when she first moved into town
with her family and enrolled in school in 1885, “Margie Miner was so jolly I
wanted awfully to know her.” They became lifelong friends and
correspondents, and Mary’s sisters Irene and Carrie were equally close to
Cather. Mary Miner wed local physician E. A. Creighton in 1900 and lived the
rest of her life in Red Cloud. She was the prototype for Julia Harling in
My Ántonia (1918).
Vestey, Evelene Brodstone (1875-1941) (“Evelyn”). American
businesswoman. Born in Wisconsin, daughter of Norwegian
immigrants Hans and Matilda Brodstone, Evelene grew up near Superior, NE. In
1888 she met Cather through a teacher, John F. Curran, who had moved from
Superior to Red Cloud, NE. Cather and Brodstone were part of a group of
female friends who visited between the towns in the late 1880s; in 1890 the
two and Mary Miner posed together for a picture. Evelene attended business
school and went to Chicago in 1895 to work as a stenographer in a British
meatpacking firm. She rose quickly through the ranks, becoming the American
branch manager and then a global troubleshooter for the firm; at $250,000 a
year she was one of the highest-paid women in the world. In 1924 she married
one of the owners of the company, William, 1st baron Vestey. She retained
her ties to Superior and Red Cloud throughout her life; when she and her
brother Louis donated funds for a hospital in Superior in memory of their
mother, Cather wrote the dedicatory inscription.
Anderson, Marian (1897-1993). American contralto.Born in Philadelphia, PA, Anderson made her Town Hall debut in New York City in 1924. The following year, she won the National Music League competition and performed with the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium at City College of New York. After briefly studying music in Europe, she returned to the U.S. and rose to popularity as the greatest living contralto through a series of national tours and radio appearances. In 1939, Constitution Hall—the premiere auditorium of Washington, DC—refused to host her because she was not white. Public outraged ensued, and she subsequently performed to an audience of 75,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Later in 1955, she broke racial barriers by becoming the first African American to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Cather likely saw Anderson perform at one of her many New York concerts.
Place Annotations
