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 |
Miss Cather told me before she went away that she thought she had early photographs3 somewhere, but she hadn't the least notion of where to look for them. Her niece, however, has supplied me with a photograph, which I am sending you herewith. Miss Cather's niece, Virginia Auld4, has made me promise to return this picture to her, as she doubts whether there is another one in existence.
Very truly yours, Sarah J Bloom 5Secretray Mrs. Arthur J. McElhone Assistant Secretary The American Academy of Arts and Letters 633 West 155th Street New York City2Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1581.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1581
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Jane Dierken McElhone 1
- Date letter was written
- April 28, 1942
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather, Willa (1873-1947), Member Archives, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
Individual Annotations
On 20 April 1942, McElhone acknowledged receipt of a holograph page of Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) Cather had sent to Martin Birnbaum of the Academy for an exhibit and requested photoraphs of Cather to be displayed with it, including one of her as a child.
Person Annotations
McElhone, Jane M. Dierken (1885-1964) (“Jennie”). Secretary at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in Washington, DC, the second daughter of government clerk Joseph Dierken and his wife Anne C. Dierken, Jane Dierken married Arthur J. McElhone in 1910; they had two daughters. The family moved to New York around 1920, where Arthur McElhone pursued a career in the business side of publishing. By 1940, Jane McElhone worked as an assistant secretary at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in connection with which she wrote to Cather in 1942.
Mellen, Mary Virginia Auld (1906-1982) (“Virginia,” “M.V.”).
Cather's niece. Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld
and James William Auld, Mary Virginia graduated from Red Cloud High School
in 1924 and then spent a year at Dana Hall in Wellesley, MA, to qualify for
admission to Smith College in Northampton, MA. In 1929 she received an A.B.
in psychology from Smith and then moved to New York City, where she found
work at Lord & Taylor before telling her aunt of her arrival. In 1930,
probably with Willa Cather's help, she secured a position in the Circulation
Department of the New York Public Library. In 1931, she entered the
library's internal training school and in 1932 was assigned to the Tremont
branch library in the Bronx. After Mary Virginia’s parents divorced in 1933
Cather took a quasi-parental role. She paid for vacations and when, in 1935,
Mary Virginia married Richard (Dick) Mellen, a graduate of Harvard Medical
School and roommate of her brother William Thomas Auld at Amherst College,
she supervised wedding arrangements. After Dick was commissioned as a doctor
in the Air Force, Mary Virginia—much to Cather’s
regret—accompanied him to Chattanooga, TN, where he was assigned. In
Cather's will, Mary Virginia was designated a beneficiary of the literary
estate.
Bloom, Sarah J. (1889-1961). Cather's personal secretary. Born in New York in 1889 to Russian immigrants Solomon and Bertha Bloom, Sarah J. Bloom worked for Cather from some time in the 1920s until Cather's death and continued to work for Edith Lewis on matters pertaining to Cather's literary estate thereafter. Bloom typed Cather's literary manuscripts and managed Cather's correspondence, typing dictated letters and sometimes responding for Cather when she was traveling. Bloom’s work for Cather supplemented full-time office employment in New York City (for many years she worked for the New York State Public Service Commission). She thus came to Cather and Lewis's apartment on weekends to take dictation, pick up and deliver typescripts, and deliver typed letters for signature. She died in New York city in 1961.
Place Annotations
