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 |
FINE ART PUBLISHERS TO
THEIR MAJESTIES THE KING AND QUEEN
COPYRIGHT
CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL
For thirteen hundred years the stronghold of true
civilization.
X 12-25-'43
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1651.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1651
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso of greeting card.
- Person to whom letter was written
- George Allen Beecher1
- Date letter was written
- [mid December 1943]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Bishop George Allen Beecher marked this greeting card received on December 25, 1943, indicating that Willa Cather wrote the message not long before that date.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (RG2639.AM), Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
In three parables, recorded in Matthew 8:12, 22:13, and 25:30, Jesus refers to unworthy persons being cast out "into the outer darkness" where there is "wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Bishop Beecher announced his retirement in April 1943 and formally retired in October 1943.
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.
Bede (672-735) (“The Venerable Saint Bede”). Anglo-Saxon theologian, historian, and chronologist. Born in Jarrow, Northumbria, Bede was taken to the monastery of St. Peter at Wearmouth at age seven, ordained a deacon at nineteen, and ordained a priest at thirty. Spending most of his life in a monastery in Jarrow, Bede wrote treatises, histories, and spiritual commentaries, including: the Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731/32), On Times (703), On the Reckoning of Time (725), Revelation to John (703–709), and Lives of the Abbots (725). Bede was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1899. Cather was familiar with Bede’s work.
Beecher, Florence Idelia George (1867-1947). Episcopal churchwoman. Born in Kenosha, WI, Florence George moved to Kearney, NE, to teach school. In 1888 she met George Beecher there, and they married in 1893, after Beecher’s ordination as an Episcopal priest. They had one son and two daughters. In 1910, George Beecher became bishop of the Missionary District of Western Nebraska, and the family moved to Hastings, NE. Willa Cather came to know Florence Beecher after Bishop Beecher confirmed Cather and her parents as members of the Episcopal church in 1922. They seldom met but Cather included greetings to Florence Beecher in her letters to Bishop Beecher.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Bible
