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 |
The pudding came so wonderfully wrapped and decorated that I hated to
separate it from its beautiful box. Believe me, the friendship and kind
thoughts that go into the making of a gift like this, that
which is done with your own
hands, and that brings your mother3's
favourite recipe for a sauce, means more to me than you can perhaps imagine.
I do thank you, dear - it warms my
heart that you thought of me.
I hate to write gloomy letters, but this has been a rather stern year for me. I have lost three very dear old friends of the Pittsburgh4 circle within the last year; their death was most unexpected. Some of my friends seem to have lost patience with me, at last. I have had no word from Carrie5 this Christmas or for a long time back, and I think she might be sorry if she knew how sad it has made me. I don't know how I can have hurt her. Perhaps I wrote her too many long letters about the revival of interest in "Antonia"6 and the new edition of it in England7. Or perhaps she was very much disappointed that I did not go out8 to Red Cloud9 in October or November. I had planned to go, and looked forward to it so eagerly - that was while I was up in northern Maine10. But when I got back to town2 and had to struggle with getting the apartment11 cleaned and the terrible problem of domestic help, my courage sank little by little. We12 had no maid at all until the first of November, but did our own housekeeping and went out to most of our meals. Edith had absolutely promised to go back to the office the first of November. After she went we had two unfortunate experiments with help. Of course, all phases of housekeeping have been very trying. By the time Mary Virginia13 wrote me that she was coming East, I felt sure that she could help me out a little, and she did. She helped me principally by living at an hotel ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ and coming to see me very rarely. She saw at once that any kind of excitement, particularly pleasurable excitement, simply used me up. It uses me up more than the drudgery of washing dishes and cleaning house. For instance: when I had Virginia and Helen Louise14 (who lives away off in Jersey15) lunch with me at Sherry's16 and then took them up to the Frick Art Gallery, we had an awfully jolly time and I was very proud of both my nieces. They pleased me very much. But I had a bad night after the party, and had to stay in bed and be very quiet all the next day. Virginia caught on to all those things at once, and never came to see me without a special message from me, and never stayed long when she came. I was so afraid she would not understand this queer state of bad nerves, but she did. We didn't go to a single play or movie together while she was here - not even to a concert.
You know, I think, how hard things always hit me (you were
are very much like that yourself,
my dear!). Well, they hit me just as hard as ever, but I
can't stand up under them. That confounded operation17 did something to my nerves.
Now, you can see how difficult it would be for me to go back to Red Cloud, where there are so many pleasant and painful associations. I think I could stand the scorn of the scorners (such as Helen Mac18), but seeing the people whom I really care for in the old surroundings, would be pretty difficult. Why, I am afraid I would go around weeping, as dear Mollie19 used to!
Then Elsie20, you know, has made things
pretty difficult. According to
m[illegible],she has treated me very badly.
However, we will not go into that. But, you see, all things put together
when one is very weak and
wobbly, make one timid. I wish I had asked Mary Virginia to talk to you
about this phase of her visit here. She caught on to the state of things at
once, and saw that she had to touch on things very lightly. Didn't you
think, Irene, that she looked awfully well and seemed very tactful and
"experienced"?
in the right manner?
I mean in the right way.
Mary Creighton21 wrote me an awfully
nice letter acknowledging a little check I sent the Guild22. As Mary wrote me once, "there are always
two sides to every story." She tries to give both sides consideration.
Carrie is more violent,—just as I
am, or used to be. I am much milder now - and more cowardly. I am afraid she
has given me up for a quitter. It makes me very sad. I am not whining, I am
simply quietly telling you the truth. Please don't cut me off, my dear.! Just now I am wearing my right hand in a brace23 again - result of having to
answer too many letters from splendid soldier boys. But this letter I shall
sign myself.
Have a happy Winter in Mexico24, and when you come back in the Spring you must come on to New York, and you will see the situation and understand.
My love to you and Mr. Weisz25. It is snowing here today, and I love to think of you going toward that sunny land.
Lovingly and Faithfully Willie(Excuse hand in brace!)
From Willa Cather 570 Park Avenue11 New York City2 New York Mrs. C. W. Weisz1, 3270 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois26. NEW YORK,N.Y.2 JAN 3 1944 330PM IMPORTANTPLEASE FORWARD
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1654.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1654
- Contents
- Document is three leaves, typewritten on the recto of each leaf only. Includes one typewritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Irene Miner Weisz 1
- Date letter was written
- December 31, 1943
- 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
On Cather's abandoning a planned trip to Red Cloud in 1942, see #1576.
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.
Louis Sherry's restaurant on Fifth Avenue in New York City was famous for its food and pastries.
On 31 July 1942 at Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Allan Whipple surgically removed both Cather's appendix and gall bladder (see #2375).
Cather sent Creighton a check for the Altar Guild of Grade Episcopal Church in Red Cloud with #1644.
A brace built specifically for her injured right hand by Dr. Frank Ober of Boston in 1941 (#2179).
Person Annotations
Weisz, Irene Miner (1881-1971). Musician; Cather’s lifelong
friend. Born in Red Cloud, NE, the youngest child of James L.
Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Irene Miner was educated in Red Cloud,
graduating in 1898 and played with the Cather children as part of the play
town of Sandy Point and in amateur theatricals. She studied piano with local
teachers, such as Mrs. P.E.B. Sill, then went to the Chicago College of
Music from 1899 to 1901. She met clerk Charles Weisz, later president of the
A.F. Shaw insurance company, there; they married in late 1915, settling in
Chicago. She visited Red Cloud frequently, but also travelled in the
American West and then to Europe in 1921 and around the world in 1934.
Cather corresponded with Irene Miner Weisz for many years and sometimes
stayed with her in Chicago when travelling to and from the West. My Ántonia is dedicated to Irene, model for Nina
Harling in the novel, and to her sister Carrie Miner Sherwood.
Miner, Julia Erickson (1844-1917). Cather's Norwegian-American
friend. Born in Norway, where her father was a musician and a
leather-worker, Julia came with her family to the U.S. in 1853. They settled
in Iowa, where she met and married James L. Miner in 1868. The family came
to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878, where J. L. Miner became the leading merchant of
the town. They had eight children, of whom five survived to adulthood; their
four daughters, Carrie, Mary, Margaret, and Irene, were all good friends of
Cather. Julia Miner was widowed in 1905. Cather portrayed her as the strong,
active, musical Mrs. Harling in My Ántonia (1918),
the only time, she said, that she drew a “portrait of an actual person.”
Sherwood, Carrie Miner (1869-1971). Sherwood, Carrie Belle
Miner (1869-1972) Civic leader; Cather's friend. Born in Waukon,
IA, to James L. Miner and Julia Erickson Miner, Carrie Miner was the eldest
of their children. The family moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1878, where the
Miner Brothers store became the largest in town. Cather remembered meeting
Carrie there. In 1884, Carrie, her mother, and siblings were confirmed in
the Catholic church. In 1888, she studied music at St. Mary’s Academy at
Notre Dame, IN. She married bank clerk Walter Sherwood in late 1889; they
had two sons. The Sherwoods travelled often in the West, and visited Europe
in 1930. They built a new house at 3rd and Seward streets in Red Cloud in
1908; Cather sometimes sent materials for Carrie to keep in its spacious
attics. Carrie Miner Sherwood led local Red Cross work during the two World
Wars, served on the Red Cloud school board and park commission, and was
active in the League of Women Voters and in the Ladies Guild of Grace
Episcopal Church. Cather corresponded with Carrie Miner Sherwood throughout
her life and dedicated My Ántonia to Carrie, model
for Frances Harling in the novel, and her sister Irene. Carrie was one of
Mildred Bennett’s chief sources for The World of Willa
Cather (1951), and was instrumental in setting up what is now the
Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud.
Lewis, Edith Labaree (1881-1972). Magazine editor,
advertising copywriter, and Cather's domestic partner. Born in
Lincoln, NE, to Henry Euclid Lewis and Lillie Gould Lewis, Edith Lewis
attended the preparatory school associated with the University of Nebraska,
earning college credits from the University before transferring to Smith
College in Northampton, MA, in 1899. She received an A.B. in English from
Smith in 1902 and returned home to teach elementary school. She met Willa
Cather in the summer of 1903 at the home of Sarah Harris, publisher of the
Lincoln Courier. Moving to New York City soon
afterward, Lewis settled into a studio on Washington Square and found work
at the Century Publishing Company. Cather was her guest when she visited the
city from Pittsburgh. In 1906, at Cather's suggestion, Lewis applied for a
position as an editorial proofreader at McClure's
Magazine, and the two women worked together on the McClure's staff for six years. In 1908, they moved
into a shared apartment at 82 Washington Place, and then, in 1912, to Five
Bank Street. Lewis left McClure's in 1915 to become
managing editor of Every Week Magazine, where she
stayed until the magazine folded in 1918. In 1919 she began a long career as
an advertising copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson Co. In 1926 Edith Lewis
acquired the land on which she and Cather built their cottage on Grand Manan
Island. When they lost their apartment on Bank Street to subway construction
in 1927, they shared quarters at the Grosvenor Hotel when they were both in
New York City. In 1932 they took an apartment at 570 Park Avenue. Throughout
their relationship, Lewis was closely involved in Cather's creative process,
reading and editing her work in pre-publication forms. Cather's will
appointed Lewis as executor of her literary estate and a beneficiary of her
literary trust. Lewis authorized E.K. Brown as Cather's first biographer and
published her own memoir of Cather, Willa Cather
Living (1953). She remained in their Park Avenue apartment after
Cather's death and died there after a long period of illness and invalidism.
She is buried at Cather's side in Jaffrey, NH.
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.
Southwick, Helen Louise Cather (1918-2004). Cather’s niece.
Helen was born in Red Cloud, NE, to Willa Cather’s brother James and
his wife Ethel. Willa was a doting aunt on her visits to Red Cloud. In 1931,
Helen moved with her family to Long Beach, CA, where she graduated high
school and attended Long Beach City College. In 1939, Helen returned to Red
Cloud to help care for her maternal grandmother and then enrolled in the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where she met her future husband, Philip
Southwick. After graduating in 1941, she briefly returned to California to
work in the personnel department of Douglas Aircraft company, but married
Southwick in Lincoln in 1942, and then moved with him to Champaign, IL. When
Philip’s employment took them to Plainfield, NJ, she frequently spent time
with her aunt in New York City. In 1946, the Southwicks moved to Pittsburgh,
PA, where their son James was born. In later years Helen worked as a school
librarian and was active in the Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, NE. She was
a beneficiary of Cather’s literary estate, and when Edith Lewis died in 1972
she bequeathed Cather books and manuscripts to Helen and her brother Charles
Cather. Helen donated her share of these materials and Willa Cather’s
letters to her to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Sprague, Helen McNeny (1908-?). Cather's Red Cloud acquaintance. Helen McNeny was the only child of Bernard and Helen (Nellie) McNeny. She graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Omaha, NE, and attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where she met Leon Sprague, whom she married after her graduation in 1930. He practiced law with her father, and they lived in Red Cloud, NE, where she was a member of the Literature and Art Department of the Red Cloud Women’s Club. They had three children, born in 1932, 1934, and 1938.
Ferris, Mollie (c. 1864-1941). Cather family friend in Red Cloud.
Ferris was a close friend of Cather’s mother. Willa Cather and
Ferris served jointly as godmothers when Cather’s niece Helen Louise Cather
was christened in Red Cloud, NE, in 1918. When Ferris died, Cather
contributed money for a stained glass window in her honor in Grace Episcopal
Church in Red Cloud.
Cather, Elsie Margaret (1890-1964) (“Bobbie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Red Cloud, NE, shortly before Willa Cather
graduated from high school, Elsie attended the University of Nebraska in
Lincoln from 1908 to 1910, before transferring to Smith College, in
Northampton, MA, from which she graduated with an A.B. in English and Latin
in 1912. She undertook graduate study at the University of Nebraska in 1914
and in 1916 received her A.M. with a major in philosophy and a minor in
English. At both the undergraduate and the graduate level at Nebraska, she
studied under Louise Pound. She began a career in high school teaching in
1912, when she took a position in Lander, WY, where her brother Roscoe then
lived with his family. She also taught in Albuquerque, NM; Corning, IA;
Cleveland, OH; and briefly Red Cloud, when illness in the family brought her
home. Her longest tenure as a teacher was at Lincoln (NE) High School, where
she began teaching in 1920, with Olivia Pound and Mariel Gere as colleagues.
Willa Cather's expectation that Elsie be responsible for aging family and
friends and for legal affairs after their parents' deaths sometimes brought
the sisters into conflict. Elsie Cather retired from Lincoln High School in
1942. She died in Lincoln.
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).
Weisz, Charles W. (1874-after 1940). Insurance executive in Chicago; Irene Miner Weisz’s husband. Charles W. Weisz was born in Illinois, the son of German-born parents. After graduating from the Springfield, IL, high school, he went to work in Chicago, IL. He met Irene Miner when they lived at the same rooming house when she came to Chicago to study. They were married in 1915 and lived in Chicago, where he rose to become president of an insurance company by 1930. Willa Cather frequently stopped to see them as she traveled to and from the West.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
My Ántonia (1918) by Willa Cather
