Whicher, Harriet Fox (1890-1966). Mount Holyoke College English Professor. Harriet Fox earned a BA from Barnard College at Columbia University in New York City in 1910 and an MA from Columbia in 1911. She was an instructor in the Barnard College and Smith College English Departments before she began a long career teaching English at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, from 1918 to 1944. Her long friendship with Cather began in 1922 when she and her husband, George Frisbie Whicher, met Cather at the Bread Loaf School of English, a summer program of Middlebury College in Vermont. Cather enjoyed the company of their two sons, John Fox Whicher and Stephen Emerson Whicher, and she corresponded with Harriet and George until late in life. After Harriet Whicher’s retirement from teaching she worked as a freelance copy editor at McGraw Hill and edited a collection of her deceased husband’s essays and speeches.

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.

Auld, William Thomas (1908-2000) (“Tom,” “Will”). Cather's nephew. Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld and James William Auld, William Thomas Auld graduated from Red Cloud High School in 1927 and Amherst College in Amherst, MA, in 1931. His roommate at Amherst, Richard Hager Mellen, would later marry his sister, Mary Virginia Auld. He graduated from Stanford University Medical School in 1936, the same year he married Helen Jane Wall. From 1938 until his retirement, Auld practiced pediatrics in Stockton, CA, except for the four years (1942-1946) he served in the Army Air Force Medical Corps. He and his wife had no children. Willa Cather seems to have had minimal contact with her nephew as an adult, and there are no known letters from her to him.

Cather, Roscoe (1877-1945) (“Ross”). Cather’s brother. Roscoe was born in Virginia, the second child and oldest son of Charles and Virginia Cather. After graduating from Red Cloud (NE) High School in 1895, he taught country school for two years, attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for one year (1897-1898), taught high school in Carlton, NE, and Oxford, NE, and finally became superintendent of schools in Fullerton, NE. There he met fellow teacher Meta Schaper, whom he married in 1907. They relocated to Lander, WY, in 1909, where he opened an abstract office and where their three children, Virginia and twins Margaret and Elizabeth, were born. In 1921, they moved to Casper, WY, where Roscoe became president of the Wyoming Trust Company, and in 1937 to Colusa, CA, where Roscoe and his brother Douglass had acquired a controlling interest in the First Savings Bank of Colusa. Roscoe served as president of the bank until his death. Willa visited Roscoe and his family in Wyoming several times and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926 trip to New Mexico with Roscoe, Meta, and their children and a 1941 San Francisco vacation with Roscoe and Meta. She also relied on him to handle family-related business as well as personal financial matters, and he was one of her chief correspondents throughout her life. Roscoe served as a prototype for one of the twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932).

Brockway, John Hadley (1910-1991). U.S. Navy officer; Virginia Cather’s husband. Born in Douglas, WY, John Brockway was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1927 and on graduation was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy. In 1936 he married Virginia Cather, Willa Cather’s niece, and they had one child, George. The family moved frequently until his retirement from the Navy. He died in San Diego, CA.

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.