Roseboro’, Viola (1857-1945). American editor and author. Born in Pulaski, TN, to parents whose abolitionist sympathies caused them to flee the state shortly before the Civil War, Viola Roseboro’ graduated from Fairmount College in Monteagle, TN. Before moving to New York City around 1882, she was an actress with a traveling stock company. In New York she worked as a journalist and began publishing short stories in magazines while continuing to tour occasionally until she left the stage permanently in 1887. Roseboro’ actively published fiction for the rest of her life, including The Joyous Heart (1903), a Civil War novel critical of Southern slavery, and Players and Vagabonds (1904), a collection of stories about the theater. Having sold short stories to the McClure fiction syndicate in the 1880s, in the early 1890s she began evaluating manuscripts for the syndicate and soon did the same for McClure’s Magazine and book publisher McClure, Phillips & Co. Cather evidently first met Roseboro’ in 1903, when S.S. McClure called her to New York to discuss her fiction; the two women began corresponding, and Roseboro’ may have influenced McClure’s decision to hire Cather as an editor for his magazine in 1906. When most of the magazine editorial staff walked out on McClure that year, Roseboro’ stayed, but when S.S. McClure lost control of the magazine in 1911, she left for Collier’s Weekly. When her position there ended, she moved to Staten Island and struggled to support herself as an author’s consultant. When S.S. McClure regained control of his magazine in 1921, she rejoined the staff and took an apartment at 13 Bank Street, but the position did not last long and she was soon struggling to support herself again; a 1928 bequest from a friend alleviated her financial distress and allowed her to live comfortably abroad and in New Dorp on Staten Island. Cather’s letters to Roseboro’ suggest that, long after she became an established author, Cather valued Roseboro’s friendship and her judgment in literary matters. She particularly valued Roseboro’s response as a Southerner to Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940), an advance copy of which she sent to her.

Jeans, James Hopwood (1877-1946). British physicist, mathematician, and astronomer. Sir James Jeans is best known for proposing that matter is continuously created throughout the universe. He taught at both the University of Cambridge and Princeton University until he was appointed a research associate at the Mt. Wilson Observatory. Throughout his career he wrote many popular expositions of science of which Cather was an interested reader. She checked The Universe Around Us (1929) out of the New York Society Library and gave Yehudi Menuhin Jeans’ The Mysterious Universe (1930) for his fifteenth birthday. She evidently heard him lecture, quoting from his lecture in several letters, and they may have corresponded.

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.

Cather, Charles Edwin (1923-2011). Cather’s nephew. Charles’s parents were James D. and Ethel Garber Cather, and he was likely born in Red Cloud, NE, where he spent the early years of his childhood. He was, as Willa Cather wrote to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, “the little nephew I love the best” who inspired her portrayal of the little boy Jacques in Shadows on the Rock (1931) (#1054). He moved with his family to California in the 1930s. Cather continued to be an indulgent aunt as he got older, writing him letters of advice about and lending him money for his education. He attended, but did not complete degrees from, the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY, and the Law School at the University of Colorado in Boulder. After his aunt’s death he completed undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, CA. He was a beneficiary of his aunt’s estate and was appointed her literary executor after Edith Lewis’s death.

Brockway, Virginia Cather (1912-1984) (“West Virginia”). Cather's niece. Born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe Cather and Meta Schaper Cather, Virginia graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper, WY, in 1929. She received an A.B. in English from Smith College in Northampton, MA, in 1933, the same year Willa Cather received an honorary doctorate there. In 1934, she enrolled in the University of Chicago School of Social Services and was, for a time, a social worker. She married John Hadley Brockway, a Navy officer, in 1936. They moved frequently until his retirement from the Navy. She had one child, son George. In letters, Willa Cather sometimes calls her "West Virginia" to distinguish her from her cousin Mary Virginia Auld because Virginia Cather's birthplace in Wyoming was farther west than Mary Virginia's in Nebraska.

Ickis, Elizabeth Cather (1915-1978) (half of the “twinnies”). Cather’s niece. Elizabeth and her twin sister Margaret were born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters to them she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time. Elizabeth moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937 and married Lynn S. Ickis, an electrical engineer, in April 1938. They lived in Cleveland, OH, and had two children, Margaret and John.

Shannon, Margaret Cather (1915-1996) (half of the “twinnies”). Cather’s niece. Margaret and her twin sister Elizabeth were born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters to them, she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time. Margaret moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937. After she married Richard Shannon in September 1938, she moved with him to Boston, MA, where he earned an MBA from Harvard University in Cambridge. In 1940 they moved to the New York City area, where their first child, Richard, was born in 1943. The Shannons moved to Washington, DC, in 1944, where their daughter Kathryne was born. Cather did not see Margaret again after she left New York, and Margaret’s other three children, Patricia, Margaret, and Elizabeth, were born after Cather’s death. Kathryne and Patricia became caretakers for a large family archive of letters preserved by their mother, which they donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection.

Lowell, Catherine D. Cather (1912-2008). Cather’s niece. Catherine Cather was born to John and Irma Cather in Smethport, PA. The family relocated frequently because of her father’s employment, but they settled in Whittier, CA, in 1936. Catherine graduated from Whittier High School and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She was a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District while residing in Long Beach, CA. Willa Cather had relatively little contact with Jack and Irma’s children. Nevertheless, Catherine served for many years on the board of the Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, NE.

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.

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.

Auld, Charles Cather (1911-1992). American businessman; Cather’s nephew. Born in Red Cloud, NE, Charles Auld was the younger son of William Auld and Jessica Cather Auld (Willa Cather’s sister). He graduated from the Red Cloud high school in 1930, and from Stanford University in 1934 with a degree in economics. He settled in southern California, where his mother and brother Thomas also lived, but served overseas as a captain in World War II. Willa Cather had little contact with Charles Auld after he was grown.

Lewis, Ella Virginia Cather (1921-2001). American educator; Cather’s niece. Born in Pennsylvania, Ella Cather was the younger daughter of Willa Cather’s brother John Esten Cather and his wife, Irma Wells Cather. The family moved to New York in the early 1930s, then to Whittier, CA, where John Cather joined his elder brothers in the oil business. Ella Cather graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1944 and married Harry G. Lewis in 1948. She taught speech at Long Beach City College from 1949 until the 1970s, and served on the board of governors of the Willa Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, NE.

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.