Lora McBride Frisbie (December 12, 1944)

#1683: Willa Cather to Lora McBride Frisbie, December 12, 1944

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⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ December 12, 1944. Dear Lora¹:

How glad I was to see thise notice of incorporation in the home paper³.! I heard that you had moved into town, and I just trembled for the fate of the Amboy Mill⁴. I don’t get home⁵ to see my friends very often - and I haven’t many friends left there - but a good deal of my heart is there. I heard that Frank⁶ had retired from the milling business, and I felt I just could not bear it to have strangers take over the mill and change everything and make a lot of those queer modern improvements, which do not improve but make an empty show. I hope that just as long as I live in this world, some of the Frisbie family will be running the Amboy Mill.

With the warmest good wishes to you and Frank and Josephine⁷,

Affectionately yours, Willa Cather

Information about this letter:

Source File:: cat.let1683.xml
Letter identifier: 1683
Contents: Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
Person to whom letter was written: Lora McBride Frisbie¹
Date letter was written: December 12, 1944
Place letter was written: New York, New York, United States²
Location of original letter: WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE

Individual Annotations

The Frisbie family ran a flour mill in Amboy, NE, a few miles north of Red Cloud, from the 1890s until 1948.

Person Annotations

0457

Frisbie, Lora McBride (1868-after 1944). Cather’s Red Cloud acquaintance. Born in Iowa, Lora came to Webster County, NE, in 1870 with her family, who were early settlers. Her father, William T. McBride, died in 1885, and her mother, Sarah Kiser McBride, supported her large family by running a millinery shop. Lora married Frank Frisbie in June 1895, moving from Red Cloud to nearby Amboy, NE, where he worked in his family’s flour milling business. They had one daughter, Josephine, born in 1904, with whom Cather corresponded about the family mill; Cather recalled that Lora had been a favorite of Cather’s mother.

0458

Frisbie, Frank (1871-after1948). Webster County miller. Born in Iowa, a son of Ichabod and Hannah Frisbie, Frank Frisbie came with his family to Webster County, NE, in the late 1870s. His father was a miller, first in Red Cloud, where Cather went to school with Frank and his brothers. His father bought the Polley Bros. mill in Amboy, a few miles from Red Cloud, in 1890, running it with the help of his sons. Frank married Lora McBride in June 1895. They had one daughter, Josephine, born in 1904, with whom Cather corresponded about the family mill. Frank became the business manager in 1940; he sold the mill in 1948 after his brothers died.

0211

Frisbie, Josephine (1903-1996). Teacher; Cather’s Red Cloud acquaintance. Josephine Frisbie was born in Red Cloud, NE, the daughter of Frank and Lora McBride Frisbie; her family ran a flour mill in Amboy, a nearby village. A graduate of the Red Cloud High School and the University of Nebraska (class of 1927), she taught English at Central High School in Omaha, NE, for many years. Her account of her first encounter with Cather at a tea party in Red Cloud in 1927 appeared in the journal Present Day American Literature. The two corresponded occasionally, especially about the Amboy mill. Frisbie was a founding member of the Willa Cather foundation.

Place Annotations

New York, New York, United States

Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States

Work Annotations

Red Cloud Commercial Advertiser