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 |
I think I know the author of “A Tribute.”3 I am so glad you did it4. I am sending it to Roscoe5. I had a long letter from P.D.6 four years ago, telling me all about her housekeeping arrangements. I think the men7 were lovely to her.
Thank you WillieInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1715.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1715
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Carrie Miner Sherwood1
- Date letter was written
- [late May 1945]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The reference to "A Tribute," published May 11, 1945, suggests Cather was responding to a letter from Sherwood enclosing the newspaper clipping.
- 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
"A Tribute" to P.D. Yeiser was published anonymously in the Red Cloud Commercial Advertiser a week after Yeiser's burial in Red Cloud.
Person Annotations
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.
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).
Yeiser, Parmelia D. (1860-1945) (“P.D.”). Cather's Red Cloud
acquaintance. Parmelia Dillard Yeiser, born in Kentucky, was the
eldest child and only daughter of Baptist minister and Webster County judge
George O. and Almira Dillard Yeiser; her youngest brother was James (“Jim”)
Yeiser. She was part of the young unmarried social set when Cather was
growing up in Red Cloud, NE. The family all left Red Cloud by 1902; she
taught art at Midland College in Fremont by 1909. After her father died, she
and her brother William and cousin Ryland Dillard Bedford, who had grown up
in the Yeiser family, moved to a farm near Garden City, KS, where they lived
until their deaths; they were all buried in Red Cloud. P.D. and Cather
communicated rarely, but Cather remembered her well.
Yeiser, William Pratt (1868-1951) (“Will”). American farmer. Born in Kentucky, third son of George O. Yeiser and Almira Dillard Yeiser, Will Yeiser came to Red Cloud, NE, in 1876. He was part of the young social set that included Willa Cather in the late 1880s and early 1890s, acting in plays and engaging in various farming ventures. In the late 1890s he worked for the Burlington Railroad in western Nebraska, visiting Red Cloud frequently. In 1904 he bought a hardware store in Beaver City, NE, By 1920 he was farming near Garden City, KS, where his sister Pamelia Dillard Yeiser and cousin Ryland Dillard Bedford lived.
1450Bedford, Ryland Dillard (1870-1952) (“R.D.”). American farmer. Born in Kentucky, son of Louisa Dillard Bedford and Henry Clay Bedford, Ryland Bedford was orphaned in 1875 and came to live with the family of his mother’s sister, Almira Dillard Yeiser, He grew up in Red Cloud, NE, part of the young social set that included Willa Cather in the late 1880s and early 1890s. After disastrous business dealings with William Garber, son of former Governor Silas Garber, Bedford and the Yeiser family moved from Red Cloud. About 1916, Bedford and his cousins Pamelia D. Yeiser and her brother William Yeiser moved to Garden City, KS, where they farmed. They were buried in Red Cloud. Bedford’s situation, as the Kentucky-born nephew of Kentucky-born county judge George Yeiser, parallels that of Niel Herbert in Cather’s A Lost Lady.(1923).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
"A Tribute," Red Cloud Commercial Advertiser (May 11, 1945)
