Auld, James William (1876-1962) (“Will”). Red Cloud banker; Cather’s brother-in-law. Will Auld was born in Marion County, IA, and attended Simpson College in Indianoloa, IA. He worked at the State Bank of Red Cloud (NE) from 1898 to 1938, first under his uncle W. T. Auld, who was president of the bank, and then as president himself. He married Willa Cather’s sister Jessica in 1904, and they had three children, Mary Virginia, William Thomas, and Charles. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1933. While Jessica and Will were still married, Willa Cather liked and trusted him, but in the wake of the divorce, she blamed him for mismanagement of Cather family financial assets. In later years, he lived in Lincoln, NE, and remarried.

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.

Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and One of Ours (1922), partly because she was dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an important personal friendship.

Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or “Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the Virginia to William Lee Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872. Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa, Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud, NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928 Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932), which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.