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 |
GRAND MANAN
NEW BRUNSWICK
CANADA September 25th My Dear Elsie1;
Thank you with all my heart for your good long letter which put me in touch with
things at home3. I still think Will4 should have put Bess's5 money into Postal
Savings6. As for Jess7, believe me,
she will always have a last trump hidden away somewhere. I am sure she enjoyed
selling cold cream - - - such a picturesque attitude. I am sorry for her, but I
can't be as
as sorry as if she were a more real person.
I have sent Will Andrews a check for $25.00 to help out with current expenses. I wish Bess would have a cleaning woman come in once a week. Don't forget to buy a warm coat for her.
Of course you should have your kitchen arrangements as you yourself want them. But even if you do not use the old kitchen and let it stand empty, it will keep the house8 so much cooler in summer, and in winter wouldn't do any harm.
I am so glad to know that
about
Sid Florence9, but I wonder how his poor
little bank can go on at
all! Whenever you hear from Roscoe10, please send me his letters as I have not
heard from any of them for a long while.
I leave Grand Manan2 in three days and go on to the address given below, where I will be until the end of October. Write me a line when you have time, my dear. I always enjoy your letters. Do you think it would be nice if I sent Molly11 a little check for Thanksgiving? I am always afraid of her little bit of money giving out.
With my love, dear sister, Willie The Shattuck Inn12 Jaffrey13, New HampshireInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1859.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1859
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elsie Cather1
- Date letter was written
- September 25 [1933]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The letter was written after the death of Cather's mother in 1931, when Elsie Cather took on management of the family home in Red Cloud, and before the death of Bess Seymour in December 1934. The year is confirmed by Cather's travel in 1933.
- Place letter was written
- Grand Manan, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Susan J. and James Rosowski Cather Collection (MS228), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
The United States Postal Savings System was created in 1911 and provided depositors with a reliable 2% return on investment. Compared to private banks, it was considered a very safe investment strategy, particularly before the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1933.
541 N. Seward Street (Red Cloud, NE): Built circa 1899, Cather’s parents, Charles F. and Mary Virginia Boak Cather, purchased this home in 1903. Cather stayed here when she returned to Red Cloud to visit her parents, returning for the last time in 1931 following her mother’s death. At that time, Cather's sister Elsie inherited the house, returning to Red Cloud for summer vacations for most of the 1930s. Willa Cather contributed to the maintenance of the property until Elsie sold the house in 1945 to W. H. Maynard. By 1946, it was being used as a local hospital. Willa Cather used the house as the prototype for the second Ferguesson house in her short story “The Best Years.”
Shattuck Inn (Jaffrey, NH): Hotel built in 1910 in Jaffrey, N,H owned and operated by E. C. Shattuck until his death in February 1933, when operation was taken over by his daughter, Eleanor Shattuck Austermann, and her husband George Austermann. Cather stayed at the Shattuck Inn many times, often with Edith Lewis, finding it a useful place to work. In 1947, Cather wrote of the Shattuck Inn: “I have never found any place where I could work in such peace and happiness as in the little rooms up in the top of the Shattuck Inn” (#1748).
Person Annotations
Cather, Elsie Margaret (1890-1964) (“Bobbie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Red Cloud, NE, shortly before Willa Cather
graduated from high school, Elsie attended the University of Nebraska in
Lincoln from 1908 to 1910, before transferring to Smith College, in
Northampton, MA, from which she graduated with an A.B. in English and Latin
in 1912. She undertook graduate study at the University of Nebraska in 1914
and in 1916 received her A.M. with a major in philosophy and a minor in
English. At both the undergraduate and the graduate level at Nebraska, she
studied under Louise Pound. She began a career in high school teaching in
1912, when she took a position in Lander, WY, where her brother Roscoe then
lived with his family. She also taught in Albuquerque, NM; Corning, IA;
Cleveland, OH; and briefly Red Cloud, when illness in the family brought her
home. Her longest tenure as a teacher was at Lincoln (NE) High School, where
she began teaching in 1920, with Olivia Pound and Mariel Gere as colleagues.
Willa Cather's expectation that Elsie be responsible for aging family and
friends and for legal affairs after their parents' deaths sometimes brought
the sisters into conflict. Elsie Cather retired from Lincoln High School in
1942. She died in Lincoln.
Andrews, William (“Will”) Lee (1865-1950). Cather’s cousin; farmer. William Andrews was born in Frederick County, VA, son of Sarah Ellen Boak Seymour Andrews and her second husband, Joseph Andrews, and the brother of Nannie V. Andrews Matheny and half-brother of Elizabeth (“Bess”) Seymour. He came to Webster County “in his early youth,” according to his obituary, and farmed in the Batin and Catherton precincts all his life. He gave a home to his mother and sister for the latter parts of their lives.
Seymour, Elizabeth (c. 1859-1934) (“Bess,” “Bessie”). Cather’s
cousin. Bess Seymour was born in Virginia to Sarah Boak (the
elder sister of Willa Cather’s mother) and her first husband, Joseph D.
Seymour. In 1883, Bess moved with Willa Cather’s family to Webster County,
NE. Seymour lived in the Cather family home from 1883 to 1904, when she
moved to the Webster County farm of her half brother, Will Andrews. Cather
used her cousin’s name as a byline for the story “The Burglar’s Christmas”
(1906), and it has been suggested that she served as a model for Aunt Tillie
in The Song of the Lark (1915). Cather frequently
mentions in letters to other family members that she received long letters
from Seymour full of family news, and she urged her sister Elsie Cather to
care for Seymour during her final illness and sent money to pay medical
expenses.
Auld, Jessica Virginia Cather (1881-1964) (“Jessie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Jessica
was the fourth child and second daughter of Charles and Virginia Cather.
After graduating from Red Cloud High School in 1899, she taught at a country
school and the South Side Grade School until her marriage to James William
Auld, a Red Cloud banker, in 1904. They had three children (Charles, William
Thomas, and Mary Virginia). After their divorce in 1933, she moved to Palo
Alto, CA, where she died thirty-one years later. Few letters from Willa
Cather to her sister Jessica survive, and particularly after Jessica’s
divorce their relationship was strained.
Florance, Sidney Riddell (1877-1957). Canadian-American banker and amateur poet. Born in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada, a younger son of Edwin Charles Florance and Margaret Riddell Florance, Sidney Florance emigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1881. He was working in Chicago where he met Cather’s friend, musician Beatrix Mizer. They married in 1903, settled in Red Cloud, NE, and had five children. He succeeded his father-in-law, Benjamin Mizer, as head of the Webster County Bank, and handled local business matters for Cather when she no longer had family living 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).
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.
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
