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 |
Here is a check for the sum I agreed to pay you toward the upkeep of your house5 in Red Cloud6. Five pe percent on
$5,000, valuing the home at that five thousand and considering it as money invested.
The interest is to be paid annually, and this payment is for 1939.
I made one condition when I wrote you; the or rather
I expressed the hope that you would change the home no further. On this point you
made no reply.
Please forgive the brevity of this note. I had an attack of influenza in February, then a relapse or repetition, and have been in bed all of March until today.
This surely is a dreary time to live in! I wouldn't admit it until the events of the last few weeks began to happen. I always believed in "British honor."7
Don't try to thank me for a box of flowers, dear Elsie—I meant them to be a little pleasure, not a responsibility.
Thank you for Mollie's8 nice letter. It came at a time when I was pretty miserable and I did enjoy it.
This is the first day I have been up and dressed, and I am not in a proper mood to write letters. I have a number like this one from Bishop Beecher9—requests for things I cannot do. I hate to refuse him more than any of the other requesters.
Lovingly W.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1865.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1865
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elsie Cather1
- Date letter was written
- March 16 [1939]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Susan J. and James Rosowski Cather Collection (MS228), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
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.”
As reported by US newspapers, England was proving ineffective at curtailing Germany's aggressions in eastern Europe. A 15 March 1939 New York Times headline reads: “Hitler Occupies Czech Areas; Britain Shocked by Seizure.”
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.
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945). Nazi leader of Germany,
1934-1945.
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.
Beecher, George Allen (1868-1951). Western Nebraska Episcopal Bishop.
Born in Illinois, Beecher moved with his family to Kearney, NE, at
age 14. He studied for the Episcopal priesthood at the Philadelphia (PA)
Divinity School, graduating in 1892, and then spent fifty-one years in
Nebraska as a deacon, priest, and finally Bishop of the Missionary District
of Western Nebraska. Willa Cather met him in Red Cloud, NE, in December 1922
when he presided at her and her parents’ confirmation as members of Grace
Episcopal Church. She and Bishop Beecher corresponded frequently
thereafter.
Place Annotations
