Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 write this note in the Bank Vault where I am finishing up business affairs just before starting for Canada3.
One thing I want to tell you, dear boy. If you wrote me tomorrow that you had struck a big paying well, I would be glad on your account but I would not think one bit more of you.
To me, luck and 2success are very different things. To hold a job and bring up your family is to be successful in these times. Roscoe4 has not done more than that, and I feel that he is successful. Gold-and-ore-and stockmarket-success is Luck. It's picturesque and dramatic and sometimes it is fun. But 3to me the only real success is prosperity that comes from working very hard or skillfully—usually skill and persistence go together.
I'm not preaching, I write this only because you say if you had a success you'd be glad to tell me of it.
Dear boy, in these times to hold a job, keep your health, and bring up your children 4constitutes success. If your children are any good at all (and they seemed to me lovely lovely children when I saw them last) they would not think a bit more of you if you struck a gusher tomorrow—nor would I.
In California5 pure Luck is worshipped like a
God god—don't be fooled by such a transparent
sham, and tell Helen Louise6
and 5 and Charles Edwin7 that if they once begin to judge
people by their clothes and cars and luck instead of by just themselves and how kind
or useful or helpful they are in the world - - - - - - - why then I won't love them
anymore! That threat is half in play; and yet, in a way, I mean it.
God bless you all8, and my dearest love to my brother Jim
from WillieInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1897.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1897
- Contents
- Document is five leaves, handwritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- James D. Cather1
- Date letter was written
- July 12 [1934]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
This letter was likely written in 1934, as Cather and Lewis left New York for Grand Manan, NB, on 16 July 1934 (#1857), consistent with the plans mentioned here.
- 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
Person Annotations
Cather, James Donald (1886-1966) (“Jim”). Cather’s brother.
James was born in Red Cloud, NE, the fifth child and third son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. James moved to Wyoming in 1907 to work with his
brothers Douglass and Roscoe. In 1913 he married Ethel Garber, and owned and
operated clothing stores first in Red Cloud and then Holyoke, CO, where the
family settled for a time 1920 before returning to Red Cloud in 1922. The
couple had two children, Helen Louise and Charles Edwin. In 1930 the family
moved to California so James could work in the oil business with Douglass
and his partners. Willa’s relationship with James was more distant than that
with her brothers Douglass and Roscoe, who were closer to her own age,
although she was very fond of his children.
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).
Southwick, Helen Louise Cather (1918-2004). Cather’s niece.
Helen was born in Red Cloud, NE, to Willa Cather’s brother James and
his wife Ethel. Willa was a doting aunt on her visits to Red Cloud. In 1931,
Helen moved with her family to Long Beach, CA, where she graduated high
school and attended Long Beach City College. In 1939, Helen returned to Red
Cloud to help care for her maternal grandmother and then enrolled in the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where she met her future husband, Philip
Southwick. After graduating in 1941, she briefly returned to California to
work in the personnel department of Douglas Aircraft company, but married
Southwick in Lincoln in 1942, and then moved with him to Champaign, IL. When
Philip’s employment took them to Plainfield, NJ, she frequently spent time
with her aunt in New York City. In 1946, the Southwicks moved to Pittsburgh,
PA, where their son James was born. In later years Helen worked as a school
librarian and was active in the Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, NE. She was
a beneficiary of Cather’s literary estate, and when Edith Lewis died in 1972
she bequeathed Cather books and manuscripts to Helen and her brother Charles
Cather. Helen donated her share of these materials and Willa Cather’s
letters to her to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Cather, Charles Edwin (1923-2011). Cather’s nephew. Charles’s parents were James D. and Ethel Garber Cather, and he was likely born in Red Cloud, NE, where he spent the early years of his childhood. He was, as Willa Cather wrote to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, “the little nephew I love the best” who inspired her portrayal of the little boy Jacques in Shadows on the Rock (1931) (#1054). He moved with his family to California in the 1930s. Cather continued to be an indulgent aunt as he got older, writing him letters of advice about and lending him money for his education. He attended, but did not complete degrees from, the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY, and the Law School at the University of Colorado in Boulder. After his aunt’s death he completed undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, CA. He was a beneficiary of his aunt’s estate and was appointed her literary executor after Edith Lewis’s death.
Cather, Ethel Garber (1889-1975). Cather’s sister-in-law.
Ethel was the daughter of Edwin S. Garber and through him was
related to Governor Silas Garber, the model for Captain Forrester in A Lost Lady (1923). Ethel graduated from the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1909 and married James Cather in 1913.
The couple had two children, Helen Louise and Charles Edwin. The family
moved to California in 1930. Ethel and Willa Cather were not close.
Place Annotations
