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 |
SANTA LUCIA HÔTEL NAPLES Our hotel CARTOLINA POSTALE
CARTE POSTALE RICHTER & CO. NAPOLI Miss Elsie Cather1 Red Cloud3 Nebraska United States of America. NAPOLA FERROVIA2 25IV0812
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1915.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1915
- Contents
- Contains one leaf, with handwriting on the recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elsie Cather1
- Date letter was written
- [April 25, 1908]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Internal evidence suggests that this letter was written around the same time as the date on the postmark.
- Place letter was written
- Naples, Campania, Italy2
- Explanation of conjectured place letter was written
-
Internal evidence suggests that Cather wrote this in Naples because of her note, "Our hotel," on the postcard.
- Location of original letter
- Philip L. and Helen Cather Southwick Collection (MS228), University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
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.
Place Annotations
