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 |
I would love to write you a long letter, but I can't. Just now I'm crowded from every direction. I do hope you are going out to Roscoe3 for Xmas. He seems to look forward to it so much. Please get something you want with this check4, and pay yourself for my share of the flowers you were so thoughtful as to send for Margie Gund's5 funeral. Do whatever will rest and refresh you for the holiday. After your illness you need rest more than anything, and I've never found visiting restful, myself. I do wish you a happy Christmas, dear.
W.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1978.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1978
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elsie Cather1
- Date letter was written
- December 20 [1936]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Philip L. and Helen Cather Southwick Collection (MS077), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
According to her ledger, Cather sent Elsie Cather a check for $25 on 19 December 1936.
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.
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).
Gund, Margaret Miner (1875-1936). Cather’s childhood friend; iris
breeder. Born in Iowa, the third surviving daughter of James L.
and Julia Erickson Miner, Margaret grew up in Red Cloud, NE, where she was
one of Cather’s close friends. She played the role of Beauty in the
children’s play Beauty and the Beast in 1888, while
Cather played the merchant, her father; she also sang and played the violin
in various local musical performances. In 1896 she met bank cashier
Frederick Gund at a dance in Blue Hill, NE; they were married in December
1900. The couple lived in Blue Hill, where their four children were born and
she cultivated iris plants. When the bank closed in 1932, the
couple—their children grown—moved to Crawford, NE. Margaret
Miner Gund died in Chicago, IL, and is buried in Lincoln, NE. Cather
portrayed her as Sally Harling, the tomboy, in My
Ántonia (1918).
Place Annotations
