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 |
35 FIFTH AVENUE
New York2 December 5, 1928. My dear Mr. Barr1:
I get, of course, a great many invitations to lecture, but very few of them are so tempting as the one you wrote some weeks ago when I was in Quebec4. All my letters were held for me here, as I went away to escape from interruptions. My answer, therefore, is very tardy, and I apologize.
I always feel very deeply that I am a Virginian. My mother5 and father6, though they went West long ago, were always Winchester7 people- not Nebraskans. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to talk for an hour or so to your students, and I hope that at some future time you will renew this invitation when I can accept it. This winter I can not make any engagements of that nature. The last year has been very much broken up, and I have got behind in my work8 and my life. My father died last spring, and since then my mother's health has been uncertain. She is now in California9 with my brother10, but I may have to go to her at any time. I always find lecturing tiring, and indulge in it but seldom. At some more fortunate time, however, I assure you I would like to go to Charlottesville11 and spend an hour with your young men.
Very cordially yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2049.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2049
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Stringfellow Barr 1
- Date letter was written
- December 5, 1928
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949 (MSS 6494), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
Grosvenor Hotel (New York City): When Cather and Edith Lewis lost their 5 Bank Street apartment in 1927, they moved into the Grosvenor Hotel, where they continued to live until 1932. The hotel was located at 35 Fifth Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
Cather was in the early stages of writing Shadows on the Rock (1931), and her trip to Quebec in November was, in part, a research trip.
Person Annotations
Barr, Stringfellow (1897-1982). American history professor and college president. Born in Virginia, Barr received a BA (1916) and MA. (1917) in history from the University of Virginia. After serving in World War I, he studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, receiving a second BA and MA After further study at the University of Paris and the University of Ghent, he was appointed assistant professor of modern European history at the University of Virginia in 1924 and was promoted to associate professor in 1927 and professor in 1930. He wrote Cather in 1928 to ask her to lecture at the University of Virginia. He is best known for instituting the “Great Books” curriculum at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, where he served as president from 1937 to 1946, although he held many subsequent positions. He died in Winchester, VA.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the Virginia to William Lee
Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and
was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872.
Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War
while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Cather, Charles Douglas (1880-1938) (“Douglass”). Cather’s
brother. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Charles
was third child and second son of Charles and Virginia Cather. As an
adolescent, Douglass Cather helped his father supervise rented farm
properties and worked as a messenger for the local Burlington & Missouri
Railroad office. In 1897 he left Red Cloud for a position in Sterling, CO,
and then took a position with at the Cheyenne, WY, office of the Burlington
Railroad. In 1908 he traveled to Mexico, an experience that his sister gave
to Emil Bergson in O Pioneers! (1913). By 1910 he was
working for the Santa Fe railroad and living in Winslow, AZ, where Willa
Cather visited him in 1912. He later achieved success in the oil business in
California. Although he never married, Cather notes that during the last six
or seven years of his life he had a relationship with Dorothy Rogers.
Douglass visited Cather in New York City in December of 1937. His death in
June 1938 left her devastated. Douglass served as a prototype for one of the
twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932) and Hector
the messenger boy brother in “The Best Years” (1948). His years working for
the Burlington also inspired Cather’s many railroad worker characters in her
novels, including Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925). Few letters from this
important sibling relationship have survived.
Place Annotations
