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 |
How good you were to write me that long letter, telling me all about the family and your work. My dear boy I am glad you went through with the bank merger4. In these times5 the less individual responsibility one has to swing, the better.
I'm sending you an extract from a
radio broadcast6 you probably did not hear. Of course I knew
nothing about it until the next morning, when telegrams from San Francisco7, Salt Lake8, Boston9
Denver10, and a dozen other places
began to shower in upon me. Six long night-letters from San Francisco. It's
a little alarming. I've always doubted whether a really good writer could be popular, during his
life-time, at least. Most of these telegrams
came by way of the Knopf office, and they were as much astonished as I—the
office pe people, I mean.
I'm sending you a letter from Elsie11 that warms my heart. I think it was very plucky of her to go out to Bess12 for Christmas. Mary Virginia13 and I have enjoyed the letter, and now I send it on to you.
With my love to you and Meta14 and "West Virginia"15 (tell her I wrote the letter she asked me to16 in my best epistolary style, and had it beautifully typed.) Willie. Mr. R. C. Cather1 1225 South Center St Casper3 Wyoming NEW YORK N. Y.2 JAN 12 1934 12-PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2108.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2108
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one envelope, handwritten. Includes one enclosure.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- January 11 [1934]
- Accompanying this letter
-
Includes a transcription from Alexander Woolcott's broadcast on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 1933, 9:15-9:30pm, on CBS proposing a toast to Cather as "one of America's really great women" and one of the best novelists around. Cather underlines the date, Dec. 6, 1933 with red ink.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
On June 10, 1933, the Wyoming Trust Company of Casper, WY (of which Roscoe Cather was president) and the First Trust Savings Bank of Casper merged with the Casper National Bank. Roscoe Cather was a vice-president in the new National Bank.
Cather is likely referring to the widespread banking panics that occured in the United States in the early 1930s.
Willa Cather is referring to Alexander Woollcott's broadcast on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 1933, 9:15-9:30pm, on CBS. Woollcott proposes a toast to Cather as "one of America's really great women" and one of the best novelists around.
In a December 1933 letter to Virginia Cather, Willa Cather alludes to her request for a letter of recommendation for a fellowship at Smith College (#2333).
Person Annotations
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).
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.
Seymour, Elizabeth (c. 1859-1934) (“Bess,” “Bessie”). Cather’s
cousin. Bess Seymour was born in Virginia to Sarah Boak (the
elder sister of Willa Cather’s mother) and her first husband, Joseph D.
Seymour. In 1883, Bess moved with Willa Cather’s family to Webster County,
NE. Seymour lived in the Cather family home from 1883 to 1904, when she
moved to the Webster County farm of her half brother, Will Andrews. Cather
used her cousin’s name as a byline for the story “The Burglar’s Christmas”
(1906), and it has been suggested that she served as a model for Aunt Tillie
in The Song of the Lark (1915). Cather frequently
mentions in letters to other family members that she received long letters
from Seymour full of family news, and she urged her sister Elsie Cather to
care for Seymour during her final illness and sent money to pay medical
expenses.
Mellen, Mary Virginia Auld (1906-1982) (“Virginia,” “M.V.”).
Cather's niece. Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld
and James William Auld, Mary Virginia graduated from Red Cloud High School
in 1924 and then spent a year at Dana Hall in Wellesley, MA, to qualify for
admission to Smith College in Northampton, MA. In 1929 she received an A.B.
in psychology from Smith and then moved to New York City, where she found
work at Lord & Taylor before telling her aunt of her arrival. In 1930,
probably with Willa Cather's help, she secured a position in the Circulation
Department of the New York Public Library. In 1931, she entered the
library's internal training school and in 1932 was assigned to the Tremont
branch library in the Bronx. After Mary Virginia’s parents divorced in 1933
Cather took a quasi-parental role. She paid for vacations and when, in 1935,
Mary Virginia married Richard (Dick) Mellen, a graduate of Harvard Medical
School and roommate of her brother William Thomas Auld at Amherst College,
she supervised wedding arrangements. After Dick was commissioned as a doctor
in the Air Force, Mary Virginia—much to Cather’s
regret—accompanied him to Chattanooga, TN, where he was assigned. In
Cather's will, Mary Virginia was designated a beneficiary of the literary
estate.
Cather, Meta Schaper (1884-1973). Cather’s sister-in-law.
Meta Schaper was born in Plattsmouth, NE, the second daughter of
Robert and Julia Ramke Schaper. After graduating from the University of
Nebraska in Lincoln 1903, Meta Schaper taught at Havelock High School in her
hometown of Havelock, NE (now part of Lincoln). She met Roscoe Cather when
teaching in Fullerton, NE, and they married in 1907. They moved to Lander,
WY, in 1909, where she gave birth to three daughters, Virginia and twins
Margaret and Elizabeth. The family moved to Casper, WY, in 1921 and Colusa,
CA, in 1937. Willa visited Meta and Roscoe’s family in Wyoming several times
and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926 trip to
New Mexico with Meta, Roscoe, and their children and a 1941 San Francisco
vacation with Roscoe and Meta. Meta and Willa remained friends until Willa’s
death.
Brockway, Virginia Cather (1912-1984) (“West Virginia”). Cather's
niece. Born in Lander, WY, to Roscoe Cather and Meta Schaper
Cather, Virginia graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper, WY, in
1929. She received an A.B. in English from Smith College in Northampton, MA,
in 1933, the same year Willa Cather received an honorary doctorate there. In
1934, she enrolled in the University of Chicago School of Social Services
and was, for a time, a social worker. She married John Hadley Brockway, a
Navy officer, in 1936. They moved frequently until his retirement from the
Navy. She had one child, son George. In letters, Willa Cather sometimes
calls her "West Virginia" to distinguish her from her cousin Mary Virginia
Auld because Virginia Cather's birthplace in Wyoming was farther west than
Mary Virginia's in Nebraska.
Place Annotations
