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 |
Perhaps I never told you that the title of the new book is "Lucy Gayheart."5 It is modern, romantic, Western, non-Catholic6. Alfred Knopf7 says, "Why the devil do people bother me so much about the time and place of your books?"
Hastily Willie (over)And I haven't thanked you for telling me the Denver8 doctor's report. I'm sure he's right. We all ate too many sweets, you know! I got away from it years ago by having a french cook9—they never have any dessert but fruit & cheese, except on grand occasions.
My thumb10 is still a bit stiff, but I have got back complete wrist action—I surely thought I never would!
Stick to your diet!
W. Mr. R. C. Cather1 1225 South Center St. Casper4 Wyoming NEW YORK N. Y. STA.Y2 JUL 4 1934 930PM Ask Virginia3 to write to me sometime.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2112.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2112
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- [July 4, 1934]
- 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
The two novels Cather wrote right before Lucy Gayheart, Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) and Shadows on the Rock (1931), were historical novels with Catholic themes and characters.
Cather injured a tendon in her left hand in the winter of 1934 and had to wear an immobilizing splint on her hand for weeks. The injuries Cather experienced in her hands and wrists were particularly frustrating to her because they limited her ability to write.
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).
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.
Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York
publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from
Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc.,
in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their
son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher
beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and
One of Ours (1922), partly because she was
dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also
because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what
she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing
the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as
well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence
testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an
important personal friendship.
Bourda, Joséphine Marie Bernardine Brun (1892-1959). Cather’s maid. Raised in Lourdes in the Pyrénées region of France, Joséphine’s father Jean-Marie Brun ran a restaurant. In 1909 she married Alphonse Bourda, and they had two children, Marie, born 1910, and Clémentine, born 1912. In 1913 Joséphine, Alphonse, and Joséphine’s father immigrated to the U.S., leaving Marie and Clémentine behind with relatives. Alphonse and Joséphine’s third child, Jeanette, was born in New York City in late 1913. Soon after, Joséphine found work cooking and keeping house for Willa Cather and Edith Lewis in their Five Bank Street apartment. In 1919 the Bourda family was reunited in New York and Joséphine stopped working, but by late 1921, she was back working half days until sometime after 1925. She resumed working for Cather and Lewis in 1932 when they moved to a new apartment at 570 Park Avenue, but in 1935, she and her husband decided to return to France because of his failing health. Cather considered Joséphine a personal friend and praised her as “an artist in her way” (#0563). Cather and Bourda evidently corresponded after her return to France but their letters have not surfaced. She died in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Lucy Gayheart (1935) by Willa Cather
