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 |
Don't think that I did not appreciate your long, understanding, letter about the English reviews. I hope I can sometime have a long talk with you about the peculiar satisfaction I get out of working occasionally in legendary themes4. Rotation of crops is a good thing for gardens and writers.
Things have been pretty thick for me. When I was up in Montreal5 trying to get some work done in a
quiet place I had an appendix attack and had to come home. Here2 I have had a second attack, and will
have to go up for an operation before long. Isabelle McClung Hambourg6, who has been very ill in
Paris7 all winterl, landed on March 26th with her husband8 who came over to tour Canada9 with his two brothers10 They form the Hambourg
Trio, playing chamber music. I called my doctor for I sabelle, who found her condition very serious;
both kidneys much enlarged and incysted. Nothing malignant, but a condition which keeps them from
performing more than half of their proper function, necessitateds
the strictest the strictest
possible diet and an invalid life from now on. Three surgeons agree that the
kidneys were mal-formed at her birth and, for the last eight years, have
been growing rapidly worse with the natural changes of body tissue. I am not
writing this to any other member of my family, as there are, alas, so many
people who rather rejoice ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ in the overthrow of the strong and the
generous. Jan was with her for three weeks, while I got some work done in
Montreal. Then he had to go off on his tour. I removed her to the Lennox
Hill Hospital, about half a mile from me, and will have the whole
responsibility until his return, June 1st. She is just as sweet and
dignified and uncomplaining as an invalid as she was as a girl, but of
course you will understand how sad all this makes me and how much it takes
out of me. The doctors are devoted to her. With the strictest care she may
live for some years. I have given up my trip to Italy11 this summer and am not trying to work now. I shut up
my portefolio in Montreal. After Jan's return I shall have my appendix taken
out. Worst of all my perplexities, my dear French woman12, who has been my prop and stay ever since I
moved into this apartment (she used to be with me all during they war years,
from 1914 to 1918) is going back to her native Pyrenees with her husband13 and daughter14 to stay for good. I'm glad she is to be again among
her native mountains which she loves, but it will wreck my life, rather. Noone else will ever so respect me and my calling. She sails on May
25th.
I am trying to live day by day, and not to worry; but when I'm very tored my philosophy fails me! Your love and interest is a help to me.
I will write you later about Virginia's15 letter. She seems to be finding her own way.
Devotedly Willie Mr. R. C. Cather1, 1225 South Center St Casper,3 Wyoming NEW YORK N.Y. STA Y2 APR 25 1935 1-PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2116.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2116
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- April 23 [1935]
- 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
Cather writes in "On Death Comes for the Archbishop": "I had all my life wanted to do something in the style of legend, which is absolutely the reverse of dramatic treatment. . . . something without accent, with none of the artificial elements of composition."
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).
Hambourg, Isabelle McClung (1877-1938). Cather’s longtime
friend. Cather met Isabelle McClung, the daughter of a socially
prominent, Pittsburgh (PA) family, in 1899 in the dressing room of actress
Lizzie Hudson Collier. McClung seems to have been the first woman to
reciprocate Cather’s romantic affections. In 1901, McClung invited Cather to
live in her family’s large home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of
Pittsburgh. She and Cather traveled together to Europe in 1902, and McClung
accompanied Cather on a visit home to Nebraska in 1905. After Cather moved
to New York City in 1906, she frequently visited McClung in Pittsburgh,
finding the familiar house a congenial place to write, and McClung visited
New York City, staying with Cather and Edith Lewis. Cather and McClung also
rented a vacation cabin in Cherry Valley, NY, in 1911, and traveled together
to Virginia in 1913. In late 1915, shortly after the death of her father,
Judge Samuel McClung, Isabelle announced her intention to marry violinist
Jan Hambourg. Cather reacted negatively to the marriage (which took place in
1916) but eventually reconciled herself to it, enjoying long visits with the
Hambourgs in Toronto, Ontario, in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. Cather
and Edith Lewis also spent time with the Hambourgs in Paris is 1930 and
1935. The latter trip occurred after Isabelle sought treatment in the U.S.
for the kidney disease that killed her several years later in Italy. Her
death came only four months after Cather’s brother Douglass died, leaving
her feeling bereft. “No other living person cared as much about my work,
through thirty-eight years,” she wrote her brother Roscoe (#2137). After
Isabelle’s death, Jan sent to Cather the six hundred letters from Cather to
Isabelle in his possession, and Cather destroyed them, although a few
letters from Isabelle and Cather postcards to Isabelle are extant.
Hambourg, Jan (1882-1947). Russian-born violinist; Isabelle
McClung’s husband. Hambourg moved with his family to Toronto,
Ontario, in 1910, where he was the head of the violin department at the
Hambourg Conservatory and performed as part of the Hambourg Trio. He married
Isabelle McClung in April 1916. Cather reacted negatively to both Hambourg
and the marriage, but she gradually came to accept him. Beginning in the
1920s, Hambourg left the family conservatory and focused on solo violin
performance in Europe. Cather enjoying long visits with Isabelle and Jan in
Toronto in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. She dedicated The Professor’s House (1925) to him (“For Jan, because he likes
narrative”) and asked him to make musical corrections to Lucy Gayheart (1935). When Isabelle died, Jan sent to Cather the
three hundred letters from Cather to Isabelle in his possession, and Cather
destroyed them.
Hambourg, Mark (1879-1960). Russian-British concert pianist. Born in Russia, Mark Hambourg moved to London, England, with his family in 1889, where he made his debut as a pianist in 1890. Sponsored by Ignacy Jan Paderwesi, he studied under Theodor Lescheititzky in Vienna from 1891 to 1894 and began his first world tour in 1895. He married violinist Dorothea Muir Mackenzie in 1907. He performed as a soloist and also with his brothers, violinist Jan Hambourg and cellist Boris Hambourg, in the Hambourg Trio.
0783Hambourg, Boris (1885-1954). Russian-Canadian cellist. Born in Russia, Boris Hambourg moved to London, England, with his family in 1889. He began his musical studies in 1892, first studying piano before taking up the cello. He studied at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfort-am-Main from 1898 to 1903 and studied under Eugène Ysaÿe in Belgium from 1904 to 1905. He performed with his brothers, violinist Jan Hambourg and pianist Mark Hambourg, in the Hambourg Trio. After touring widely, in 1910 he settled in Toronto, Canada, where he helped to found and directed the Hambourg School of Music there.
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.
Bourda, Alphonse (1880-1938). Husband of Joséphine Bourda. Born in Nay, France, Alphonse Bourda married Joséphine Brun in 1909. The couple moved to New York City in 1913, living with Joséphine's father. They had three daughters. The family returned to France in 1935, when Alphonse's health began to fail. He died in 1938 and was buried in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre. Though Joséphine Bourda worked for Cather and Edith Lewis for many years, it is unclear if Cather ever met Alphonse Bourda.
Bourda, Jeanette (1913-?). Daughter of Joséphine and Alphonse Bourda.Born in New York City the same year her parents arrived in the city, shortly before her mother began working for Cather and Lewis, Jeanette Bourda returned to France with her parents in 1935. She married, had three children, and died in Saint Pé de Bigorre. Though Jeannette's mother Joséphine Bourda worked for Cather and Edith Lewis for many years, it is unclear if Cather ever met Jeanette Bourda.
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
