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 am returning Virginia's4 letter to you, for I know you will want to keep it. She is evidently thinking things out herself, and that will do her a great deal more good than your thinking or mine would do. I am afraid I did not thank you for the interest check, but I will credit it the first time I go to bank - and that is tomorrow.
You must have received Mary Virginia's5
wedding announcement. I wish you could have been here - it was really a
lovely little wedding, at the "Little
Church Around the Corner"6 - in the very little chapel where
Father7 used to sit down and rest
during his short visit here. Virginia and Adelaide8 (whom your Virginia will remember) both looked so
pretty. Isabelle Hambourg9 would not
be restrained, but got up out of her bed to go to that wedding (which
occurred on the one beautiful
day in several weeks) and even to the little tea afterward, which occurred
took place in Donovan's10 apartment.
As to the groom, Dick Mellen11, I have
known him ever since Virginia was engaged to him last fall, and I was strong
for him as soon as I met him. He is a Vermont12 boy, and his
parents13 are just the nicest kind of Vermont people. After the
engagement I used to beg Virginia to let me read the letters from her future
mother-in-law, they were so warm and affectionate and dignified - not a bit
of sloppy sentimentality. The boy graduated from Harvard Medical in May. He
is very quiet, very intelligent, rather shy. He was Thomas Auld's14 roommate at Amherst for four
years, and met
both
of
Virginia's
parents15.! Virginia will be a splendid wife
for him. She has become a splendid little housekeeper, and when he gets a
practice in a small 2 New England town, she will be nice to people and help
him along. Of course, they have two rather hard years to face just now, Dick
will be an interne in Bellevue Hospital for two years, living in the hospital with only week-ends off.
Virginia will go on with her library work, and will have to live alone in a
very tiny flat most of the time. They certainly won't see too much of each
other. I did not encourage, nor did I protest. But after they decided they
wanted to be married now, I
did all I could to help them. If West Virginia is not home yet, you must
send her this letter, for I know she will want to hear about it.
About my own plans, which are pretty misty, I will write you later. For the present Isabelle's illness will keep me here.
With love to you all, Willa Mr. R. C. Cather1, 1225 S. Center Street, Casper,3 Wyoming. [illegible]Y. STA Y 2 [illegible] [illegible]Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2117.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2117
- Contents
- Document is two leaves typewritten on recto of each leaf. Includes one typewritten envelope. Carbon copies of this letter, with handwritten additions, were sent to Carrie Miner Sherwood (#1263) and Elsie Cather (#1975).
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- June 12, 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
The Church of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal church at One East 29th Street in New York City, is commonly referred to as "The Little Church around the Corner."
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.
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, 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).
Adelaide. No further information is available about this person.
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.
Donovan, Albert Daniel (1888-1946). Cather's friend and former student. Born in Pittsburg, PA, Albert Donovan entered Allegheny High School in 1904, where Cather was one of his teachers. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and, while stationed in New York, introduced Cather to fellow soldiers; these conversations informed Cather's work on One of Ours (1922). After the war he settled in New York, where he worked in accounting and socialized with Cather regularly. In 1940 he lived with Hugh Clark at 52 E 64th Street, just around the corner from the 570 Park Avenue apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that Cather shared with Edith Lewis.
Mellen, Richard Hager (1909-1957) (“Dick”). American physician; Mary Virginia Auld Mellen’s husband. Born in Vermont to Philip Edwin and Mary Wheaton Hager Mellen, Dick Mellen graduated from Amherst College in 1931, where Cather’s nephew William Thomas Auld was his roommate, and from Harvard Medical School in 1935. The same year he began a residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and married Cather’s niece, Mary Virginia Auld. Cather praised Mary Virginia’s choice of this “Vermont boy” whose family were “just the nicest kind of Vermont people” (#2117). Trained as an orthopedic surgeon, he accepted a position as chief of orthopedic surgery at a hospital in Chattanooga, TN, in 1942, when the previous head left to serve in the military. Almost immediately thereafter, Mellen himself was commissioned as an officer in the Army Medical Corps, serving from 1942 to 1946. In 1946, he and other physicians who had developed expertise during the war founded the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. From 1946 until his death, he was a surgeon at Glockner-Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs, CO.
Mellen, Mary Wheaton Hager (1879-1939). American teacher; mother-in-law of Cather's niece. Born in South Deerfield, MA, Mary Hager attended Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT, from 1900 to 1902 before leaving college to teach in Granby, MA (1902-1904) and Middlebury (1904-1908). She married college classmate Phillip Mellen in 1908; their only child, son Richard Hager Mellen was born in 1909. Cather may have met Mary Mellen at her son’s June 1935 wedding to Mary Virginia Auld, Cather’s niece, and in December 1935, Cather sent her an inscribed copy of Obscure Destinies (1932).
0789Mellen, Philip Edwin (1883-1962). American dentist. Born and raised in Middlebury VT, Philip Mellen graduated from Middlebury College (1904) and Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery (1907). He married college classmate Mary Wheaton Hager in 1908; their only child, son Richard Hager Mellen, was born in 1909. Cather may have met Philip Mellen at his son’s 1935 wedding to Mary Virginia Auld, Cather’s niece, and complimented the Mellens as “just the nicest kind of Vermont people” (#2117).
Auld, William Thomas (1908-2000) (“Tom,” “Will”). Cather's nephew.
Born in Red Cloud, NE, to Jessica Cather Auld and James William
Auld, William Thomas Auld graduated from Red Cloud High School in 1927 and
Amherst College in Amherst, MA, in 1931. His roommate at Amherst, Richard
Hager Mellen, would later marry his sister, Mary Virginia Auld. He graduated
from Stanford University Medical School in 1936, the same year he married
Helen Jane Wall. From 1938 until his retirement, Auld practiced pediatrics
in Stockton, CA, except for the four years (1942-1946) he served in the Army
Air Force Medical Corps. He and his wife had no children. Willa Cather seems
to have had minimal contact with her nephew as an adult, and there are no
known letters from her to him.
Auld, Jessica Virginia Cather (1881-1964) (“Jessie”). Cather’s
sister. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Jessica
was the fourth child and second daughter of Charles and Virginia Cather.
After graduating from Red Cloud High School in 1899, she taught at a country
school and the South Side Grade School until her marriage to James William
Auld, a Red Cloud banker, in 1904. They had three children (Charles, William
Thomas, and Mary Virginia). After their divorce in 1933, she moved to Palo
Alto, CA, where she died thirty-one years later. Few letters from Willa
Cather to her sister Jessica survive, and particularly after Jessica’s
divorce their relationship was strained.
Auld, James William (1876-1962) (“Will”). Red Cloud banker; Cather’s
brother-in-law. Will Auld was born in Marion County, IA, and
attended Simpson College in Indianoloa, IA. He worked at the State Bank of
Red Cloud (NE) from 1898 to 1938, first under his uncle W. T. Auld, who was
president of the bank, and then as president himself. He married Willa
Cather’s sister Jessica in 1904, and they had three children, Mary Virginia,
William Thomas, and Charles. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1933. While
Jessica and Will were still married, Willa Cather liked and trusted him, but
in the wake of the divorce, she blamed him for mismanagement of Cather
family financial assets. In later years, he lived in Lincoln, NE, and
remarried.
Place Annotations
