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 |
Was there ever anybody who could always throw the monkey-wrench into the machine and
add a spray of cypress to the holly
wreath3, like our sister
Elsie4? She wrote me from Casper5 that she was having such a delightful
visit: I turned the page and on the other side, she says, "I am doubly glad to be
here for itf
Roscoe is going to leave Casper as he
intends6, it may be many years before I see him again."
Now please tell me, where do you propose going—Alaska7 or South America8 or Tahiti9? Even from Tahiti I get letters from James Norman Hall10, who implores me to come to visit him and says it isn't a hard trip. Please enlighten me about your plans, my dear boy.
Hastily, but with all my love, WillieInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2127.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2127
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- January 7, 1937
- Place letter was written
- unknown place2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
A reference to a line in Frances Ridley Havergal's popular nineteenth-century hymn "Bells Across the Snow": "And a spray of cyprus twining/With the holly wreath to-night."
In the spring of 1937, Roscoe Cather was searching for a position with a new bank. He and his brother Douglas Cather hoped to take a controlling interest in a bank in California together.
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.
Hall, James Norman (1887-1951). American novelist. Hall was
born and raised in Iowa, but moved to Tahiti at the conclusion of World War
I. He collaborated with Charles Nordhoff to write adventure stories based in
the South Pacific. Their most successful novel, Mutiny on
the Bounty (1932), was later turned into a movie. Hall was also a
frequent contributor to both the Atlantic Monthly and
Harper’s Magazine.
Place Annotations
