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#2149: Willa Cather to Roscoe Cather, June 19 [1939]

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The Chase Safe Deposit Company
New York
(GARFIELD BRANCH
FIFTH AVENUE AT 23RD STREET)MILNE
*attention Mr. Milne

My Dear Roscoe1;

Will you please help me out? I really must get away from business letters for a little while—I have to run away to escape college degrees5, anyhow.

Please write to each of the six business concerns here listed asking them, after July first, to send all checks, statements, notices of deficits etc. to me addressedas follows: Willa S. Cather Chase National Bank Fifth avenue at 23d Street New York City2 aAttention Mr. MILNE6
Milne

All business mail (except letters from you) should be sent to me at my bank address, not to 570 Park Avenue3, until further notice.

I have a custodian account here, and Mr. Milne, one of the bank officers, attends to it. Stock dividends are always sent to me in this way, addressed to me as if I lived at the bank.

At 570 Park Avenue there are 55 apartments in the one building. Many letters get lost in the summer. The hall porters cannot take care of it all. My secretary7 herself is away for a month in the summer and cannot call there for my mail.

The Chase Safe Deposit Company
New York
(GARFIELD BRANCH
FIFTH AVENUE AT 23RD STREET)attention Mr. Milne

I am working very hard now trying to get to a natural halting place in my book8 before I go away. I have not yet made up my mind as to where I shall go, and I shall not tell anyone until after I have gone.

Hadn't I better give Crowell9 a power-of-attorney covering all my interests in Nebraska10? I will, when I get back in the fall. Just now I must get away from Nebraska land11 and California12 oil for a little while and get to work on the one thing I care for and the only thing I'm fit for. My own work too has a very considerable side to it, and that takes a great deal of my time. That "Autograph Edition"13 allo alone, with revisions and proof-reading took ten working months. There is always time to do everything—except to write a new book.

I must hurry this scrawl off, or I'll never write you at all. It's hardly possible to make anyone understand. Forgive me for whining. I won't again. But it's a good deal like being sucked under by a quicksand—slow and sure.

Your Affectionate Willie

Please inform of change of address

  • (1) TransAmerican Corporation
  • (2) Bank of America
  • (3) Ocean Front Oil Co
  • (4) McVicar–Rood, Montebello Ltd.
  • (5) Barnsdall Oil Co
  • (6) Standard oil of California

All

AFTER FIVE DAYS RETURN TO
THE CHASE SAFE DEPOSIT COMPANY
GARFIELD BRANCH
FIFTH AVENUE AT 23RD STREET,
NEW YORK, N. Y.
From Willa S. Cather 570 Park Avenue3 New York, N. Y.2
Mr. R. C. Cather1 Villa–Rivera Apt. Hotel Long Beach4 California NEW YORK MADISON SQ. STA2 JUN 19 1939 230 PM Air MailPersonal