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 |
Salmon Fishing in New
Brunswick, Canada.— G. 2 —C.P.R. Photo.
POST CARD Carte Postale For Complete Vacation Information, write
New Brunswick Government Tourist Bureau, Fredericton, N.B. PHOTOGELATINE ENGRAVING CO LTD OTTAWA P
E
CO
OTTAWA Mr. R. C. Cather1 First Savings Bank Colusa (COLUSA)8 California U. S. A. SAINT JOHN N. B.2 AUG 3 1939 1 AM
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2154.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2154
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on verso with a handwritten mark on recto underlining the caption of the image on the postcard.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- [August 3, 1939]
- Place letter was written
- St. John, New Brunswick, Canada2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
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, Meta Schaper (1884-1973). Cather’s sister-in-law.
Meta Schaper was born in Plattsmouth, NE, the second daughter of
Robert and Julia Ramke Schaper. After graduating from the University of
Nebraska in Lincoln 1903, Meta Schaper taught at Havelock High School in her
hometown of Havelock, NE (now part of Lincoln). She met Roscoe Cather when
teaching in Fullerton, NE, and they married in 1907. They moved to Lander,
WY, in 1909, where she gave birth to three daughters, Virginia and twins
Margaret and Elizabeth. The family moved to Casper, WY, in 1921 and Colusa,
CA, in 1937. Willa visited Meta and Roscoe’s family in Wyoming several times
and shared important travel experiences with them, including a 1926 trip to
New Mexico with Meta, Roscoe, and their children and a 1941 San Francisco
vacation with Roscoe and Meta. Meta and Willa remained friends until Willa’s
death.
Ickis, Elizabeth Cather (1915-1978) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Elizabeth and her twin sister Margaret were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Elizabeth moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937 and married Lynn S.
Ickis, an electrical engineer, in April 1938. They lived in Cleveland, OH,
and had two children, Margaret and John.
Shannon, Margaret Cather (1915-1996) (half of the “twinnies”).
Cather’s niece. Margaret and her twin sister Elizabeth were born
in Lander, WY, to Roscoe and Meta Cather, and moved with the family to
Casper, WY, in 1921. Elizabeth and Margaret both attended the University of
Colorado, graduating in 1937, and visited Willa Cather and Edith Lewis on
Grand Manan during the summers of 1936 and 1937. In Cather’s later letters
to them, she often refers back to their summer visits as a magical time.
Margaret moved to Colusa, CA, with her parents in 1937. After she married
Richard Shannon in September 1938, she moved with him to Boston, MA, where
he earned an MBA from Harvard University in Cambridge. In 1940 they moved to
the New York City area, where their first child, Richard, was born in 1943.
The Shannons moved to Washington, DC, in 1944, where their daughter Kathryne
was born. Cather did not see Margaret again after she left New York, and
Margaret’s other three children, Patricia, Margaret, and Elizabeth, were
born after Cather’s death. Kathryne and Patricia became caretakers for a
large family archive of letters preserved by their mother, which they
donated to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the Roscoe and Meta Cather
Collection.
Lewis, Edith Labaree (1881-1972). Magazine editor,
advertising copywriter, and Cather's domestic partner. Born in
Lincoln, NE, to Henry Euclid Lewis and Lillie Gould Lewis, Edith Lewis
attended the preparatory school associated with the University of Nebraska,
earning college credits from the University before transferring to Smith
College in Northampton, MA, in 1899. She received an A.B. in English from
Smith in 1902 and returned home to teach elementary school. She met Willa
Cather in the summer of 1903 at the home of Sarah Harris, publisher of the
Lincoln Courier. Moving to New York City soon
afterward, Lewis settled into a studio on Washington Square and found work
at the Century Publishing Company. Cather was her guest when she visited the
city from Pittsburgh. In 1906, at Cather's suggestion, Lewis applied for a
position as an editorial proofreader at McClure's
Magazine, and the two women worked together on the McClure's staff for six years. In 1908, they moved
into a shared apartment at 82 Washington Place, and then, in 1912, to Five
Bank Street. Lewis left McClure's in 1915 to become
managing editor of Every Week Magazine, where she
stayed until the magazine folded in 1918. In 1919 she began a long career as
an advertising copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson Co. In 1926 Edith Lewis
acquired the land on which she and Cather built their cottage on Grand Manan
Island. When they lost their apartment on Bank Street to subway construction
in 1927, they shared quarters at the Grosvenor Hotel when they were both in
New York City. In 1932 they took an apartment at 570 Park Avenue. Throughout
their relationship, Lewis was closely involved in Cather's creative process,
reading and editing her work in pre-publication forms. Cather's will
appointed Lewis as executor of her literary estate and a beneficiary of her
literary trust. Lewis authorized E.K. Brown as Cather's first biographer and
published her own memoir of Cather, Willa Cather
Living (1953). She remained in their Park Avenue apartment after
Cather's death and died there after a long period of illness and invalidism.
She is buried at Cather's side in Jaffrey, NH.
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
