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 |
It was very kind and thoughtful of you to send me a check at this particular time,
when you felt I might need it. As a matter of fact I don't really need it, but you
might think it rather unappreciative of me to send it back to you after you have
been so sympathetic as to send it. It lies now in my business portfolio, but
tomorrow I am going to the bank to deposit it and at the same time [illegible]
credit you on the back of
your note. My business methods must seem very slack and behindhand to you. But you
see, pretty much my whole future now depends on what happens to my right hand3. I wish you would just tie your right hand up in a strong
handkerchief when you get out of bed some morning, and leave it bound until after breakfast. Then you would know how complicated my life has been
since the first of December. The signatures you accredit to my left hand are bogus.
I took off the metal glove4 for each one
and did the best I could with my right hand - pretty poor signature for a writer.
At
least I can say, however, that the metal glove is doing something. The thumb is less
painful, and the arthritis is less. I am on a strict diet, though I don't go round
telling people about it. Furthermore, I really don't mind it. I like orange juice
with my dinner as well as the light wines I used to drink. (almost!)
I don't know whether you see the Sunday New York
Times5 (most Westerners do), but this morning's review6 of Justice Holmes'7
cCorrespondence8 gives
me more pleasure9 than the sale of a
million copies of Sapphira10 would give me. He has so long been a hero of mine. I
shall be extravagant and order his newly published cCorrespondence
tomorrow.
My own doctor11 and the Boston12 orthopedist13 both want me to go to California14 in May—month of May via the Panama Canal, for the good of the sea air. Keep this to yourself, because I want to get to San Francisco15 without flagging anybody in the South16.
Lovingly,Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2180.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2180
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on recto only of each leaf.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- March 23, 1941
- 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 significantly injured a tendon in her right thumb in November 1940 after signing hundreds of copies of her novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl. Her right hand was immobilized for months afterward, and the pain recurred often in later years.
A brace built specifically for her injured right hand by Dr. Frank Ober of Boston in 1941 (#2179).
In his review, Commager notes, "Willa Cather moved [Holmes], 'unexpectedly and deeply.'"
Cather's brothers James and Jack and their families lived in southern California near Los Angeles.
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).
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. (1841-1935). U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Born in Boston, MA, to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., a physician and
man of letters, and Amelia Lee Jackson Holmes, Holmes, Jr., attended Harvard
College from 1857 to 1861, served in the Union Army from 1861 to 1864, and
studied at Harvard Law School from 1864 to 1866. He combined influential
legal scholarship with the practice of law until his appointment to the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He served from 1882 to 1902, as Chief
Justice starting in 1899. In 1902 Theodore Roosevelt nominated him to the
U.S. Supreme Court, on which he served until 1931, authoring many important
opinions. Willa Cather evidently never met Holmes but admired him greatly.
Her friend Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant wrote “Oliver Wendell Holmes: Justice
Touched with Fire” in Fire Under the Andes (1927),
and Cather was delighted to receive a 1931 letter from him praising My Ántonia (1918) after Ferris Greenslet gave him a
copy. She then asked the offices of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., to send him Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).
Garbat, Abraham L. (1885-1968). American physician. Born in Warsaw, Poland, Garbat immigrated to the U.S. in 1892 and was awarded an MD by Cornell University in 1906. He was awarded the Cartwright Prize of the School of Medicine of Columbia University in 1919 for his work on typhoid carriers and immunity. He was Cather’s personal physician in New York City from as early as 1934, and she consulted him about her brother Roscoe Cather’s heart ailment.
Ober, Frank (1881-1960). Boston Orthopedic surgeon. Born in Mt. Desert, ME, Ober graduated from Tufts Medical School in Boston, MA, in 1905. He volunteered for service overseas in 1917 and spent two years as head of the orthopedic section of the U.S. Army Base Hospital No. 5 in France. On his return he rose from junior member of the visiting staff to chief orthopedic surgeon at Children’s Hospital in Boston and served as a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School. About once a month he traveled to Philadelphia, PA, and New York City to see patients in consultation. In 1941, Cather was referred to Ober for her troubles with her right hand, and he prescribed and had constructed for her a metal and leather splint for her forearm and hand.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
New York Times
"Justice Holmes in His Letters: A Half-Century of Correspondence Reveals His Wide-Ranging Mind," New York Times (March 23, 1941) by Henry Steele Commager
The Holmes-Pollock Letters: The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Sir Frederick Pollock (1941) by Frederick Pollock and Oliver Holmes; edited by Mark DeWolfe Howe
Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940) by Willa Cather
