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 know all about those California violets.! To me a good deal of
California3 is like those violets – a pretty show, but somehow nothing very moving underneath the color. The
ones you sent me on Christmas Eve perfumed the whole room when I opened the box, and
kept their sweetness for several days.
By the way, in trying to clean out my desk lately, I found an envelope marked "For Roscoe – After Elizabeth's4 Visit". Now, this visit must have happened many months ago, and these two clippings about "Sapphira5" I especially wanted you to see. I will send them now, as they might interest you. I was particularly surprised at the one signed6 by William McFee7 Macfee. McFee is the "nautical editor" of the New York Sun8. He is an Englishman and has long been one of the best writers on naval matters. Long ago I wrote him a rather impertinent letter, rebuking him for some of his criticisms of Joseph Conrad's9 knowledge of seafaring. I have long been ashamed of yielding to that impulse and have always supposed that he was no friend of mine. I think it very noble of him to forgive my youthful impatience, and to write so gravely and courteously. He himself has written several nautical novels, which were pretty dull in spite of his vast knowledge of naval matters.
I first heard of the author10 of "Son of the Smoky Seas"11 through Tertius Noble12, the organist at St. Thomas' – the
most fashionable church in New York13. He was
organist at St. Margaret's in London14 – St.
Margaret's is the old church which stands in the enclosure of Westminster Abbey –
Chaucer15 died there. Mr. Noble came over
here during the first World War. He has been a prominent influence in music here
ever since. He told me that this queer fellow was
is really a remarkable ·W·S·C· musician,
though, of course, he had not the early technical training which enables a man to
support the rigours of a professional career. Mr. Noble said, however, that he would
rather hear him play than hear many a perfectly trained and accomplished pianist.
The musical part of the novel did not interest me especially, but it is the first book I have read that made the Aleutian Islands16 real to me. I think everything in the
book relating to that strange North country is wonderfully vivid. I get a great kick
out of it. I rather wish he had omitted his courtship. He now lives in Long Island17 and makes his living by lecturing and
giving concerts.
Please return clippings.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2203.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2203
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Roscoe Cather1
- Date letter was written
- January 18, 1943
- 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
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).
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.
McFee, William (1881-1966). British-American mariner, nautical
writer, and book reviewer. Born on board the ship captained by
his Canadian-born father, William McFee went to sea as a mechanical engineer
in 1906. He combined writing nautical books with work as a nautical engineer
until 1923, when he settled in Roxbury, CT, and devoted himself full-time to
writing, including writing book reviews for the New York
Sun and the New York Times.
Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924), British novelist and master mariner.
Born in the Ukraine to Polish patriot parents, Conrad's fiction, all
written in English, often drew on his maritime experiences. He published
only one story in McClure’s Magazine, “The Brute”
(1907), but had various other dealings with S. S. McClure’s other publishing
enterprises from 1898 to 1910. During a trip to London in 1909, Cather
attempted to secure more material from him for the magazine. Cather's
letters indicate that she continued to read Conrad, often praised as a
modern master of narrative technique, closely and seriously.
Oliver, Simeon (1902-1983) (“Nutchuk”). American author, lecturer, and organist. Born in the village of Chignik on the Alaska Peninsula to a Norwegian fisherman father and an Inuit mother, Simeon Oliver’s father placed him at the Methodist Mission on Unalaska Island in the Aleutians after his mother died giving birth to his sister. Oliver began playing organ by ear at age five and was taught to read music at age ten. In the 1920s he moved to Illinois to attend college, with the aim of becoming a physician, but he found the cultural adjustment difficult and periodically traveled back to Alaska. At the time Cather met him in 1942 through organist Tertius Noble, Oliver was living on Long Island, had published a memoir of his childhood, Son of the Smoky Sea (1941), and was making his living as a lecturer and performer. After World War II, Oliver helped to rebuild the Village of Atka in the Aleutians. He died in Spokane, WA.
Noble, Thomas Tertius (1867-1953) (“Tertius”) British-American
organist and composer. Born in Bath, England, Tertius Noble
studied at the Royal College of Music in London, England. He held positions
at Cambridge University and Ely Cathedral before becoming choirmaster and
organist at York Minster Cathedral in 1898. He married Muriel Maude Stubbs
in 1897, and they had one child, Philip Raymond, in 1903. In 1913 Noble
moved to the U.S. to become director of St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth
Avenue in New York City, not far from the 570 Park Avenue apartment Cather
and Edith Lewis moved to in 1932. Noble established a choir school at St.
Thomas in the English cathedral tradition. He composed music in multiple
genres, including sacred music in the Episcopal tradition. He retired from
St. Thomas in 1947 and died in Rockport, MA.
Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1340-1400). British poet, author of The Canterbury Tales. Cather does not
allude to Chaucer in her fiction, but she reread him late in life while
hospitalized and praised his work as intellectual food that made her “want
to get well and live" (#1685).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940) by Willa Cather
"Willa Cather's Magical Pen Writes of Slave Days in Virginia," Evening Sun (December 1, 1940 to January 18, 1943) by William McFee
New York Sun
Son of the Smoky Sea (1941) by Nutchuk and Alden Hatch
The Enemy Gods (1937) by Oliver LaFarge
