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 |
MEDICAL DIRECTOR
CHARLES W. THOMPSON, M. D.
ASSOCIATE MEDICAL DIRECTOR
J. A. COLLIE, M. D.
RESIDENT PHYSICIAN
ETHEL FANSON, M. D.
PATHOLOGIST LAS ENCINAS
SANITARIUM
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA2 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
GEORGE DOCK, M. D., PRES.
W. JARVIS BARLOW, M. D.
F. C. E. MATTISON, M. D.
STEPHEN SMITH, M. D.
F. H. MACPHERSON March 17th Dear Sister1;
I won't write you a letter until I return from San
Francisco3 and am more settled in mind. Mother4 has failed so much since I last saw her, but she does have
some hours of restful quiet each day, I think. She is not in pain—just the
weariness and discomfort of every physical act growing harder and harder. Sometimes
she is quite STEPHEN
SMITH, M. D.
MEDICAL DIRECTOR
CHARLES W. THOMPSON, M. D.
ASSOCIATE MEDICAL DIRECTOR
J. A. COLLIE, M. D.
RESIDENT PHYSICIAN
ETHEL FANSON, M. D.
PATHOLOGIST
LAS ENCINAS
SANITARIUM
PASADENA,
CALIFORNIA
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
GEORGE DOCK, M. D.,
PRES.
W. JARVIS BARLOW, M. D.
F. C. E. MATTISON, M. D.
STEPHEN
SMITH, M. D.
F. H. MACPHERSON cheerful for an hour, and she goes out
in her chair every day and wants to go.
I am going up to San Francisco to take a Doctor of Laws at Berkeley, and devoutly hope that someone here5 will move out of a cottage while I am away. I am in the main building, next the dining room, and don't get much rest.
I don't think you could help much if you were here, dear. Mother is conscious, but
her
Love to all of
you—
Bobbie perceptions are so dim—with occasional hours
when she seems to understand.
Mrs. Bates6 is so good to her, and so conscientious, and Douglass7 I think does more for her than any man ever did for any woman since the world began.
With love WillaInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2263.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2263
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto only of the first leaf, and recto and verso of the second leaf. The verso of the second leaf includes a handwritten note at the top of the page written by Elsie Cather.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elsie Cather1
- Date letter was written
- March 17 [1931]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Internal evidence suggests that this letter was written in 1931, as Cather received the honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of California-Berkeley in 1931.
- Place letter was written
- Pasadena, California, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Roscoe and Meta Cather Collection (MS316), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Las Encinas Sanitarium (Pasadena, CA): Established in 1904 by Dr. James H. McBride, the Southern California Sanitarium for Nervous Disorders was renamed Las Encinas Hospital for Nervous Disorders in 1917, and finally to Las Encinas Sanitarium in 1928. Willa Cather’s mother, Mary Virginia Boak Cather, spent the last three years of her life here, where Cather visited her in 1929, 1930, and 1931.
Person Annotations
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.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the Virginia to William Lee
Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and
was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872.
Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War
while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, Jessica Virginia, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were
born in Nebraska after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional
differences, Cather remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who
remained in Red Cloud, NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her
husband’s death in 1928 Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her
children and their families in California. She spent nearly three years in a
sanitarium in Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there
several times but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to
Red Cloud for her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931.
Virginia Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932), which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s
death.
Mrs. Bates. Mary Virginia Cather's nurse. There is insufficient evidence for a definitive identification, but this may be Mary H. Bates (1865-after 1938). Born in England, Mary Bates, a nurse, was living in Southern California with her husband Charles Bates by 1920. By 1930 Mary Bates was widowed and attending an older man in his home. By late 1928, Mrs. Bates--possibly Mary H. Bates--was nursing Mary Virginia Cather, Willa Cather’s mother, at Las Encinas Sanitarium in Pasadena, CA. Willa Cather sent messages and presents to her.
Cather, Charles Douglas (1880-1938) (“Douglass”). Cather’s
brother. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Charles
was third child and second son of Charles and Virginia Cather. As an
adolescent, Douglass Cather helped his father supervise rented farm
properties and worked as a messenger for the local Burlington & Missouri
Railroad office. In 1897 he left Red Cloud for a position in Sterling, CO,
and then took a position with at the Cheyenne, WY, office of the Burlington
Railroad. In 1908 he traveled to Mexico, an experience that his sister gave
to Emil Bergson in O Pioneers! (1913). By 1910 he was
working for the Santa Fe railroad and living in Winslow, AZ, where Willa
Cather visited him in 1912. He later achieved success in the oil business in
California. Although he never married, Cather notes that during the last six
or seven years of his life he had a relationship with Dorothy Rogers.
Douglass visited Cather in New York City in December of 1937. His death in
June 1938 left her devastated. Douglass served as a prototype for one of the
twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932) and Hector
the messenger boy brother in “The Best Years” (1948). His years working for
the Burlington also inspired Cather’s many railroad worker characters in her
novels, including Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925). Few letters from this
important sibling relationship have survived.
Place Annotations
