Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 was so glad to get the little-boy diary4 which you thoughtfully sent me. Every word of it means something to me. Don't I remember that boat and the struggle the two boys5 had to make it! – with no carpenter and very few pennies. At that time our family simply had no money at all. I was still going to the university because old Dr. Henry Cook6 sent me thirty dollars a month, and I made up the rest of each month's expenses by writing for the State Journal7 at one dollar a column – they were very long columns! But I never really minded the work on the Journal, though the time it took brought down my classroom grades. Every word of this little diary brings a hundred things to my memory.
I am glad, my dear, that you are getting acquainted with the Catholic Sisters
at last! Really, for the most part, I think they are almost the most human
women in the world – many of them so intelligent. Long ago, when I was
teaching in Pittsburgh8, the old
mother convent at Tours, France9,
was dispersed by the radical government. The sister there who taught voice
came to America10 to live with
visit her sister, Madame Leeds11, in Pittsburgh. I never met a
more charming and accomplished woman – brilliant socially. And what a
gorgeous voice! She went out everywhere, and was an asset to any social gathering – spoke beautiful
English. Had she been a small person, she might have been spoiled by the
attentions showered upon her. I got a trial position on McClure's12 and came to New York2. I stayed here and in a few
months resigned my position in Pittsburgh. Long afterward, at least twenty
years afterward, I made inquiries at the Ursuline Convent in Quebec13 (I had heard from Madame Leeds that
she
her sister had been called there.)
I had forgotten her name in religion, but I had only to say that she came from Tours and had a
beautiful voice. The Mother Superior told me that she had taken charge of
all their music for some years and then had been called to Italy14, to train one of the great choirs in
Milan15.
I never saw her in her religious garb. I can only visualize her in memory as
I really saw her – a very handsome woman in a drawing room surrounded by men
and women of "Oold Pittsburgh" families. She was
witty and tactful and with all so kindly that, beside her, the well-meaning
Pittsburgh dames seemed raw and awkward. She certainly was the "woman of the world," and they were the provincials.
But she had taken her vows at nineteen and had been "immured" in the Mother
House at Tours ever since. She was about thirty when the nuns were
dispersed.
I could wear you out quoting similar examples. Of course, not all nuns have great charm and great gifts, as she had. But when a woman has these valuable assets, believe me, the Catholics do not smother them, but are clever enough to develop them and use them where they will be most effective for the Glory of God and The Church.
Lovingly, Willie Mrs. R. C. Cather1 Colusa3 California NEW YORK, N.Y. STA. Y2 NOV 24 1945 1230PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2275.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2275
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf only. Includes one envelope, typewritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Meta Schaper Cather1
- Date letter was written
- November 24, 1945
- 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
Roscoe Cather died September 5, 1945, and presumably this is his diary.
Person Annotations
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.
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.
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).
Cook, Henry (1849-1928). Red Cloud pharmacist and physician. Born in New York, Henry Cook married Arabella Meacham in 1874; three of their four children were born in New York. The family came to Red Cloud, NE, in 1880, where Henry set up his drug store on the east side of Webster Street. He later was licensed as a physician, although he continued to run the drug store. Cather worked for him while she was in her early teens, earning money for books and for wallpaper for her attic bedroom. In 1889 she represented the Cook drug store in a merchants’ carnival by dressing as an alchemist in knee pants, and she remembered Dr. Cook as one of the friendly figures at her graduation. A generous man, Dr. Cook helped several young people get a start in life, as Cather says he helped her while she was at the University of Nebraska.
Leeds, Ida P. Esquerré (1867-1937). French teacher. Born in Plaisance, France, Ida Esquerré graduated from the Lycée in Tours, France, and received a diploma from the University of Paris. She came to the U.S. in 1892, along with her widowed mother, Mathilde Pene Esquerré, who had been born in New Orleans, LA; a sister, Sister Marie Dominique, remained in France at a convent in Tours. Ida Esquerré taught French in New York City before her marriage to Charles C. Leeds in 1902. They moved to Pittsburgh, PA, where Ida taught in preparatory schools and Charles at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Ida’s brother, Professor Edmond Esquerré, who may have been a prototype for Godfrey St. Peter in Cather’s The Professor’s House (1925), also taught at the Carnegie Institute. Cather used the Esquerré name for the character of singer Raymond d’Esquerré, in “The Garden Lodge” (1905).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Nebraska State Journal
McClure's Magazine
