King, Marion Dalton Morrison (1888-1976). Librarian at New York Society Library. Born in New York, Marion Morrison attended New York Normal College (now Hunter College) in New York City and in 1907 began work at the New York Society Library, where she met library member Frederick Gore King, a retired banker and widower. The two married in 1915, and King continued to work at the library until her retirement in 1954. In 1928, Cather became a member of the library, then located at 109 University Place, where she met King. King frequently recommended books to Cather. King wrote about Cather in her Books and People: Five Decades of New York’s Oldest Library (1954).

Gordon, Charles George (1833-1885). British military officer. Born in London, England, into a military family, Charles Gordon was educated at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, where his talent for map-making and designing fortifications led him to join the Royal Engineers; he also displayed a life-long tendency to disobey orders in favor of his conception of the right thing. After service in the Crimean War, he went to China in 1860, where he headed the European-led “Ever-Victorious Army” against the Taiping Rebellion, which earned him the nickname "Chinese Gordon." In 1873 he went to Egypt, and was appointed by the Khedive of Egypt as Governor-General of the Sudan. A man of strong though idiosyncratic Christian faith, he worked unavailingly to root out corruption and the slave trade. He resigned in 1880, but returned in 1884 during the Mahdi rebellion with orders from the British government to evacuate soldiers from Khartoum; instead he evacuated thousands of civilians and arranged the defense of the city against a siege. The British government, under public pressure, finally sent a relief expedition; the advance forces reached Khartoum two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been killed.

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.