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#2757: Willa Cather to Charles E. Cather, June 12, 1935; Willa Cather to James D. Cather, June 14 [1935]

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My dear Charles3:

I was very much pleased to get your nice letter and to hear what you expect to do this summer. I wish you and Helen Louise5, and your mother6 and father7, could have been here to see Mary Virginia’s8 wedding. It was so pretty and she managed it so well. She was married in your grandfather’s9 favorite New York2 church – the “Little Church Around the Corner”10. Indeed, they were married in the very chapel where he used to sit down to rest when he had been going about the City with me. This was quite by chance, as Virginia didn’t know which chapel she was to have – so many couples were being married that day. It was a beautiful afternoon and they were married at five o’clock, when the churchyard and the stained glass windows were blazing with sunlight. When I was conducted to the chapel that had fallen to her lot, it seemed to me a strange coincidence that it should be the very chapel her grandfather liked so much. I wish he could have known when he used to sit down there to rest, that his first granddaughter would one day marry such a fine young man11 in that chapel.

This letter must be for Helen Louise also, Charles, as I have so little time to write now. I am kept in town late by the serious illness12 of an old and dear friend13, and all my summer plans have been changed and are now rather misty. However, sometime before the first of August I hope to sail for Italy14, as I have a a rather important business engagement in 2 Venice15. I know you will both have a lovely summer in California16. Have you, too, learned to swim?

With love to you all,

P.S. Please thank your father for the interesting letter he wrote me about your lovely trip up into the flowery Canadian17 country in the early spring.

Dear Jim7;

Your second letter about the flood18 has just come. Why the "Raging Republican19" was splashing across the front pages of the New York papers for three days, with photographs: "Scene at Oxford20" "Between Red Cloud21 and Riverton22" etc. Sorry I didn't keep the papers, but I sent them all to Mary Virginia who is up on Lake Champlain23 Champlain for her honeymoon. Her father-in-law24 has a cottage up there.

Lovingly Willa
Charles, Cather3 3932 American Avenue, Long Beach4 California. NEW YORK, N.Y. STA Y2 JUNE 14 1935 11 PM