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 |
On Monday the 27th, a morning of black skies and pelting rain, a package came addressed in Helen’s5 hand. I opened it, and what a bright smile you gave me! It’s a splendid photograph6. I would love the picture even if I did not already love the boy. You were good to have it made for me. Thanks a lot!
This is not my natural ‘hand of write,’ as the English say. A few days after you were here my right hand7 went bad on me –(I had been over-working it a little) and I have left it in its brace8 ever since. It is not painful if I keep it still, but my thumb is rather stiff, which makes my writing look rather queer.
Your truly loving Aunt Willie Cadet Charles Cather1 Co. F—2 West Point New York3 NEW YORK. N.Y2 DEC 1 1944 330 PM FROM CATHER 570 PARK AVE.4, NEW YORK CITY2Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2767.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2767
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one envelope, handwritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Charles E. Cather1
- Date letter was written
- December 1 [1944]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Charles E. Cather Collection (MS350), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
570 Park Avenue (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis from December 11, 1932 until her death, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, near Central Park. They had apartment 7D. Lewis continued to live there until her own death.
Photogaph of Charles E. Cather in his uniform. Charles E. Cather Collection, Archives Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Cather significantly injured a tendon in her right thumb in November 1940 after signing hundreds of copies of her novel Sapphira and the Slave Girl. Her right hand was immobilized for months afterward, and the pain recurred often in later years.
A brace built specifically for her injured right hand by Dr. Frank Ober of Boston in 1941 (#2179).
Person Annotations
Cather, Charles Edwin (1923-2011). Cather’s nephew. Charles’s parents were James D. and Ethel Garber Cather, and he was likely born in Red Cloud, NE, where he spent the early years of his childhood. He was, as Willa Cather wrote to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, “the little nephew I love the best” who inspired her portrayal of the little boy Jacques in Shadows on the Rock (1931) (#1054). He moved with his family to California in the 1930s. Cather continued to be an indulgent aunt as he got older, writing him letters of advice about and lending him money for his education. He attended, but did not complete degrees from, the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY, and the Law School at the University of Colorado in Boulder. After his aunt’s death he completed undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, CA. He was a beneficiary of his aunt’s estate and was appointed her literary executor after Edith Lewis’s death.
Southwick, Helen Louise Cather (1918-2004). Cather’s niece.
Helen was born in Red Cloud, NE, to Willa Cather’s brother James and
his wife Ethel. Willa was a doting aunt on her visits to Red Cloud. In 1931,
Helen moved with her family to Long Beach, CA, where she graduated high
school and attended Long Beach City College. In 1939, Helen returned to Red
Cloud to help care for her maternal grandmother and then enrolled in the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where she met her future husband, Philip
Southwick. After graduating in 1941, she briefly returned to California to
work in the personnel department of Douglas Aircraft company, but married
Southwick in Lincoln in 1942, and then moved with him to Champaign, IL. When
Philip’s employment took them to Plainfield, NJ, she frequently spent time
with her aunt in New York City. In 1946, the Southwicks moved to Pittsburgh,
PA, where their son James was born. In later years Helen worked as a school
librarian and was active in the Cather Foundation in Red Cloud, NE. She was
a beneficiary of Cather’s literary estate, and when Edith Lewis died in 1972
she bequeathed Cather books and manuscripts to Helen and her brother Charles
Cather. Helen donated her share of these materials and Willa Cather’s
letters to her to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Place Annotations
