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 hear from you, and to know that you are comfortably situated
and think well of the climate. Remember, that you can not trifle with mathematics5. The old proverb
was, "In mathematics as in war, leave nothing unconquered behind." If you do
not understand a point, hire a coach and peg away with him until you get it.
You are not naturally mathematical any more than I am. You will have to get
it by dogged hard work. But it is necessary in the career you want to
follow, and you will have to put in the time on it. Even I, who was so dumb
in mathematics, was passed and I shall always remember what the fat and very
jolly (rather young) professor wrote on my final examination paper: "You are
faithful and persevering even in those studies which are very difficult for
you. Sucess to you.!" I never saw him after those
final examinations, his name was Hodgson6 and he died young, but to this day I am grateful to
him.
Mathematics are serious business with you now, Charles. When you do not understand a point perfectly, you must find a good coach who will pound it into you. If you slide over a single point, it will trip you up in the end. God won't be good to you and give you a moment of inspiration, but a faithful coach can make it clear to you if you give him enough time and money, and you must not be stingy of either.
You can't make many members of our family understand this, because very few of them ever wanted desperately to do a difficult thing and struggle desperately to achieve it. Not everybody is built that way. If you are, this is your chance to prove it.
Blanchard7 has been the big name in the Notre Dame and Pennsylvania games, I notice.
With much love to you and every confidence in you, Your Aunt Willie Mr. Charles E. Cather1 Monticello Hotel Boulder, Colorado3 NEW YORK, N. Y. STA. Y2 NOV 24 1945 1230 PM FROM CATHER 570 PARK AVE.4, NEW YORK CITY2Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2772.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2772
- Contents
- Document is two leaves,typewritten on recto of each leaf only. Includes one envelope, typewritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Charles E. Cather1
- Date letter was written
- November 21, 1945
- 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.
Se #2769 for Charles Cather's difficulties with math at the U.S. Military Academy.
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.
Hodgman, Thomas Morey (1859-1928). American professor and university president. Born in New York, Thomas Hodgman attended the University of Rochester, earning his BA in 1884, an MA in 1890, and an honorary doctorate in 1895. He moved to Lincoln, NE in 1884, teaching mathematics at the University of Nebraska while Cather was a student. From 1904 to 1907 he served as the Nebraska State High School Inspector and Director of the University Summer School. Hodgman was president of Macalester College from 1907-1917 and then moved to Spokane, WA, to manage the Clark Teachers Agency.
Blanchard, Felix Anthony, Jr. (1925-2009) (“Doc”). American football
player and Air Force colonel. Felix Blanchard played football
for West Point and starred on three National Championship teams. He was a
three-time first team All-American and the first junior to win the Heisman
Trophy (1945). In 1945 he won the Sullivan Award for being America’s “top
amateur athlete.” Charles Cather, Willa Cather’s nephew, was his roommate at
West Point. Upon graduating in 1947, Blanchard pursued a career in the Air
Force rather than football. In the Vietnam War he flew 84 missions and
retired in 1971 as a colonel.
Place Annotations
