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 |
I have just been writing to Helen Louise6, to tell her what a dreary time the last few weeks have been for me, because I had to have two large and useful molar teeth taken away from me by a painful method. These painful separations came fourteen days apart - I didn't have to go through it all at once.
The lovely flowers (daffodils and violets) which you sent me at Christmas time did a great deal to cheer those dreary days. I never knew daffodils (forced in the winter, of course) to look so sturdy and last so long. I had them with me for four days in their full vigor and color. Aren't you awfully pleased that Helen Louise has a sturdy young son7? I do hope I shall be able to go out to see him and her in the spring.
I am awfully sorry that you have to spend your time at a second rate law school, and I have inquired through an old friend of mine at Columbia what the conditions are there. He reported that the situation at the Columbia Law School is hopeless just now; that is, the school has applications far beyond anything that the regents can accommodate without weakening the faculty. I put in my investigation through a very competent and well informed member of the faculty, because it would be lovely for me to have you studying in New York2, and I think I could give you some things that you could not possibly get in a small Western city. However, you must always remember that you have to get for yourself everything that counts in any profession. You have to get it from finding the subject interesting and from putting your whole mind upon it. If you do not find it interesting, you will never be ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩able to do much with it. If a young man can go into his father's law office and inherit a practice, I suppose he can get along fairly well. But if you are going into the practice of law and expect to succeed, you must have very personal and very strong interest in law itself, and an even stronger interest in human beings. A knowledge of people and an intuition as to their real character and what they are striving for, is certaibly of great importance in the practice of law.
Sometime, when I am feeling much
better and am not just recovering from the damnable effects of "surgical
dentistry", I will write you more clearly as to what I think about this. In
the meantime, try to keep as well as you can and to learn things from people
- just
plain
human
people - and from being truly
interested in them and their affairs. The more often that you can be admiringly
interested, the better for you. I never
learned anything in all my life except from people and from being interested
in them;- not
from
being
interested
in
them
as
subjects
to
write
about, but as human beings who
appealed to me strongly - whom
I admired very much,
or
detested.! I
believe those strong personal reactions are the strongest guides we have to
help us in any profession. Sometime I hope we can talk about all this
together.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2778.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2778
- 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
- January 10, 1947
- 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.
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.
Southwick, James Philip (1946- ) (“Jim”). Willa Cather’s grandnephew. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, to Helen Louise Cather Southwick, Willa Cather’s niece, and Philip L. Southwick, James Southwick received an MD from Yale University in 1971 and was an anesthesiologist for the Utah Valley Hospital of Provo, UT until his retirement. Southwick is an avid windsurfer. He and his wife, Angela, have supported Cather scholarship via the donation of materials.
Place Annotations
