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 telephoned you every day since I came
home from the Hospital3 one week ago (Westfield 2-5586-J is that still the
right number?) There are so many things I want to thank you for! The lovely iris and
jonquils you brought me from you and Charles4
outlived and out-shone many other flowers because you brought them in from the
country, whereas flowers ordered from a New
York2 florist go through the middlemen before they reach the shop. A fine bottle of cologne water came from
Jim5 and Ethel6, but I think you must have selected it. Please thank them—I
will write them when I ean can. This is the first
time I have taken up a pen, and my hand is still a bit crabbed.
No wonder you have had influenza—was there ever such devilish weather!
Oh yes, the operation turned out very well—there was nothing ugly or alarming in the bump. Surgery is rather exhausting, however.
Lovingly Your Aunt WillaInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2785.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2785
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Helen Louise Cather Southwick1
- Date letter was written
- [February 1946]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
Internal evidence suggests that this was written within a few days of, or the same day as, #2280, which is dated February 8, 1946.
- 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
According to Cather’s death certificate, which was signed by breast cancer specialist Dr. William Crawford White, she was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 1945 and had a mastectomy on 16 January 1946.
Person Annotations
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.
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.
Cather, James Donald (1886-1966) (“Jim”). Cather’s brother.
James was born in Red Cloud, NE, the fifth child and third son of
Charles and Virginia Cather. James moved to Wyoming in 1907 to work with his
brothers Douglass and Roscoe. In 1913 he married Ethel Garber, and owned and
operated clothing stores first in Red Cloud and then Holyoke, CO, where the
family settled for a time 1920 before returning to Red Cloud in 1922. The
couple had two children, Helen Louise and Charles Edwin. In 1930 the family
moved to California so James could work in the oil business with Douglass
and his partners. Willa’s relationship with James was more distant than that
with her brothers Douglass and Roscoe, who were closer to her own age,
although she was very fond of his children.
Cather, Ethel Garber (1889-1975). Cather’s sister-in-law.
Ethel was the daughter of Edwin S. Garber and through him was
related to Governor Silas Garber, the model for Captain Forrester in A Lost Lady (1923). Ethel graduated from the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1909 and married James Cather in 1913.
The couple had two children, Helen Louise and Charles Edwin. The family
moved to California in 1930. Ethel and Willa Cather were not close.
Place Annotations
