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 |
Since I had the pleasure of receiving your kind letter many things have
prevented me from thanking you. My
father4 had a sudden attack of angina, seemingly recovered his
usual robust health, and I hurried back to New
York3. I had been there only a few days when he had a second
attack and died in a few moments. I hurried home again, bringing a number of
unanswered letters with me. Among them was yours and I wish now to thank you
for your interest in my book5, and for the
quotation you sent me from Mr. Neve[?]6's letter. I am always glad to hear that my
narrative rings true to peop those who know
and love that country7 as I do. My
father was in New Mexico8 when he
was a very young man9, and I am
so glad now that I happened to get that particular book written before he
died.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2805.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2805
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Benjamin J. MacDonald 1
- Date letter was written
- March 14, 1928
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Janet Zastrow Cook Willa Cather and Rare Book Collections, Allegany College of Maryland, Donald L. Alexander Library, Cumberland, MD
Individual Annotations
Cather inscribed a copy of Death Comes for the Archbishop to her father: "Hoping my father will enjoy this narrative of the old Southwest as it was in his young manhood."
Person Annotations
MacDonald, Benjamin J. (1860-1935). American businessman. Born in New York City, Benjamin J. MacDonald grew up in Newburgh, NY, where he graduated from the Newburgh Free Academy in 1877. Around 1878, he became a bookkeeper for the newly organized Consumers’ Gas Company in Newburgh and eventually became the company’s treasurer and secretary. By the 1920s, MacDonald was elected secretary for the New York City law firm Fox, Weller & Wintner, which was located at 31 Nassau Street. Cather wrote to MacDonald at this address.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Mr. Neve. A reader who apparently praised Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927). No further information is available about this person.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
