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 |
35 FIFTH AVENUE
New York2 January 9 Dear Mr. Ilsley1;
Happy New year to all my friends in Santa Barbara4! I am delighted to have the verses about Mrs. Hooker5—a dashing little portrait of her they make, and bring her rich personality clearly before me. I'm awfully glad to have a photograph of her, too—but where and how did she get the LÍON as an accessory? That puzzles me.
With heartiest greetings to you and her, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let2812.xml
- Letter identifier
- 2812
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Samuel Marshall Ilsley1
- Date letter was written
- January 9 [1932]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The conjectured year is derived from the fact that Cather stayed at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara in March 1931 (see #2285) and moved from the Grosvenor Hotel to 570 Park Avenue in December 1932.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (Caspersen 77), Drew University Library, Special Collections and Archives, Madison, NJ
Individual Annotations
Grosvenor Hotel (New York City): When Cather and Edith Lewis lost their 5 Bank Street apartment in 1927, they moved into the Grosvenor Hotel, where they continued to live until 1932. The hotel was located at 35 Fifth Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
Person Annotations
Ilsley, Samuel Marshall (1863-1946). American architect and playwright. Born in Milwaukee, WI, Samuel Marshall Ilsley studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving his degree in 1884. In 1890, he moved to Santa Barbara, CA, where he practiced architecture for a dozen years. After ill health forced Ilsley to forgo office work, he began to write short stories and plays, many of which were nationally produced such as The Whole World (1907) and The Feast of the Holy Innocents (1917). In 1896, Ilsley traveled to Europe and encountered family acquaintance Katharine Putnam Hooker and her daughter Marian Hooker who invited him to join their travels. The trip laid the foundation for a rich friendship between Ilsely and Katharine, and Ilsely would later write her biography Katharine Hooker: A Memoir (1935).
Hooker, Katharine Putnam (1849-1935). American travel
writer. Born in Milwaukee, WI, Katharine Putnam, along with her
mother Elizabeth Noble Whitney Putnam, took her first international trip at
the age of four when she sailed to California via the isthmus of Panama to
join her gold-seeking father Samuel Osgood Putnam. Upon her entry into the
San Francisco Bay, her steamer struck rocks and sank. Katharine and
Elizabeth survived and eventually settled onto a ranch south of San
Francisco with Samuel. In 1869, Katharine married John Daggett Hooker, and
the couple moved to Los Angeles, CA, where John made a fortune in hardware,
ironworks, and oil. In Los Angeles, Katharine and John frequently hosted
astronomer George Ellery Hale (who developed the Hooker Telescope at Mount
Wilson Observatory), psychologist William James, and naturalist John Muir.
In 1896, Katharine and her daughter Marian Hooker traveled to Europe and
encountered family acquaintance Samuel Marshall Ilsely, whom they invited to
join their travels. Katharine was particularly charmed by Italy and later
wrote Wayfarers in Italy (1902), Byways in Southern Tuscany (1918), Farmhouses
and Small Provincial Buildings in Southern Italy (1925), and Through the Heel of Italy (1927).
Place Annotations
