Nichols, Rose Standish (1872-1960). American garden designer, writer, and activist. Born in Boston, MA, daughter of Arthur Howard Nichols and Elizabeth Homer Nichols, Rose Nichols became interested in garden design; her first project was at her family’s country house at the artists’ colony of Cornish, NH. She was encouraged by her uncle, sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. She travelled extensively in Europe, writing books on English, Italian, and Spanish pleasure gardens, as well as writing many articles for magazines. Nichols was also active in the women’s suffrage and peace movements. Cather met Nichols in Boston, and corresponded with her about a two-part article on the letters of Saint-Gaudens, which appeared in McClure’s in 1908; later Cather had to decline an article on gardens from Nichols.

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus (1848-1907). American sculptor. Born in Ireland, but brought to New York as an infant, Augustus Saint-Gaudens was apprenticed to a cameo-cutter. In 1867 he went to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1870 he went to study in Rome, where he met American art student Augusta Fisher Homer; they married in 1877, after he received his first important commission; they had one son, Homer Saint-Gaudens. Augustus Saint-Gaudens won many commissions for monuments and memorials, especially for heroes of the American Civil War. He also made the statue of Diana atop Stanford White’s Madison Square Garden, a statue which features in Cather’s My Mortal Enemy (1926). His summer home at Cornish, NH, was central to the artists’ colony which developed there; however, his studio burned in 1904, destroying correspondence and works in progress. Cather probably never met him, but she supervised publication of some of his letters in McClure’s.