Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 am out of the hospital5 and getting along reasonably well. I was so happy to hear of your whereabouts and about your lovely family. I have never forgotten the happy day6 I spent at your father7's house (Brushwood, didn't he call his place?). No, I had not heard of your mother8's death but I am glad, as you are, that your father didn't live to survive her. I just love to remember that short visit I had with you all as one of the happiest and warmest chapters of American life that I had the good fortune to happen upon. Through the ensuing years I occasionally wrote your mother and was always delighted to have a characeristically cordial reply. She urged me to stop again at Brushwood after your father was gone, but because of some illness in my father9's family I could not stop, and so the visit I would have loved never came to pass.
With happy memories, Willa Cather Mr. Douglas Dow1 1052 Seminale Avenue Detroit 143 Michigan NEW YORK, N. Y.2 MAR 27 1946 530 PM FROM CATHER570 PARK AVE.4, NEW YORK CITY2
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3063.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3063
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only. Includes one envelope, typewritten.
- Person to whom letter was written
- James Douglas Dow1
- Date letter was written
- March 26, 1946
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collected Materials (MS008), 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.
In the winter of 1946, Cather had a lump surgically removed; the lump proved to be "harmless" (#2280).
Cather remembered that Dow approached her after the University of Michigan commencement ceremony and insisted she come to his home for dinner (#2194).
Person Annotations
Dow, James Douglas (1901-1991) (“Douglas”). American electrical engineer. Born in Michigan, a son of Alex Dow, head of the Detroit Edison company, and his wife, Vivienne Kinnersley Dow, Douglas Dow graduated from the University of Michigan in 1922 with a degree in engineering. He married Mary L. Murray, and they had four children. Dow worked as a research engineer for the Detroit Edison company before forming his own research engineering company. He met Cather when she visited his parents’ home after receiving an honorary degree from the University of Michigan in 1924.
Dow, Alex (1862-1942). Scottish-American electrical engineer.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Alex Dow immigrated to New York City in
1882. Having received little formal education, he began experimental
engineering work while working the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s telegraph
company. He joined the Brush Electric Light Company in Baltimore, MD, in
1886, later transferring to their Chicago, IL, division, where he designed
the arc lighting system for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. From Chicago he
moved to Detroit, MI, where as president of the Detroit Edison Company he
built it into one of the largest corporations in America. The Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded him the Edison Medal in 1936.
Dow married Vivienne Kinnersley of Baltimore, MD, in 1889, and they had four
children, Dorothy, Margaret, James, and George. Cather met Alex Dow in 1924,
when both received honorary degrees from the University of Michigan; they
struck up a friendship and evidently corresponded with one another, although
their correspondence has not been located. He died in Ann Arbor, MI.
Dow, Vivienne Grant Kinnersley (1863-1945). Wife of Alex Dow. Born in Baltimore, MD, Vivienne Kinnersley married Alex Dow in 1889 and moved to Detroit, MI, where he was president of the Detroit Edison Company. They had four children, Dorothy, Margaret, James, and George. Vivienne Dow helped to establish the Vivienne Farm House, a rest home for Detroit Edison women employees. The University of Michigan awarded her an honorary degree 1934 in recognition of her charitable work. She died in Ann Arbor, MI.
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).
Place Annotations
