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 |
It was a great relief to me to get your kind letter this morning, and to read your tribute to my father3 and my brother4. I knew that you must have appreciated their kindness of heart and the strict code of honor by which they lived. My father could never believe that anyone was thoroughly dishonest, and so he was taken advantage of a good many times.
It takes a great load off my mind, that you agree
are willing to looking after
these farms5 for me, and in all matters pertaining to their management I
will trust to your judgment absolutely. Whenever you think a farm is not worth
paying taxes on, I shall be glad to let it go. The Guy
Henderson6 place, for instance, is certainly not worth the repairs it
would take to make it fit for any farmer to live on it. I am not very hopeful that
any of these farms will bring me in much income. My chief desire is to avoid
spending more money on them, except in such instances where you would think it would be advisable and, in the end
profitable. Even the taxes will be quite a burden, as I suppose there are back taxes
due on all of them. Wherever you think it wiser to let the land go for the back
taxes, don't hesitate to advise me and I will do so. Would it be an advantage to you
if I gave you a power of attorney covering my real estate interest in Nebraska7? If so, I would readily grant it.
As for the deeds to the various properties, since they are properly recorded in the County Clerk's office, I think it would be better to leave them in Mr. Sherwood8's bank. Then, in case you were able to sell any of the farms, and thought it advisable, you would be able to do so without the delay of transmitting papers, in case I were absent or ill.
My brother Douglass' sudden death9 was
the greatest shock and sorrow that has ever come to me. My father and mother10 had both lived out the usual term of life,
happily and contentedly, but Douglass seemed to me just in his prime. He got a late
start, but he got
came into his own, and nobody ever enjoyed
helping other people more than he did. Douglass wasn't a Catholic, as you know, but
the young Catholic priest who read his funeral service wrote me that no one of his
parishioners was as ready to help the unfortunate of his parish as Douglass, and
that at times he could not have carried on his parochial duties toward the poor
without my brother's aid. He added these words: "I write to you because we, at Long
Beach11, the poor and I myself, feel that we, too, have lost a loving
Brother."
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3156.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3156
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on recto of each leaf only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Willard Crowell 1
- Date letter was written
- October 28, 1938
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
Individual Annotations
See #3155.
Douglass Cather died on June 14, 1938, in California.
Person Annotations
Crowell, Willard (1885-1963). Webster County farmer. Born in Indiana, Willard Crowell came to Webster County after 1900, probably to join his elder brothers Henry and Omer; he lived and farmed in the Batin area from 1910 into the 1930s. He and his wife, Adelma (known as Lulu), had four children, Clarence, Robert, Howard, and Geraldine. Crowell was elected sheriff in the 1930s. He also helped Cather manage Webster County properties she owned or had mortgages on; they sometimes had differences of opinion on these business matters, but she was concerned when he had suffered a disabling fall in August 1943.
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).
Cather, Charles Douglas (1880-1938) (“Douglass”). Cather’s
brother. Born in Virginia and raised in Red Cloud, NE, Charles
was third child and second son of Charles and Virginia Cather. As an
adolescent, Douglass Cather helped his father supervise rented farm
properties and worked as a messenger for the local Burlington & Missouri
Railroad office. In 1897 he left Red Cloud for a position in Sterling, CO,
and then took a position with at the Cheyenne, WY, office of the Burlington
Railroad. In 1908 he traveled to Mexico, an experience that his sister gave
to Emil Bergson in O Pioneers! (1913). By 1910 he was
working for the Santa Fe railroad and living in Winslow, AZ, where Willa
Cather visited him in 1912. He later achieved success in the oil business in
California. Although he never married, Cather notes that during the last six
or seven years of his life he had a relationship with Dorothy Rogers.
Douglass visited Cather in New York City in December of 1937. His death in
June 1938 left her devastated. Douglass served as a prototype for one of the
twin brothers in the Templeton family in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932) and Hector
the messenger boy brother in “The Best Years” (1948). His years working for
the Burlington also inspired Cather’s many railroad worker characters in her
novels, including Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925). Few letters from this
important sibling relationship have survived.
Henderson, Guy (1885-after 1940). Webster County farmer. Born in Kansas, a son of S. F. and W. E. Henderson, who had moved from Nebraska to Kansas in the early 1880s, Guy Henderson and his wife Emily, with whom he had three children, moved from Smith County, KS, to neighboring Webster County, NE, during World War I. He farmed in Red Cloud precinct into the 1940s.
Sherwood, Walter Allen (1867-1941). Red Cloud banker; Carrie Miner Sherwood's husband. Walter Sherwood, born in Wisconsin, came with his family to Webster County in 1879. He worked in Silas Garber’s Farmers and Merchants bank in Red Cloud after his marriage to Carrie Miner in 1889; they had two sons, Clement Miner and Philip. After the failure of the Garber bank, Sherwood became cashier of the new People’s Bank, organized by his father-in-law, J.L. Miner, and eventually president of the bank.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in the Virginia to William Lee
Boak and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and
was a schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872.
Her husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War
while her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
Place Annotations
