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 |
Your letter of August 25 was forwarded to me at Grand Manan3, and I must apologize for my delay in answering it. I was working very hard to finish my new book4, and I wrote practically no letters at all while I was there. I returned to New York2 only the day before yesterday. With the book completed, I can now put my mind on other things. I have felt great discouragement and sympathy for my friends as I followed the weather reports in the Red Cloud Commercial Advertiser5. No personal good fortune which could befall me would please me so much and make me so happy would as two or three years of good crops in Nebraska6. In wishing for better times there I am not thinking of my own interests, but of how much it would mean to all my old friends and to my father7's friends. I often feel that I cannot bear it to see that once beautiful country so defeated by the lack of rainfall.
As to the Gurneys8' proposition, I imagine that after such a drought they will not want to buy any more land. If you could get $1,000 for the farm, I should say take it by all means. Merely getting the taxes off my shoulders would mean something to me. If we cannot sell it within a year or two, I think it would be much better to stop paying taxes and just let the county take the land. I am glad to hear that you had the mill put in at the Jewell County9 pasture land and that the water has made the trees and grass green.
Thanking you for your letter, and with kindest regards to you and your family10.
Your friend, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3167.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3167
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Willard Crowell 1
- Date letter was written
- September 20, 1940
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- WCPM Collection, National Willa Cather Center, Red Cloud, NE
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).
Gurney, William Lemuel (1885-1971). Red Cloud farmer. William Lemuel Gurney was born in Red Cloud, NE, one of three children of Rebecca Mary Knutson and Asa Lemuel Gurney. Gurney worked as a farmer and a section worker for the Burlington Railroad. Gurney married Lillian Maude Coleman in 1918, and they moved to a farm just outside of Red Cloud. The two had six sons and five daughters. The Gurneys moved to Richland, AR, before 1950 and continued farming. Gurney and his wife seemed interested in purchasing some land that Cather owned and inquired about the parcel in 1940.
2233Gurney, Lillian Maude Coleman (1896-1963) (“Lily,” “Lillie”). Red Cloud resident. Lillian Maude Coleman was born in Red Cloud, NE, to Charles H. and Nora C. Coleman. The Colemans moved to White Mound, KS, c. 1900. Coleman eventually lived with her brother-in-law and sister in Esben, KS, before returning to Red Cloud and marrying Lawrence L. Peirce in 1916. Coleman and Peirce divorced in 1917, and she married William Lemuel Gurney in 1918. The Gurneys had six sons and five daughters and remained active participants in the local community until they moved to Richland, AR, before 1950. The Gurneys seemed interested in purchasing some land that Cather owned and inquired about the parcel in 1940.
Crowell, Lulu Adelma Helen Wolfe (1882-1969). Webster County farm wife. Born in Indiana, the youngest daughter of Joseph and Sarah Huffman Wolfe, Lulu Wolfe married Willard Crowell in Red Cloud, NE, in 1907; they had six children, two of whom died young. The Crowells farmed in Batin township in Webster County. Cather may not have known Lulu Adelma Crowell personally, but knew of her as the wife of Cather’s agent in Webster County in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Place Annotations
Grand Manan, New Brunswick, CanadaCather and Edith
Lewis frequently vacationed on Grand Manan Island during the summer and
early fall for about twenty years, beginning in 1922. For the first few
years, they stayed at the Inn at Whale Cove, a collection of cottages with a
main house operated by Sarah Jacobus. Cather and Lewis rented Orchardside
Cottage from Jacobus until they had their own cottage built. In 1926, Lewis
acquired land on Grand Manan, and construction was completed in 1928. Cather
and Lewis returned to this cottage almost every summer until
1940.
Work Annotations
Sapphira and the Slave Girl (1940) by Willa Cather
Red Cloud Commercial Advertiser
