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 |
Miss Cather is in California3 with her mother4, who is very ill; and I do not know when she will be back. When she returns, however, I will bring to her attention your letters regarding the offer of Mr. Pirie MacDonald5 to make photographs of members of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Very truly yours, Sarah J. Bloom6 SecretaryInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3234.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3234
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Grace Davis Vanamee1
- Date letter was written
- April 13, 1931
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Cather, Willa (1873-1947), Member Archives, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
Person Annotations
Vanamee, Grace Delle Davis (1876-1946). Assistant to the president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in North Adams, MA, daughter of George and Electra Magoon Davis, Grace Davis attended the Emerson College of Oratory in Boston from 1899 to 1900. She published occasional verse, taught, and lectured in schools until her marriage to lawyer William Vanamee in 1909. After his death, she joined the staff of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1915, becoming assistant to the president from 1921 to 1941; she corresponded with Cather and many other writers on Academy business. In the 1920s Grace Vanamee was active in Republican politics in New York, once running on a ticket headed by Fiorello LaGuardia. She retired to Florida, where she died.
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.
MacDonald, Pirie (1867-1942). American photographer. Pirie MacDonald was born in Chicago, IL, to George and Margaret MacDonald. MacDonald ended his formal schooling at the age of 11, after which he worked a series of jobs to support his family. In 1883 he began an apprenticeship with photographer Frank Forshew, and by 1890 he owned his own portrait studio in Albany, NY. MacDonald enjoyed a very successful career as a portrait photographer in the following decades, producing iconic portraits of Theodore Roosevelt, William Butler, Woodrow Wilson, and Sherwood Anderson. Along with his work as a photographer, MacDonald was also heavily involved in a number of photographic and non-photographic organizations, including Professional Photographers Society of New York, the Rotary Club of New York, and the Boy Scouts of America, for which he wrote and published a drill manual in 1918. MacDonald died in New Canaan, CT, after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
Bloom, Sarah J. (1889-1961). Cather's personal secretary. Born in New York in 1889 to Russian immigrants Solomon and Bertha Bloom, Sarah J. Bloom worked for Cather from some time in the 1920s until Cather's death and continued to work for Edith Lewis on matters pertaining to Cather's literary estate thereafter. Bloom typed Cather's literary manuscripts and managed Cather's correspondence, typing dictated letters and sometimes responding for Cather when she was traveling. Bloom’s work for Cather supplemented full-time office employment in New York City (for many years she worked for the New York State Public Service Commission). She thus came to Cather and Lewis's apartment on weekends to take dictation, pick up and deliver typescripts, and deliver typed letters for signature. She died in New York city in 1961.
Place Annotations
