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 |
Entered the Nebraska State University as a classical student; but asked to take an examination in chemistry and passed it so successfullythat she was admitted to the freshman class. Stood first in her Latin class of 53. She was working hard at Greek and Latin carried twice as many hours as any other student. She was sixteen that Dec3. according to her mother4's letters.
destroyedInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3303.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3303
- Contents
- Document is two handwritten leaves. In October 1947, Edith Lewis purchased from rare book and manuscript dealer Louise Stegner of Omaha, NE, forty-nine letters from Willa Cather to Alice E. D. Goudy dated from 1890 to 1930. Lewis summarized these letters in an unused daily diary volume. At a later date, she destroyed the originals of the letters, but the summaries of thirty-seven of the letters, dated from 1890 to 1915, survive.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Alice E. Dailey Goudy 1
- Date letter was written
- September 27, 1890
- Place letter was written
- Lincoln, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Charles E. Cather Collection (MS350), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Cather turned seventeen in December 1890.
Person Annotations
Goudy, Alice Estelle Dailey (1853-1937). Cather’s high school teacher
and friend. Alice Dailey grew up in Nemaha County, NE, where she
attended the Nebraska State Normal School at Peru, NE, which her father had
helped found. She married fellow teacher Alexander K. Goudy in 1882; both
taught at the Normal School. When they moved to Red Cloud, NE, in 1888, he
was superintendent of schools and she was the high school principal. She
encouraged Cather to attend the University of Nebraska. The Goudys moved to
Lincoln, NE, in 1891, when he was elected state superintendent of schools;
Alice Goudy was assistant, then deputy, state superintendent. After A.K.
Goudy suffered a stroke around 1900, the couple retired to Nemaha County.
Cather wrote to Mrs. Goudy for many years, although few letters have
survived.
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
