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 |
Her book (The Troll Garden3) had been published.
Working on Christian Science articles4. "A very heavy
and laborious task, as the sources of evidence have to be examined with great care."
"I have been able to get a great deal of new information, and have studied the
subject very earnestly and conscientiously. Increase of salray. No time to write
fiction, (London5
in August?
went home6 instead)
Her father7's serious illness
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let3328.xml
- Letter identifier
- 3328
- Contents
- Document is one handwritten leaf. 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 Goudy1
- Date letter was written
- May 1, 1907
- Place letter was written
- Boston, Massachusetts, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Charles E. Cather Collection (MS350), University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
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, 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
Work Annotations
The Troll Garden (1905) by Willa Cather
"The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science," McClure's Magazine (1907 to 1908) by Georgine Milmine
