![]() ![]() Her close personal connection to the people who inspired that story-particularly her Aunt Franc (Frances Smith Cather) who had just died in April of that year-may have influenced her decision to keep many of them. “I am not a very extensive reader of fiction,” McKelvie admitted in his 1921 letter, “but when I got into your book- “My Antonia” - it so interested me that I stayed up half the night reading it.”Ĭather saved many letters from soldiers after the publication of One of Ours in 1922. After college, he too worked in publishing, albeit in Omaha for Nebraska Farmer, the first and one of the most influential agricultural publications in the state. McKelvie was born in Fairfield, Nebraska, in 1881, just 45 miles from Red Cloud. Samuel McKelvie, who served as Nebraska governor from 1919 to 1923, also recognized Cather’s knack for aptly recording the experiences of central Nebraska. Anyone who has lived in one of those little Western towns must, I think, have a very keen and definite feeling about it, but it is almost hopeless to try to communicate it to anyone who has not had that experience.” ![]() “It gives me a very genuine pleasure to know that the story has rung true to someone besides myself. Cather was buoyed by Cleary’s affirmation that her depiction of the West was not exaggerated, as some critics had claimed. Cleary’s letter to Cather via McClure’s Magazine, though not yet found, must have praised Cather’s recent publication of “The Sculptor’s Funeral” in the January issue of McClure’s. Cleary, who in 1884 moved to Hubbell, Nebraska, where she and her family struggled to survive, was the author of hundreds of stories and poems, the proceeds of which helped to keep the family afloat until Cleary’s physical and mental health deteriorated. One of Cather’s earliest letters from a reader must surely have come from fellow Nebraskan and author Kate McPhelim Cleary, though delivered indirectly. Read alongside Cather’s own letters, they provide a glimpse of an author who was both self-assured in her work and eager to hear from readers who really understood it. Cather herself saved many of these letters, sharing them with friends and family when she found them inspiring or her correspondents particularly interesting. ![]() Our archives are home to not only Willa Cather’s letters, but to many of the letters that she received from her fans! Running the gamut from high school students to state politicians, Cather’s readers wrote to share their love for her writing and, often, the personal connections they felt to the subject matter. ![]()
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