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For membership information, see: http://nebraskahistory.org/admin/members/index.htm Article Title: The Other Side of Willa Cather Full Citation: Marilyn Arnold, “The Other Side of Willa Cather,” Nebraska History 68 (1987): 74-82 URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1987WCather.pdf Date: 10/18/2013 Article Summary: Cather biographies emphasize that she was often difficult and inaccessible. Her personal friends and many who knew her casually remembered her more positively. Cataloging Information: Cather Biographers: John H Randall III, Paul Horgan, E K Brown, James Woodress, Mildred R Bennett, L K Ingersoll, Marion Marsh Brown, Ruth Crone, Elizabeth Moorhead Vermorcken Cather Acquaintances: Alfred A Knopf, Edith Lewis, Elizabeth Sergeant, George Seibel, Fanny Butcher, Elmer Alonzo Thomas, Phyllis Martin Hutchinson, Fannie Hurst, Lorna R F Birtwell, Frank Swinnerton, Marion King, Truman Capote, Mary Ellen Chase, Evaline Rolofson, Eleanor Shattuck Austermann, Myrtle Mason, Eleanor Hinman, Alice Booth, Grant Reynard, Josephine Frisbie, Rose C Feld, Flora Merrill, Walter Tittle, Burton Rascoe Place Names: Red Cloud, Nebraska; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick; Jaffrey, New Hampshire; New York City, New York Photographs / Images: Willa Cather at a picnic; young Willa Cather with Margaret Miner and Evelene Brodstone (later Lady Vestey); Dr Elmer Alonzo Thomas; George Seibel and his wife Helen (1899 photo); Truman Capote (1979 photo); Nebraska artist Grant Reynard; Lady Evelene Brodstone Vestey; inscription written by Cather in honor of Lady Vestey for the dedicatory tablet of the Brodstone Hospital, Superior; Cather on December 7, 1936 • The Other Side of Willa Cather By Marilyn Arnold Students of Willa Cather are accus­ dall III is one who takes an extreme flintiness but granting that she had to tomed to biographical pronounce­ position, asserting that Cather's be ruthlessly protective ofher time and ments about her cantankerous neurotic personality ruined her art.' energy in order to write. nature, her readily expressed pre­ Even the kindly Paul Horgan indirect­ E.K. Brown indicates that more judices, and her almost militant ly lends credence to the standard view than any writer of her time, Cather reclusiveness. While her detractors of Cather's irascible nature. He good­ managed to keep her "freedom and admit that she was fiercely loyal and naturedly describes her impatient anonymity," probably at least partly warmly accessible to family and close reaction when as a young man he inad­ because of Alfred A. Knopf's (Cather's friends, even her admirers have been vertently interrupted her at work in a publisher) sympathy with her "aver­ compelled to concede that to the Santa Fe hotel," Most commentators sion to public encounters" and his end­ casual observer (or the celebrity mon­ who express opinions on the subject of less efforts to ward off "demands for ger), she may have seemed anything Cather's personality, however, take a speechmaking and attendance at but gracious and kind. John H. Ran- neutral stance, acknowledging her innumerable functiona.?'' James Woodress notes that Cather was Willa Cather at picnic held on the old Red Cloud golf course. Courtesy of Willa "always highly selective in her friends. Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation Collection, Nebraska State Historical Society. She chose the people she wanted and ignored the rest, but she never quite managed to be as independent as she liked to seem."! According to Wood­ ress, in the last fourteen years of her life "she became increasingly crotchety about invasions of her privacy and made very few public appearances." Mildred R. Bennett also notes that temperamentally Cather "enjoyed ... isolation." As one observer said, she chose the persons she allowed "inside the battlements" of her affection, and her reclusiveness - which became pronounced in her maturity - was evident even in her youthful years in Pittsburgh." Among those commentators par­ ticularly interested in Cather's per­ sonality is L.K. Ingersoll. He indicates that the residents of Grand Manan Island - where Cather spent many summers and eventually built a cot­ tage - were "at best, reserved in their Marilyn Arnold, Professor of English and Dean of Graduate Studies at Brigham Young University, has lectured widely and published two books and numerous articles on Willa Cather. Willa Cather opinion" ofthe "rather austere and lit­ beginning to cultivate the reticence tle known 'summer visitor' " who that later made her almost a recluse.:" seemed to want little to do with them. Butcher's unabashed personal admir­ But Ingersoll also reports the views of ationfor Cather, apparent in countless one local citizen who taxied Cather laudatory reviews, is confirmed in her about and did carpentry work for her. autobiographical memoir. She notes This fellow claimed that it was only that Cather was more absorbed in, and the unscheduled disturbance that fulfilled by, her writing than anyone irritated her, and that her need for Butcher had ever known. 9 absolute concentration while at work Following is a sampling of descrip­ created a false impression about her tions of Cather by casual observers, personality." some recalled after the passing of Others interested in Cather's nature years, others recorded secondhand. are Marion Marsh Brown and Ruth The most valuable of them for us Crone. In their anecdotal biography, today, however, may be those they portray Cather in Jaffrey, New published shortly after the encounter Hampshire (Cather's earlier summer that produced them, uncolored by retreat) as even-tempered, though time and Cather's increasing fame. private. Their description of her in Cather's observers pay particular New York, however, characterizes her attention to her appearance - that is, as aloof and likely to rebuff any ad­ to her physical build, facial features, vances by strangers. Brown and Crone and dress - and to her conver­ conclude that "probably all of Willa's sational manner. acquaintances in the 1920s - with the Young Willa Cather (right) with One of the earliest, and one of the possible exception of Edith Lewis and Margaret Miner (center) and Evelene least flattering, of these published Brodstone (later Lady Vestey). a few old friends in Red Cloud, notably casual reminiscences is that' of Dr. Annie Pavelka and Carrie Miner Sher­ Elmer Alonzo Thomas, a hometown wood - would have agreed that she childhood contemporary of Cather was difficult at times."? passing views do not tell the whole and a descendant of one of Red Cloud, Such views enjoy a large degree of story, but they do tell a part of it that Nebraska's founding fathers. Article credibility, but they probably need to has been generally unknown or 73 of his 1953 Compilation of Webster be adjusted to accommodate the slighted. The present discussion County Chronicles is titled "Willa impressions Cather made on casual deliberately omits the views of those Cather as I Knew Her." Thomas ram­ observers - such as interviewers, lec­ who knew Cather well - the memoirs bles a good deal, talking about a ture audiences, and passing acquain­ published by Edith Lewis, Elizabeth varietyof Webster County matters and tances. Brown and Crone note that at Sergeant, and Alfred A. Knopf, and naively revealing some unpleasant least one interviewer, Burton Rascoe, the recollections of other close friends personal envy over Cather's rise to found Cather approachable and and family members. More than national prominence. He fixes on what intelligent. The fact is that during the casual observers, but less than lifetime he regards as her "masculine" charac­ 1920s, the decade Brown and Crone close friends are people like George teristics and asserts that she was just single out as a period when most peo­ Seibel, who first knew Cather at the an ordinary person and certainly no ple found Cather "difficult," she gave turn of the century when she was editor saint. In fact, he seems unable to a number of public lectures and of the Home Monthly in Pittsburgh, forgive her, both for failing to endow granted more than a few interviews. In and Chicago Tribune book columnist Webster County with some sort of rich addition, she apparently struck up Fanny Butcher. Seibel remembers her memorial andfor choosingto be buried several new acquaintances and as looking "about eighteen," a "plump elsewhere. "To me," he writes, "she interacted readily with strangers in a and dimpled" young woman "with was never attractive and I remember variety of public settings. dreamy eyes and an eager mind, . her mostly for her boyish makeup and Ifone were to read only the reports of avid of the world." Reflecting on Ellen the serious stare with which she met these interviewers and observers, one Glasgow's comment about Cather's you." He recalls that Dr. Damerell, would conclude that here was a woman reticence, Seibel recalls that even as who apparently favored Cather and of impressive physical presence, of early as 1911, when she would go four Thomas among the town children, much good humor, and of abundant nights in succession to see Sarah agreed withhimthat "she had as many gracious charm. Obviously, these Bernhardt perform, "she was also male tendencies and characteristics as 75 Nebraska History - Summer 1987 female." Thomas says later, "I charmed and impressed those she remember Willa Cather most for her encountered. Novelist Fannie Hurst masculine habits and dress ...