Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial Newsletter VOLUME Xxlx, No
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Copyright © 1985 by the Willa Cather Pioneer ISSN 0197-663X Memorial and Educational Foundation Winter Literary Issue, 1985 Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial Newsletter VOLUME XXlX, No. 1 Editor, Mildred R. Bennett RED CLOUD, NEBRASKA WlLLA CATHER Henry Stanley had several sons The youngest of the abducted DAUGHTER OF KINGS and daughters. His daughter Mar- boys died without issue; The eld- garet Stanley married in 1595 est, Joshua, married Elizabeth The story of Willa Cather’s an- Richard Houghton, of Wavertree Sumner of Dorchester, an ances- cestry begins with William the Con- Hall~ near Liverpool, they had an tor of Governor Sumner of Massa- queror whose son Henry the First only son and several daughters. chusetts. was grandfather of Henry II (the, His son Evan Houghton of one who murdered Thomas a Their son John married early, Wavertree Hall, was his heir and moved to Philadelphia but not pro¢- Becket). Henry III, grandson of married Ellen Parker of Bridge Henry II, fathered~ Edward I pering well, moved to the valley ly- Hall, County of Lancashire. They ing between the Blue Ridge and crowned 1274, a crusader, whose had a daughter, an only child son, Edward II, the first Prince of the Great North Mountain. John named Catharine. She married Henshaw and his eldest son, Wales, was crowned, 1307. His William Henshaw, of Poxteth Park, near Liverpool, and they lived with Nicholas moved to that section, son, Edward III, had a son known where he bought land from Lord as John of Gaunt. Gaunt’s daugh- her father at Wavertree Hall. ter married Ralph Neville, Earl of Fairfax. He located on Mill Creek, William Henshaw and his father- Frederick County, Virginia, about Westmoreland. in-law, Evan Houghton, were killed thirteen miles from Winchester. A "Their son, Richard Neville, on the 20th of June, 1644, at the copy of the parchment patent from married the Countess of Salisbury, storming of Liverpool, by Prince Lord Fairfax is available. and he took her title. Their daugh- Rupert. They were fighting against ter, Eleanor Neville, sister of the King Charles I. Nicholas’s son William married Agnes Anderson who became the great Earl of Warwick, the king- In 1651 the wife of William Hen- maker so called, married Sir mother of eleven children, one of Thomas Stanley afterwards cre- shaw died, leaving two sons, whom was Rachel who married M. ated Earl of Derby. His second wife Joshua, age seven, and Daniel, Joseph Lemon. (This body of infor- was Margaret of Lancaster, about eighteen months younger. In mation regarding the Henshaw Duchess of Richmond, and mother 1653 the executor of the estate of Henry VII, King of England." pretended to send those boys to "Thomas Stanley’s son George London to attend school and re- was held as hostage for the fidelity ported afterwards that they both of his father, by Richard II1. Richard died there of the plague. In reality NEBRASKA COMFORT III was killed at the battle of Bos- he sent them to New England and (Occasioned by reading Willa worth and Henry of Richmond was placed them in the family of Rev. Cather’s story "The Best Years") proclaimed on the battlefield by his Richard Mather, of Dorchester, father-in-law, Sir Thomas Stanley, near Boston, an eminent divine, Nebraska blizzard rages as Henry VII." who educated them with the above cedar shingles George Stanley died before his money forwarded for that purpose. as snow mist father. He left two sons, Thomas Their property to a large amount sifts gently down who succeeded his grandfather as was appropriated by the executor on Lesley and second Earl of Derby, and James, to his own use or rather that part her brothers warm who was created a baronet and which came from the Houghton in blanketed beds lived at Crosshall County, Lancas- family. That part which came from thinking of sunflowers. ter, England. James had four sons, Henry Stanley by marriage settle- When mother peeks the three eldest died without issue. ment upon his daughter Margaret into childrens’ garret Henry the youngest succeeded probably went back into the family her vision lingers and inherited the large estates of of Stanleys. The executor of Wil- beyond even death. liam Henshaw’s estate was Peter his father. He married Margaret, -- Richard F. Fleck daughter of Peter Stanley, of Ambrose, a man much employed Department of English Bickenstaff, another branch of the by the Parliamentary Sequestering University of Wyoming family. Committee in 1644-1650. Laramie, Wyoming Page 1 family is taken from West Virginia that whoever the father might be, the fall of 1868. The next morning, History Magazine 4:149-171 April, the royal blood flowed in the just like Jim again, he gazes on the 1904.) mother’s veins.) strange flat land and its boundless Rachel Lemon was the mother Credit for finding this genealogy stretches of wild shaggy grass goes to John March of Lawton, strewn with thousands of purple of Ruhammah Lemon (SAPPHIRA and yellow flowers. Both books de- AND THE SLAVE GIRL) who mar- Oklahoma. He has long been a re- scribe the seasonal round of work ried Jacob F. Seibert, and their searcher on Cather ancestry. Ma- daughter Rachel was Rachel Boak, terials which prove the above on the farm but in a more docu- mentary way in Garland as sug- the maternal grandmother of Willa story, and add much detail too complex to include, are filed with gested by such chapters as "The Cather ("Old Mrs. Harris"). Proof Fall’s Plowing," "Seeding," for the parentage of Joseph Lemon the Cather Historical Center in Red Cloud. "Planting Corn," "Threshing in the and his wife, Rachel, of Ruham- Fields," "The Corn Husking ." As in mah Lemon Siebert lies in the Will -- Mildred R. Bennett Cather’s prairie stories, the cycle Book 4, Page 243 "the Estate of of seasons is described in chap- Joseph Lamon dec’d in account with John Gray guardian to the ters like "Winter Winds," "The TWO CHILDREN OF THE Great Blizzard." Wildlife is studied heirs. Oct. 15, 1805 to 75 cents in "Snaring Gophers" or "The Ter- paid Hiram Baldwin for schooling PRAIRIE ror of the Rattlesnake" or "A Chap- Rheuamah Lamond. Dec. a pair of When one looks for writers who, ter on Prairie Game." We even find shoes for Rheuamah Lamon $1.50 beside Willa Cather, have dealt a chapter called "A Momentous -- March 1806 4 lb. cotton for with the Middle West in a convinc- Wolf-hunt" which brings to mind Reuamah Lamone $1.33 -- August ing way, the name of Hamlin Gar- m however remotely -- the tragic 1806 shoes and stockings for land is one of the first to come to story of Pavel and Peter. More Rheuamah Lamon $2.00. 1808 one’s mind. peaceful pastimes are observed in Sept. cloathing (sic) for Rheumah As early as 1894, in CRUM- "A Fourth of July Celebration," Lamon $9.48." BLING IDOLS Garland deplored "The Coming of the Circus," Marriage account of (and birth the conventional aspect of most "Owen Rides at the Country Fair." of Rachel) Jacob Funk Seibert to stories about the Middle West "ab- Similarly, the monotonous prairie Rohanna Lemmon, p. 38 from THE solutely colorless, when they are life in Cather’s work is brightened SEIBERT FAMILY by Raymond not pirated exotics." As for him, he up by such simple festivities and Martin Bell, Washington, Pennsyl- wanted to describe life on the rejoicings. Finally .A BOY LIFE vania 1959. prairie where he had spent his ends with Lincoln going to college, youth without sentimentality yet just as Jim Burden at the close of In the abstracts of Jacob Seibert with a true appreciation of its posi- Book II leaves Black Hawk for the and his wife, sometimes she is tive aspects. As he was to write University of Lincoln. Such similari- called Rhua and sometimes Rhui. later, in A SON OF THE MIDDLE ties, however striking do not of Sometimes Rhu. (Note various BORDER: "... Is it not time that we course mean that W. Cather was spellings of names m a common of the west should depict our own deliberately imitating Garland. problem in genealogy.) The wills distinctive life? The middle border Considering their personal ex- and abstracts are to be found at has its poetry, its beauty, if we can ~. perience of the middle West it was Martinsburg, West Virginia only see it." almost inevitable that these two From the Will Book No. 25, p. Undeniably, such was the goal gifted children of the prairie should 565, Frederick County, Virginia, he pursued in the numerous short use the sparse material it afforded Jacob F. Seibert leaves his eldest stories he wrote around 1890 and their inspiration. Besides, each child by his last wife a lot of the texts collected under the title author handled it according to his ground. She cannot sell the ground BOY LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE in own temperament and vision, Gar- but can move the house if she 1888. ’land in a more realistic way, Cather wishes. Ruhamah, his wife, was Garland’s stories and Willa Ca- with an ampler imaginative scope. executrix. Dated 28 February 1856 ther’s fiction offer curiously similar Without being unduly partial to her, Jacob Seibert owned one black episodes. Thus the first chapter of it can be said that she expressed man, two black women, one with BOY LIFE entitled "A Night Ride in "the beauty and poetry" of prairie child, two girls and two boys. a P,rairie Schooner" anticipates life more successfully than Gar- (Note: Just in case you notice that MY ANTONIA’s introductory chap- land did.