Willa Cather - (1873-1947)
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Read another essay on Willa Cather by Virginia student
Lori Lyles.
"All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them. As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was
stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day. The blonde cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows. The whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and
was not consumed" (40). My Antonia I. Personal and Professional Life On December 7, 1873 in Back Creek Valley, Virginia, a daughter was born to Mary Virginia
Boak Cather and Charles Cather. They named their first born Willella Sibert Cather after Charles' younger sister who died in childhood. The first nine years of Cather's life was
spent in Virginia where her father raised sheep on his father's farm until a fire destroyed the family's barn in 1883 (McFarland 8). The Cathers, which had grown to included Willa, her two brothers, her sister plus her
maternal grandmother Rachel Boak, moved to a farm on the Divide in the state of Nebraska. The Cather children did not attend school on the frontier, but in the evenings Willa Cather
would read to her grandmother from English classics and the Bible (McFarland 8). Concerned about the children's education, Charles and Mary Cather moved off the farm to
the prairie town of Red Cloud. There Charles Cather opened a real estate and loan office and the children were enrolled in public school. At the disapproval of her mother, Cather preferred to wear her hair short and fuss free.
Along with her brothers she often dressed in practical slacks and comfortable shirts. She was an active young girl and determined student. Sixteen-year-old Cather graduated from
Red Cloud High School in 1890. Of the three students in Cather's graduating class, she was the only one to further her formal education.
With the intent of studying science and medicine she moved to Lincoln and entered the University of Nebraska after completing one year at its prep school (Woodress54). A
professor was so impressed by her writing ability that he sent one of her assigned essays to the local town paper the Journal. He also sent a copy of the essay to the student literary magazine called the Hesperian
(Robinson 45). Both published her work. From then on Cather's focus turned toward writing. In her junior year she became the editor of the Hesperian
. By the time she graduated she had written over 300 pieces for the Journal ranging from short essay, observations, literary and theatrical reviews (Woodress 65).
After graduating in 1895, Cather realized that she would have to leave her family and the landscape that she loved in order to begin her literary career. She was offered a job as editor of Home Monthly,
a woman's magazine in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. For the next ten years Pittsburgh would be her home. Twenty-two year old Cather worked at Home Monthly one year then went on to work for the Pittsburgh Leader.
Becoming disappointed with the small amount of work that her newspaper career created Cather began teaching English and Latin in Pittsburgh high schools in 1901. During her five years of teaching she published
April Twilight, a collection of poems, in 1903 and The Trolls Garden ,a book of short stories in 1905. McClure's Magazine in New York offered Cather a full time editorial position in 1906.
Accepting the job and moving to New York, Cather found that the demands of the magazine left her little time to work on her own writings. In 1909, thirty-six year old Cather
met Sarah Orne Jewett, the New England writer from Maine. She encouraged Cather to devote all her time to writing. Jewett advised:
"If you do not don't keep and guard and mature your force, and above all, have time and quiet to perfect your work, you will be writing things not much better than
you did five years ago…Your vivid, exciting companionship in the office must not be your audience, you must find your own quiet centre of life and write from that
to the world that holds offices, and all Bohemia: the city, the country –in short, you must write to the human heart."
Although Cather valued her experience with the magazine, she left McClure's in 1912 and rented a home in Cherry Valley New York, outside of Cooperstown, to concentrate solely
on her own writings (Robinson )." During this time her personal writing style became clearer as she drew from her earlier Nebraska experiences to create her fiction.
As she grew older Cather became disappointed with the public's acceptance of mediocrity. She found materialism and the measurement of one's success in life by personal wealth upsetting. This is evident in her novel Lucy Gayheart
when she compares the businessman, Harry Gordon, with the musician, artist Clement Sebastian.
"Harry Gordon was rich, to be sure; he owned carriages and blooded horses, sleighs and guns, and he had his clothes made in Chicago. But his things stood
out, and weren't a part of himself… as if he were afraid of being ignored in the crown. [Lucy} remembered how Sebastian looked when he stood against the light
in his heelless shoes and old velvet jacket. … He had a simplicity that must have come from living a great deal and mastering a great deal. If you brushed against his
life ever so lightly it was like tapping on a bell; you felt all that you could not hear (38)."
Cather never married but throughout her life she remained close to her family and enjoyed friendships with men and women who shared her interests in the arts and travel. While
living in Pittsburgh, Cather met Isabella McClung who became her longtime companion and lifetime friend. Isabella described Willa Cather as "warm, frank, and having a radiantly
outgoing nature… her artistic gifts[are] the sureness and fire of her approach to life and ideas" (McFarland 10). Among American letters Cather is considered a minor writer; a female local colorist. Critics
find her writings to be regional and nostalgic but others identify these as her strengths. As a writer her greatest concern was how to create something "that belongs to literature" distinct from "merely a story" (McFarland 18).
Cather's richest, artistic writings came from those things closest to her heart, the early immigrant pioneer families that she knew as a girl in on the Divide, the bustling, dusty,
prairie towns and the natural beauty of the American Midwest and Southwestern landscape. Through her words, Cather artistically paints the early American pioneer spirit
along with the universal human experience of yearning for order, beauty and security in an ever-changing world. Like so many of the characters that she wrote, Cather was an American woman who led an
independent life, chose her own career and found her self-worth through her art. On April 24, 1947, at the age of 70, Cather died of a cerebral hemorrhage. She is buried at Jaffrey,
New Hampshire, where she spent her autumns between the years of 1918 and 1938. Lines from My Antonia are carved on her tombstone: "…That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great" (McFarland18).
II. Awards Cather was awarded the Pultzer Prize in 1923 for One of Ours. In 1930 Cather received the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for Death Comes for the
Archbishop. 1933 she was awarded the Prix Femina American for Shadows on the Rock. During her lifetime she was also honored with the Gold Metal of the National Institute of
Arts and Letters along with Doctor of Literature Degrees from the Universities of Nebraska, Michigan, California, Columbia, Princeton and Yale. III. List of Publications
1892 "Peter" a short story. Later to be part of My Antonia IV. Works Cited Cather, Willa. Lucy Gayheart. New York: Random House, 1995. V. Link National Women's Hall of Fame
1896 On the Divide
1903 April Twilight a collection of poems
1905 The Troll Garden a collection of short stories
1912 Alexander's Bridge
1912 O Pioneers!
1915 Song of the Lark
1917 My Antonia
1920 Youth and the Bright Medusa a collection of short stories
1922 One of Ours
1923 A Lost Lady . Awarded Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours
1925 The Professor's House
1926 My Mortal Enemy
1927 Death Comes for the Archbishop
1932 Obscure Destines a collection of three short stories
1935 Lucy Gayheart
1936 Not under Forty a collection of essays
1938 Sapphire and the Slave Girl
1945 The Best Years
Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1954.
Cather, Willa. O Pioneers! Pleasantville, New York: Reader's Digest 1990.
Mc Farland, Dorothy Tuck. Willa Cather. New York : Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1972.
Robinson, Phyillis C. Willa: The Life of Willa Cather. New York: Double Day, 1983.
Woodress, James. Willa Cather Her Life and Art. New York: Pegasus, 1970.
This essay was submitted by Rebecca Fowler, a student at Alfred University in New York. About Rebecca-
"It is never too late to be what you might have been" George Eliot.
Twenty-two years after high school I decided it was time to figure out what I was going to do "when I grow up." Enrolling at Corning Community College in Corning, NY. I earned my
A.S. degree in Liberal Arts. This is where I met Prof. Sandra Hall who strongly encouraged me to write this bio. With the continuous support of Prof. Hall and Prof. Michael Gilmartin I
am currently a nontraditional (old) student at Alfred University, Alfred, NY. majoring in English/Creative Writing under the quality care of Prof. Susan Morehouse.