Biography of Willa Cather Essay -- Biographies Authors Writers Essays

Biography of Willa Cather Willa Cather was born December 7th, 1873 in the Back Creek Valley of Northern Neck, Virginia. Her parents, Charles Cather and Virginia Bloak, both came from families that had lived in the region for generations. Their house was described as full of bustling and many-colored life (E.K. Brown 18) including Willas three siblings, neighbors, and the friends of the family who came around often. The people of the town were eager to help one another out. Willa spent untold of her time divided between her father, whom she helped in the fields tending to the sheep, and going with her grandmother and friend Margie Anderson on errands of mercy and medicine, or with her mother on visits to cousins, neighbors or dependents (21). At age nine, however, Charles Cather decided to move the family and join his father and brother near Red Cloud, Nebraska. The moves were difficult for Willa, but in later years she never regretted the change. Red Cloud was a small, settled prairie town whose population was constantly growing from European immigration. The town was made up of primarily Scandinavian, Bohemian, and French immigrants who had move up to work the land. The Cather family grew to include seven children while there, but Cathers strongest influences came from older people in town schoolteachers and neighbors who read with her and shared their libraries. Cather also met people bid Annie Sadilek, a Bohemian woman credited with the inspiration for the character Antonia of Cathers My Antonia. The entire town and atmosphere of Red Cloud served as the backdrop for virtually of Cathers novels and short stories. She said herself that the years from eight to fifteen are the formative period in ... ... Her lifes contribution to society is remembered and praise. Cather was a modernist, but more than that, she was an amazing writer whose novels and writings are relevant and still touch readers today as they did when she had first writt en them. Resource rascalGreat Websites www.unl.edu/Cather The Willa Cather Electronic Archive http//www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/cather.html Perspectives in American Literature, a Research and Reference Guidewww.ibiblio.org http//www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Authors/about_willa_cather.html Bibliography Brown, E.K. Willa Cather A Critical Biography. Alfred A Knopf freshly York 1953.Jessup, Josephine Lurie. The Faith of Our Fathers. Richard R. Smith New York 1950.www.gustavus.edu, Scott Newstron, January 6, 2996, Harvard University, last updated March 5 2002.