Elements of Biography

Willa Cather

(1873-1947)

Elements of biography

Willa Sibert Cather was born on 7 December, 1873 in Back Creek Valley, Virginia. Her father was a farmer. The early years of young Willa's life left a memorable impression on her and formed the basis for many of her stories and characters. The Cathers traveled west across six states landing in Nebraska, Webster county, in 1883 to live at the paternal grandfather's farm at a time when many Swedish, French and Bohemian immigrant pioneers had moved to the area with dreams of homesteading. Willa became friend to many of the new Americans. There was harsh contrast between the green wooded hills of Virginia and the wide open prairies of Nebraska to the ten year old tomboy. After a few years the family moved to the village of Red Cloud where Charles Cather opened an insurance and real estate office.

Willa Cather entered the University of Nebraska in 1891 with her sights set on studying science, though a professor's submitting one of her papers, to the school newspaper the Nebraska State Journal, caused her to rethink her career plans. She began to write a column for it in dramatic criticism, and also acted in a number of school plays. A year after her graduation in 1895, her love of music and concerts led her to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and an offer to become editor of a Pittsburgh paper. She was telegraph editor of the Daily Leader, drama critic, and also submitted book reviews. Her journalistic career was now in full swing.

In 1900 Cather became an English high school teacher in Allegheny, Pittsburgh. The months off in the summer allowed her to travel to France in 1902 with Isabelle McClung, the daughter of a prominent local judge who had become her best supporter and lifelong friend. It was the first of a number of trips that cultivated the great love Cather had for France's culture and literature.

Cather earned a doctorate of letters from the University of Nebraska in 1917. During her lifetime she also earned honorary degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of California, and from Columbia, Yale, and Princeton.

She won the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922). In 1933