Biography
Willa Cather was born in 1875 on a small farm near the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. She was the oldest of seven children of Charles Cather, a deputy sheriff and struggling entrepreneur, and Mary Virginia Boak Cather. Their Irish ancestors had settled in Pennsylvania during the 1750s. Willa defied her fashionable mother's wishes by cutting her hair short and wearing trousers. In 1883, the family relocated to Webster County, Nebraska, to be near Willa's grandparents. A year later, they moved to Red Cloud, a nearby railroad town, where Willa met Annie Sadilek, who later inspired the character in My Antonia. Willa attended the University of Nebraska, editing the school magazine and contributing to local newspapers. In 1892, she published the short story "Peter" in a Boston magazine, which later became part of My Antonia. After graduating in 1895, she became an editor at Home Monthly in Pittsburgh. Her short stories were eventually collected in The Troll Garden in 1905, gaining the attention of S.S. McClure. In 1906, she moved to New York to work for McClure's Magazine, eventually becoming managing editor. Over the next twenty years, she published notable works like O Pioneers! (1913), My Antonia (1917), and One of Ours (1922), which won the Pulitzer Prize. Her early novels explored the decline of provincial life and the pioneering spirit, while later works—including The Professor's House (1925), My Mortal Enemy (1926), and Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)—reflected personal despair following her commercial success. Willa described herself as belonging to a world divided in two, bridging the conservative 19th century and the modern 20th as a woman of both eras, connecting traditional culture with the evolving Americanism of new immigrants. She keenly observed the changes of the new century, focusing on intimate portrayals of the heart, soul, and home. Although there is speculation about her personal relationships with other women, her deep friendships are evident in the intense human interactions and nature imagery within her work. She continued writing novels and short stories until her death, after which she ordered her letters to be destroyed and was buried in New Hampshire.
