Early Childhood () Wilella Cather (rhymes with gather) was born on December 7, , in the home of her short, stalwart, maternal grandmother, Rachel Boak, in Back Creek Valley (near Gore), on the northwest tip of Virginia. The oldest of seven children, Willa was named for an aunt who died of diphtheria. She hated her given, or Christian, name and as soon as she had some say about the.