At the urging of Charles Cather's parents, the family moved to Nebraska in 1883 when Willa was nine years old. The farmland appealed to Charles' father, and the family wished to escape the tuberculosis outbreaks that were rampant in Virginia. Willa's father tried his hand at farming for eighteen months, then moving the family into the town of Red Cloud, where he opened a real estate and insurance business, and the children attended school for the first time. Some of Cather's earlier work was first published in the "Red Cloud Chief," the city's local paper. Similarly, Cather read widely, having made friends with a Jewish couple, the Wieners, who offered her free access to their extensive library in Red Cloud. She made house calls with the local physician and decided to become a surgeon. For a time, she signed her name as William, but quickly abandoned the name for Willa.