Charles W. Chesnutt to Mary Dickerson Donahey, 13 March 1922
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March 13, 1922.
Mrs. Mary D. Donahey,
5808 Winthrop Avenue,
Chicago, Ill.
My dear Mrs. Donahey:
I fear you are beginning to put me in the same class with Frank Counts,1 in that I have n't reported any progress in the Chester Cliffs property.2 I confess that the fault has been mine for several weeks, because at least that long ago Frank told me that he would go out with me any pleasant afternoon and look the ground over. He said further that he had convinced Eula3 that they had made a mistake in selling out, that they ought to have stayed in the club until it was finally dissolved, and he expressed his willingness to do the right thing. I spoke to him this morning, but he was in court and we made a tentative arrangement for tomorrow and if he is not in court and I am out of court, and the weather is pleasant, we will drive out and look the ground over. He has been bothered with cold and neuritis, and I have n't been any too robust myself, and up until this week the weather has been very unfavorable. I hope to have something to report to you in a few days.
I hope you and Bill are well and continue in your prosperous career.4 My family are all well and working as hard as ever.
With my best regards and those of the family to you both, I remain
Yours very truly,Correspondent: Mary Augusta Dickerson Donahey (1876–1962) was a White journalist and author of children's books. She was originally from New Jersey, grew up in New York City and worked for the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 1898 to 1905. She married the cartoonist William Donahey (1883–1970) in 1905 and moved with him to Chicago, where she wrote children's and young adult books, cookbooks and newspaper columns. The couple befriended the Chesnutts in the early 1900s, when they were part of the Tresart Club and the Chester Cliffs Club.
1. Albert Franklin (Frank) Counts (1881–1946), a White Cleveland lawyer with a 1906 law degree from Western Reserve University's law school, was a member and initially the secretary and treasurer of the Chester Cliffs Club when it was founded. In 1913, he married Eulalie (Eula) Gaskill Miller Counts (1869–1942), who was also a shareholder in the Club. In 1930 Counts was given an eighteen-month prison sentence for embezzlement in a fraudulent divorce case. Paroled in December of 1931, he joined his wife in rural Virginia, where they lived on a farm that was auctioned off after his death. [back]
2. The Chester Cliffs Club or Company was a small stockholding corporation founded in September 1903 by Chesnutt and ten friends who were "stockholders," in order to purchase eleven acres of land in Chester Township near Chesterland, Ohio, and Scotland, Ohio, twenty miles from Cleveland. Summer cottages were built by three of the parties in order to spend their summers away from the city, and in 1916 the Chesnutts purchased one of these. Stockholder meetings were called every fall, even as eventually only three families seem to have remained: the Chesnutts, the Donaheys (who were living in Chicago after 1905), and the Counts. In 1921, Frank Counts (1881–1946), a Cleveland lawyer who was the longtime secretary and treasurer of the Club and his wife Eulalie (Eula) (1869–1942) sold a lot with a cottage to Mary Ellen Delahunte (1870–1951) without consulting the other members, causing conflicts about property tax and upkeep for years. Shortly afterwards, Chesnutt, as the club president, took on the responsibility of reminding members of tax payments and calling the annual meeting. Some of the property was transferred to individual owners in 1923, but the corporation was never legally dissolved. [back]
3. Eulalie (Eula) Gaskill Miller Counts (1869–1942) was a White woman who had family roots in Stark County, Ohio, where her father was a grain dealer. She attended Ohio Wesleyan University. Nothing is known about her first marriage, but a son from that marriage, Joseph Gaskill Miller, died young (1890–1908). Eula married A. Frank Counts (1881–1946) in 1913 and was active in a number of Women's clubs in Cleveland; the couple owned a cabin in the Chester Cliffs Club, near the Chesnutt family. Around 1930, the couple relocated to rural Virginia, possibly as a result of the scandal surrounding Frank's embezzlement and subsequent prison sentence; they owned a farm near Lightfoot, Virginia. [back]
4. William (Bill) Donahey (1883–1970) was a White writer and cartoonist from Westchester, Ohio. After graduating from the Cleveland School of Art in 1903, he briefly worked for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he met and married Mary Dickerson Donahey (1876–1962) in 1905 and became friends with the Chesnutts. The couple joined the Chester Cliffs Club and built a cottage on the land. After 1905, the couple moved to Chicago, where he worked for the Chicago Tribune and produced a widely syndicated comic strip, the "Teenie Weenies," which ran intermittently from 1914 until his death and became the basis of an advertising campaign for a canned-goods company in the 1920s as well as for several books he co-wrote with his wife. [back]
