Charles W. Chesnutt to Ethel Chesnutt Williams, 18 March 1922
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March 18, 1922.
My dear Ethel:
I am ashamed of myself for not having written sooner to thank you for the beautiful necktie you sent me for Christmas; I surely ought to acknowledge it before it's worn out, for I have worn it a good deal and like it very much.
I note what you say in your more recent letter about Charlie.1 I have nothing more to say to him than I have said to you, which I assume you have communicated to him.2 I hope he is doing well, wherever he is and whatever he is doing, and whenever it is consistent to let himme know anything more definite about those matters thatwithout imperiling his future, I shall be humbly greatful for the information.
Glad to know that you and Ed are well.3 I don't know whether or not I wrote you about it, but I read with interest his very readable article of some weeks ago in one of the numbers of The Crisis,4 on Howard University.5 Give him my regards and believe me as always
Your affectionate father,Correspondent: Ethel Perry Chesnutt Williams (1879–1958), Chesnutt's eldest daughter, graduated from Smith College in June 1901 and worked as an instructor at Tuskegee for the academic year 1901–1902. In the fall of 1902, she married her fiancé, Edward C. Williams (1871–1929), then head librarian at Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Their only child was Charles Waddell Chesnutt Williams (1903–1940). After several years spent in Cleveland, the Williamses moved to Washington, D. C., in 1909, where Ethel continued to live and work after her husband's death in 1929; in the early 1930s, she was working as a social worker (home visitor) for Associated Charities of Washington, a poverty-relief umbrella organization. By 1939, she had remarried; her spouse was Rev. Joseph N. Beaman (1868–1943).
1. Charles Waddell Chesnutt Williams (1903–1940) was the older of Chesnutt's two grandchildren and the only child of Chesnutt's daughter Ethel and her husband Edward C. Williams. He graduated from Howard University in 1926 with a B.A. and from Howard Law School in 1929, and married Colleen Brooks Williams (1904–2006) the same year. He had a law practice in Washington, D.C., in the 1930s. His only child and Chesnutt's only great-grandchild, Patricia, was born in January 1931. [back]
2. In his letter of December 20, 1921, to his son-in-law Edward, Chesnutt discusses his response to Charlie's temporary unwillingness to attend college. Charlie later graduated from Howard University (1926). [back]
3. Edward Christopher Williams (1871–1929), the son of a Black father and a White mother of Irish descent, was from Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Western Reserve University's Adelbert College in 1892 and became its head librarian (1894–1909), also receiving an M.A. in library science at the New York Library School in 1899. He had known the Chesnutts at least since the 1890s and married Chesnutt's daughter Ethel in the fall of 1902; their son Charles (Charlie) was born in 1903. In 1909 the family moved to Washington, D. C., where Williams served as principal of M Street High School (1909–1916) and then as director of Howard University's library (1916–1929), where he also taught library science and foreign languages. He wrote a play performed at Howard University, as well as poetry and fiction for the Black literary magazine The Messenger in the 1920s. During the summer, Williams often worked at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library at 135th Street, and in 1929 he enrolled in a Ph.D. program in library science at Columbia University in New York City, but in December of that year he died unexpectedly after a brief illness. [back]
4. Edward C. Williams's brief history was published as "Howard University," The Crisis 23, No. 4 (February 1922): 156–162. [back]
5. A private university in Washington, D. C., Howard University was founded in 1867 by Oliver Otis Howard (1830–1909), the commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau from 1865 to 1874, as one of the first Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Chesnutt visited Howard University on his first trip to Washington in 1879 (The Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt, ed. Richard Brodhead [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993], 116). His son-in-law Edward C. Williams (1871–1929) was head librarian at Howard from 1916 until his death in 1929; his son-in-law John G. Slade (1890–1976) attended Howard Medical School; and his grandson Charles Waddell Chesnutt Williams (1909–1940) earned a B.A. and law degree from Howard. [back]
