Charles W. Chesnutt to Jessie B. Parks, 17 November 1931
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[1]
November 17, 1931
Miss Jessie Parks,
1935 15th Street, N. W.,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Miss Parks:
I beg to acknowledge receipt of the "truckload of sunshine" from you, addressed to me. I have eaten nearly all of the apples, and find my condition much improved.
Yours sincerely,Having formally acknowledged above the consignment of fruit which you sent me, permit me to say that it was very nice of you to think of me and to wish me good luck. I have had a lot of bad luck in the last two years, so this encourages me a little.
We spent nine weeks at Idlewild,1 Mrs. Chesnutt,2 Dorothy,3 little John4 and I. We carried a maid with us, which made the summer more endurable for Mrs. C. and Dorothy. Fishing was rather poor for the first month, but picked up a little later on, and I got a good fish picture. We stayed up there nine weeks, and we had a delightful vacation. When we got back, I was taken sick and was away from the office ten weeks, and am just beginning to crawl around there now, cluttering up space and being waited on.5
There were some nice New York people there during the summer. Dr. and Mrs. Alexander,6 whom you undoubtedly know, were very pleasant friends. They were up there a couple of weeks before we left; in fact, we left them there, but they came away a few days later.
[2]
JP--2
We went up on the boat with the car to Detroit, and Dorothy drove from Detroit to Idlewild. We came home the same way, only Edwin7 drove us to Detroit at the end of a two weeks' vacation, and then we used our return trip tickets on the boat. Helen8 was busy all summer at home on some school work, and did n't get up to Idlewild at all.
Dorothy's husband9 finished his medical studies and his interneship last year, and now a duly commissioned physician, authorized to kill or cure as many of his fellow citizens as he can induce to submit themselves to him. He opened up an office about a week ago, and has already had several patients; as there has n't been any disturbing news from them, I think he will be all right.
Mrs. Chesnutt is well, and little John is full of pep. They all join me in regards to you.
Wishing you the best of luck, believe me as ever, Sincerely yours, CWC/LKCorrespondent: Jessie B. Parks (1885–1973) was a Black public school teacher in Washington, D. C. Her family had moved there from Georgia in the late 19th century. At the time of the 1930 U.S. census, she lived with her mother, Amy, sister Adele and brother Frank at 1935 15th St. How she knew the Chesnutt family is not known.
1. Starting in 1922, the Chesnutts spent every summer until Chesnutt's death in Idlewild, in Lake County, Michigan, about 380 miles northwest of Cleveland. Idlewild was a popular lakeside resort for hundreds of Black families from the urban Midwest from the 1910s to the 1960s, when racism excluded them from many resort towns. In the spring of 1924, Chesnutt purchased a plot of land, where he had a summer home built in 1925. [back]
2. Susan Perry Chesnutt (1861–1940) was from a well-established Black family in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and worked as a teacher at Fayetteville's Howard School before marrying Chesnutt. They were married from 1878 until his death in 1932 and had four children: Ethel, Helen, Edwin, and Dorothy. Susan led an active life in Cleveland. [back]
3. Dorothy Katherine Chesnutt Slade (1890–1954) was the youngest child of Charles and Susan Chesnutt. After attending the women's college at Western Reserve University from 1909 to 1913 and working as a probation officer for two years, she began teaching junior high school French and English at Willson Junior High School in Cleveland. She married John G. Slade (1890–1976) on March 29, 1924; they had one child, John C. Slade (1925–2011), known as Johnnie. [back]
4. Chesnutt's grandson "Johnnie," John Chesnutt Slade (1925–2011), spent much time with his grandparents as a small child, since he and his mother, Dorothy (1890–1954), lived with them until the fall of 1931, when her husband John G. Slade (1890–1976) completed his medical degree at Howard University. He and his mother also spent the summers with his grandparents in Idlewild, Michigan. [back]
5. Chesnutt became seriously ill and was home-bound from late August to at least mid-October of 1931; while he is vague about the nature of his illness, his letters thanking friends for flowers, gifts, and visits indicate that they had been very concerned. [back]
6. This is most likely a reference to Dr. Ernest Raymond Alexander (1892–1960) and Lillian Anderson Alexander (1876–1957). He was a prominent Black physician from Tennessee and a Fisk University alumnus who had opened a medical practice in Harlem in 1920 and worked at Bellevue and Harlem Hospitals. She was originally from Ohio and was a leading force at the 137th Street YWCA in New York City. Both were long-time NAACP members and activists; W. E. B. Du Bois was a mutual acquaintance. [back]
7. Edwin Jackson Chesnutt (1883—1939) was the third child of Charles and Susan Chesnutt. Born in North Carolina, he spent his childhood in Cleveland, Ohio, graduated from Harvard University in 1905, and decided not to remain abroad after an extended stay in France in 1906. Instead, he trained and worked as a stenographer, including at the Tuskegee Institute from 1910–1912. After obtaining a degree in dentistry at Northwestern University in 1917, he became a dentist in Chicago. [back]
8. Helen Maria Chesnutt (1880–1969) was Chesnutt's second child. She earned degrees from Smith College and Columbia University, taught Latin (including to Langston Hughes) at Cleveland's Central High School for more than four decades starting in 1904, co-authored a Latin textbook, The Road to Latin, in 1932, and served on the executive committee of the American Philological Association in 1920. She became her father's literary executor and first biographer. [back]
9. John Galamiel Slade (1890–1976) was born in Scioto, Ohio, and married Dorothy Chesnutt (1890–1954) in 1924. Their son Johnnie (John Chesnutt Slade, 1925–2011) was born the next year. Slade received a doctorate in veterinary medicine at Ohio State in 1919 and continued his studies there, but then completed a medical degree at Howard University in 1930 and began to practice in Cleveland in the fall of 1931. [back]
