Helen C. Moore to Charles W. Chesnutt, 29 August 1921
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CHESNUTT & MOORE
SHORTHAND REPORTERS
1106 WILLIAMSON BUILDING
CLEVELAND
CHAS. W. CHESNUTT
HELEN C. MOORE
August 29, 1921.
Dear Mr. Chesnutt,
Your schedule says you are due in Chicago on August 31st, day after tomorrow. I have an idea that you are still loitering up around in the neighborhood of Lake Louise, enjoying the beautiful scenery, and taking the rest that you must feel the need of after your strenuous trip across country. I am glad you are enjoying yourself, and standing up so well under the strain of constant travel. It's more than I could do -- in the same length of time.1
While you have been doing the pleasant things of which you speak, we have been working like nailers in the office. This is the first hour we haven't had anything to do since you went away, I do believe. Miss Klein2 is on her way down to the court house, to deliver the last batch of testimony to Judge Neff3 in the Otis Elevator case.4 Miss Leonhardt5 went on the last lap of her vacation Saturday, after writing almost 500 pages of testimony last week. This morning it looked as if we were going to have to copy 600 pages of exhibits in that old case of the Cleveland Trust Co. vs. the National Surety Co., but Mr. White6 finally decided to let the girls in his office do it, as most of their men are on vacation, and the girls aren't busy. I was much relieved, though Miss Klein was eager for the job -- being rested after her vacation.
Just for fun I figured up what the work amounts to. Since you left I have charged up $1,644.70; before you left you put on the books, in August, $307.45. Figure it up, and see what a nice little total it is -- for a supposedly dull month.
I don't want anything more to do until after Labor Day, but Mr. Phelps Crum7 has engaged me to take depositions on Friday, and while I was typing the first of this sentence Mr. Abbott8 called and wanted to know if we would address 2500 envelopes at a reasonable price. I told him yes. Had depositions set for Mr. McGraw this morning, but they went over to September.9
The weather continues warm, and I've worked so hard I'm nearly as tired as before I went away. I suppose when you come home you will be so tired you will have to go to bed for a couple of weeks, to rest up. We are all glad, however, that you have had the trip. It will do you a lot of good. Stay as long as you like.
Regards from every one at the office.
Sincerely, HCMCorrespondent: Helen C. Moore (1881–1963) was a White shorthand reporter who began working with Chesnutt in 1918. Moore graduated from Cleveland Law College in 1925, earned her Bachelor of Laws from Baldwin-Wallace, and later, at the age of 58, obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio State University. During the last years of Chesnutt's life, she managed their firm, Chesnutt & Moore, and upon his death in 1932, she founded her own firm, Helen Moore & Associates ("Memorial Resolutions," Journal of the Cleveland Bar Association 35 [1964]: 81–100). Most of their surviving correspondence consists of summer updates during periods when either she or Chesnutt were away from the office on their summer vacations.
1. In August 1921, Chesnutt and his daughter Helen used Chicago as their starting and end point for a road trip, making a large loop through Yellowstone to the West coast, going north and back east through Canada via Victoria, British Columbia, Lake Louise and Banff, Alberta, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, while Chesnutt's wife Susan and their son Edwin were vacationing in Idlewild, Michigan. [back]
2. Miss Klein, one of the stenographers working in Chesnutt and Moore's stenography business in the early 1920s, could not be further identified. It is likely that letters initialed "CWC/K" were typed by her. [back]
3. William Byron Neff (1851–1922) was a White lawyer from Ohio who had lived in Cleveland since the 1870s and served as Judge of Common Pleas for Cuyahoga County (1895–1905 and again 1908–1922). His book of lawyer profiles, Bench and Bar of Northern Ohio: Biography and History was published in the summer of 1921 (Cleveland: The Historical Publishing Company). [back]
4. On August 9, 1921, a petition was filed in the Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas claiming that the city of Cleveland unfairly awarded the Otis Elevator Company a contract to install the new hospital's elevators; as the presiding judge, William Neff heard the testimony, including from Otis's competitor, the American Elevator Machine Co., on August 18 and 19, 1921 (see Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 10, 1921: 3 and August 19, 1921: 19). [back]
5. Miss (F.) Leonhardt, one of the stenographers working for Chesnutt and Moore's stenography business in the early 1920s, could not be further identified. It is likely that letters initialled "CWC/FL" were typed by her. [back]
6. Most likely John Griswold White (1845–1928), a prominent White lawyer in Cleveland whose large law firm (in 1921 White, Johnson, Cannon & Spieth) was located in the Williamson Building, which housed Chesnutt's stenography offices between 1901 and 1924. White's law firm advertised in the 1910s and 1920s that the National Surety Company was a prominent client. [back]
7. A. Phelps Crum (1883–1928) was a White lawyer from Cleveland with degrees from Harvard and Western Reserve University who practiced in Cleveland with various partners after 1909 and had opened an independent law office in the Hanna Building by 1921. [back]
8. Most likely Gardner Abbott (1878–1948), a White lawyer from Ohio with a law degree from Columbia Law School who had a law practice in Cleveland, which, in 1921, was located in the Williamson Building. [back]
9. Most likely Harrison B. McGraw (1870–1944), a White lawyer originally from Michigan with degrees from the University of Michigan who began practicing in Cleveland in the 1890s and was president of the Cleveland Bar Association from 1929–1930. [back]
