Mary Dickerson Donahey to Charles W. Chesnutt, 2 July 1932
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The Society of Midland Authors1
July 2 1932
Dear Mr. Chesnutt:---
We are always so glad to hear from you, and doubly obliged for your paying the attention to our taxes that you do--because in that way we do hear! I am so sorry that this time there is bad news. But of course we all have a lot of the same. We came north extra early because we could live so much more cheaply up here.2 Things will have to go up some day or everything will bust and we'll just not care!
What you say of Miss Delehunte s tax dodging delights us.3 I wish she owed more. If only we could get her out some way. Buck Cooke4 is still very desirous of getting in but she would try to stick him for that chilly dirty tumbledown cottage.5 Do try to dope out something. We never did want her, she forced her way in anyhow where no decent person would, and Bill6 says--"t Tell her to go to heell out of there. She's no good never was, always been selfish and mean and a nuisance. Get rid of her. We'll come in the fall and do our part."
Better let us do all that it will be legally possible, so you folks who live there may escape as much as possible of the dirt. She will make plenty. What a nasty old pill she is anyhow.
Bill is working at a new series for a magazine. He won't get much for it but every little bit helps. I'm doing the second serial I've had ordered. That sounds big but childrens' magazines only pay a cent a word. Every little bit helps these days however. I've a new book out in Sept. MYSTERIOUS MANSIONS. Said by my publishers to be the best I ever did. Largely autobiographical, of the time I spent on Blackwell's Island.7 I hope it sells, but oh these times!
I was in an auto accident April 30. Busted the wind shield and did n't know it--a record1 Only slightly bcut, but leg huert so I still limp. But I've limped so many times in my luife I don't mucjh mind. Seems sort of normal. Our KLincoln became junk though. Bill was not driving. He was home! We now have a Ford! Signs of the times again. Love to all---check enclosed.
Bill will pay her taxes. Old grafter!
Correspondent: Mary Augusta Dickerson Donahey (1876–1962) was a White journalist and author of children's books. She was originally from 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. See Helen Chesnutt, Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Pioneer of the Color Line (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), 187–88.
1. The Society of Midland Authors was founded in 1915 by and for published authors from twelve Midwestern states of the U.S. Its headquarters are in Chicago. Both Mary Dickerson Donahey (1876–1962) and William Donahey (1883–1970) were members by 1930; Chesnutt was not. As per the complete letterhead, Mary Dickerson Donahey was the organization's secretary at the time this letter was written. For readability, the remainder of the letterhead is not transcribed at the top of the letter but is included in this footnote as unformatted text. The letterhead can be seen in its entirety in the accompanying image of the letter. The text of the remainder of the letterhead is as follows: PRESIDENT MARGARET AYER BARNES 1153 NORTH DEARBORN ST. CHICAGO VICE-PRESIDENTS ILLINOIS MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY INDIANA MEREDITH NICHOLSON IOWA EDWIN FORBES PIPES KANSAS WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE MICHIGAN ARTHUR H. VANDENBERG MINNESOTA OLE E. RÖLVAAG MISSOURI J. WILLIAM HUDSON NEBRASKA BESS STREETER ALDRICH OHIO CLARENCE STRATTON SOUTH DAKOTA JOSEPH MILLS HANSON WISCONSIN ZONA GALE SOCIAL CHAIRMAN ARTHUR MEEKER, JR. SECRETARY MARY DICKERSON DONAHEY 2331 CLEVELAND AVENUE CHICAGO TREASURER HARLAN WARE HOTEL SHERMAN CHICAGO LIBRARIAN RENEE B. STERN DIRECTORS BAKER BROWNELL LLEWWLLYN JONES FANNY BUTCHER CLARA INGRAM JUDSON GEORGE DIELON DOUGLAS MALLOCH ALICE GERSTENBERG ARTHUR MEEKER, JR. EDGAR J. GOODSPEED MARION STROBEL MITCHELL DAVID HAMILTON HARRIET MONROE [back]
2. William Donahey (1883–1970) and his wife Mary Dickerson Donahey (1876–1962) went to Grand Marais on Michigan's Upper Peninsula for their summer vacations. They owned an unusual cottage on Grand Sable Lake: the barrel-shaped Pickle Barrel House, built for them in 1926, evoked William Donahey's Teenie Weenie cartoons and advertising illustrations. In 1937, the Donaheys no longer found it feasible to live in it, and it was moved to Grand Marais in 1937 as a tourist attraction. [back]
3. Mary Ellen Delahunte (1870–1951) was a White woman who lived in Cleveland most of her life. In 1921, she purchased a plot of land from A. Frank Counts (1881–?) and his wife Eula (1869–1942), members of the Chester Cliffs Club. The Counts had not consulted the other members of the Club and gave Delahunte the impression that she was not responsible for property taxes or repairs relating to the property. This led to conflicts within the Club regarding Delahunte's unpaid tax bills. [back]
4. Edmund Vance "Buck" Cooke, Jr. (1905–1976) was a visual artist who worked at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the 1930s and was interested in joining the Chester Cliffs Club to move to the countryside. In 1939 he moved to a farm near Peninsula in the Cuyahoga Valley with his family. His father, Edmund Vance "Buck" Cooke (1866–1932) was a well-known Cleveland poet and, like Chesnutt and Dickerson Donahey, a member of the Tresart Club that was founded around the same time as the Chester Cliffs Club. [back]
5. See "Buck" Cooke Jr.'s January 27, 1932 letter to Chesnutt, regarding his interest in purchasing Mary Ellen Delahunte's plot and becoming a Chester Cliffs Corporation member. [back]
6. 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. After 1905, 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, and for several books he co-wrote with his wife. [back]
7. Mysterious Mansions by Mary Dickerson Donahey (1876–1962) was published by Doubleday, Doran & Company in late 1932. It is set on Blackwell's Island, now Roosevelt Island, New York, in the East River between Manhattan and the borough of Queens. Mary Dickerson Donahey's father was storekeeper on the island when it housed the City or Charity Hospital. [back]
