Helen C. Moore to Charles W. Chesnutt, 11 August 1932
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CHARLES W. CHESNUTT
HELEN MOORE
EMILIE SKARABOTTA
CHESNUTT & MOORE
SHORTHAND REPORTERS
1646 UNION TRUST BUILDING
CLEVELAND
August 11, 1932
Dear Mr. Chesnutt,
The girls in the office carry on such a lively correspondence with you that they don't leave much for me to say. You all seem to be enjoying your epistolary spree, and so long as you get the news it does n't matter much who sends it. However, I enjoyed your two letters received this week, and am glad to hear you are in fair health and spirits.
Deposited the little check to your account, and am glad it helped out a bit. Paid your City Club dues some time back,1 also your August telephone bill -- by mistake, but we'll let it go. If you need ten dollars more for your incidental expenses, or the return trip, let me know, and we can scare it up, probably. Am trying to save as much as possible for your September interest payments, so you won't have to fret about that.
Waited till the last minute to see if the time for paying taxes was extended.2 It was, so we will keep your bank balance bolstered up for a few days longer. Dorothy3 brought in the rent from the Dills the first of the week.4
This has been a dull week, but we earned enough to pay the office expenses, or will have, we hope, by the time I take two little deps. tomorrow for Mr. Davis5 of BHIS, and write them out.6 Miss Kormos did two small jobs and earned $6.50 while I was busy at something else.7 She went to Municipal Court for Mr. Ziegler of Stearns-Chamberlain's office, at $2.50 per hour, and he lost the case, so she hopes to get a little record out of it.8 Went one other time for a Mr. Meltzer, who wanted a reporter but did n't want to pay $3.50 an hour.9 I did a little job for Mr. Milde of Tolles-Hogsett on Monday;10 took a short deposition for Mr. Cull,11 and we wrote out a small amount of transcript for Mr. Schultz of Garfield-MacGregor's office.12 Squire, Sanders & Dempsey seem to have retired from the law business.13 Have n't had a job from them so far this month. They must be all taking their vacations at the same time, or the bottom has fallen out of their business entirely. We hope the latter is n't true, and that they will get started again soon.
Called Dorothy up and asked her if she wanted the old desk or bookcase. She said she did n't, so we are letting Miss Kormos have them, and she is as delighted with the old stuff as we are pleased with our new second hand furniture for your office. Miss Skarabotta just blew in for a few minutes, on her way to the matinee, and she said she hoped you would be pleased with the change.14 She also sent her regards. She's enjoying her vacation, going to twenty-five matinees, playing golf, and taking her small nephew to a ball game or picnic now and then. Says she sleeps until eleven o' clock some mornings. Next week the Ohio will play "Mourning Becomes Electra."15 We're all set to go, via the "dutch treat" route -- Mrs. Reynolds, her daughter Mrs. Rodgers, Miss Skarabotta, Dr. Dirion, a lady-doctor friend of mine at Park Lane, and a couple of others.16 The matinees are twenty-five and fifty cents, the evening performances a dollar. One can really have a good time and spend very little, this summer.
Don't hurry home. I'm only thinking of going to Cambridge
[2]
2
Springs.17 Nothing definite about it at all. It would cost me fifteen dollars for three days, for room and board and golfing fee, and I hate to spend that much money -- even if I have n't had any vacations. May need it worse next winter. You can't tell what's ahead.
Yes, it is hell to be poor, but I've been that all my life, and am used to counting the pennies and stretching the dollars. Don't have to have a thing this winter but a coat, so have only my living expenses and those beastly interest payments at the Cleveland Trust to worry me.18 Had a heart to heart talk with Mr. Curtis the other day, and he renewed my loan for ninety days on my paying $250.00 plus the interest -- about $325.00 altogether.19 Says he won't promise not to make any more demands on me this year, but if the market continues to pick up, or even stay the way it is, I won't need to make any large payments.
Maybe I'm vain, but I do take a bit of credit to myself for keeping the office on an even keel during these times of storm and stress. We have n't made any big money, but we've all managed to live, somehow, and, please God, we shall continue to do so, until the sun dawns on brighter and happier days.
ALL the girls send their love to Johnnie,20 and their best regards to you. Remember me to all the folks, and believe me
Sincerely yours H M Ansd Aug 16/32 21Correspondent: 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. The City Club of Cleveland was founded in 1912 as a neutral forum for the discussion of social issues. Chesnutt became a member in 1915. [back]
2. In 1932, the second wave of the Great Depression made it difficult for citizens and businesses to pay their property taxes, which caused severe funding shortfalls in the Greater Cleveland budget. The deadlines for collecting the property taxes for the first half of 1931 were extended multiple times in Cleveland, and an "eleventh-hour" additional extension from Wednesday, August 10 to Monday, August 15, had just been announced in the papers (see "Pay Part, If You Can't All," Cleveland Plain Dealer, Thursday, August 11, 1932, p.4). [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. A Robert A. Dill rented rooms from Chesnutt's apartment at 1267 Lakeview Road in the early 1930s; he and his family have not been further identified. [back]
5. Likely Leonard H. Davis (1901–1975), a White lawyer with a law degree from Cornell who was working for Bulkley, Hauxhurst, Inglis & Sharp, the prominent Cleveland law firm co-founded by Robert Bulkley (1823–1911) by 1930. [back]
6. Bulkley, Hauxhurst, Inglis & Sharp (BHIS) was a prominent Cleveland law firm co-founded by Robert J. Bulkley (1880–1965) in 1909, initially as Bulkley & Inglis. By 1924, it was located in the newly built Bulkley Building, initially as Bulkley, Hauxhurst, Jamison & Sharp (BHJS). It was renamed from BHJS to BHIS in the summer of 1931 when Robert H. Jamison (1884–1965) left and Richard Inglis (1880–1956), one of the original founders of the firm, rejoined. [back]
7. Margaret Kormos Shuri (1910–1979), the daughter of Czech immigrants, was a bookkeeper who worked for Chesnutt & Moore from 1930 to 1932; she married in 1937. [back]
8. Stearns, Chamberlain and Royon was a Cleveland law firm. Ziegler has not been identified. [back]
9. Meltzer has not been identified. [back]
10. Tolles, Hogsett, Ginn and Morley was a Cleveland law firm. Milde has not been identified. [back]
11. Francis "Frank" Xavier Cull (1887–1965) was a White lawyer from Ohio with a Ph.D. from Notre Dame University and a law degree from Georgetown University. Beginning in 1913, he was associated with the law firm of Robert Bulkley (1823–1911), Bulkley, Hauxhurst, Inglis & Sharp, which often employed Chesnutt's stenography services. Work for Cull by Chesnutt & Moore's firm is mentioned in letters from 1930–1932. He was a member of the Cleveland and the state Bar Associations and a registered Democrat. [back]
12. Garfield, MacGregor and Baldwin was a Cleveland law firm headed by James R. Garfield (1865–1950), son of US President James A. Garfield. Mr. Schultz has not been identified. [back]
13. Squire, Sanders and Dempsey was a prestigious Cleveland law firm. [back]
14. Emilie Skarabotta (1908–1990) was the daughter of Hungarian immigrants. She was a stenographer and notary public who worked for Chesnutt's and Helen Moore's stenography business in the early 1930s and was eventually listed on the firm's letterhead. [back]
15. The Ohio Theater opened at 1511 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland in 1921 as a 1,000-seat venue for live performances. Mourning Becomes Electra is a dramatic trilogy by Eugene O’Neill that opened on Broadway in 1931 and toured in major US cities during 1932. The performances at the Ohio Theater began on August 21, 1932, and ran for about two weeks; they lasted five hours with a lunch or dinner intermission. [back]
16. Reynolds, Rodgers, Dirion and the “lady-doctor friend” have not been identified. “Park Lane” refers to the Park Lane Villa, the luxury residential hotel at Park Lane and 105th St. in Cleveland where Helen Moore (1881–1963) lived. [back]
17. Cambridge Springs is a town in northwestern Pennsylvania, about one hundred miles east of Cleveland, whose mineral springs made it a resort destination. [back]
18. The Cleveland Trust Company was a large nationwide bank, founded in 1894 as the second-largest bank trust headquartered in Cleveland. Its depression-era collapse did not happen until February 1933, along with most other Cleveland banks, but unlike its rival Union Trust, Cleveland Trust reopened. Both Chesnutt and his business partner Helen Moore (1881–1963) had large loans with the bank after the collapse of the stock market. [back]
19. Curtis, evidently a banker or loan officer with Cleveland Trust, has not been further identified. [back]
20. 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]
21. The note indicates that Chesnutt answered Moore, but a letter from August 16, 1932 has not survived. [back]
