Bettie Wilson to Charles W. Chesnutt, 9 November 1921
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[1]
Greenville Tenn
Nov 9 1921.
100 Church St.
Mr. Charls W. Chestnutt,
Dear Sir
I thought, I would write sir if you had any of your books you wrote. I have a daughter that is found of reading. I have been telling her about your books. I know all children are married,1 Mrs Williams2 living in Cleveland now I would like to hear from some time. This Bettie
[2]
Cladwell that usted to stay with you all3 you tell your price for the book and I will send it to you. I would like to see you again in life I have four children. Now I am trying give them schooling.
Correspondent: Elizabeth (Bettie) Wilson, née Cladwell or Caldwell, was a Black woman born in Tennessee between 1884 and 1888; she died in 1939. According to the 1910 and 1920 census, she lived with her husband P. R. Wilson (1875–1928) at the listed address, 100 N. Church St., in Greeneville, Tennessee. He owned the Clover Leaf Restaurant. After his death, Bettie Wilson was listed as its owner in the 1930 census. The four children she references were Albert (1911–1959), Emily (married name Durham, 1917–2001), Harrison (1921–1965), and the daughter she mentions, Roosevelt Jaunita Wilson Greenlee (1905–1961).
1. Bettie Wilson is mistaken; only two of Chesnutt's four children, Ethel and Dorothy, were ever married. [back]
2. Ethel Perry Chesnutt Williams (1879–1958), Chesnutt's eldest daughter, graduated from Smith College in June of 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 in 1909, the Williamses moved to Washington, D.C., 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). [back]
3. It is not clear when Wilson stayed with the Chesnutts, and not clear whether she was a guest or was employed by them. [back]
