Bettie Wilson to Charles W. Chesnutt, 19 November 1921
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[1]
Greenville Tenn
100 Church St.
Nov. 19, 21.
Dear Mr & Mrs Chesnutt,1
I recived your letter, I was glad to hear from you all. I am getting just fine. I have dandy good husband. I have four children the oldest girl is sixteen: her name is Roosevelt.2 she would have finish high school next year: but she has been sick so much. She is to large & fat She weight 210 lbs and only sixteen years old she is first year high
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school. We havent a library here for colord people and not much of book store. I am not able to give my girl and expensive present for Xmas. she likes to read so well, I thought one of your books would be such a nice present for and I know she will enjoy reading it. I will not be able to give my children a college education I will do well if give a high school education, Roosevelt have good Voice for singing and Mrs. Williams3 is living in Washington City give her
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my best regard tell her I would like to see her I live in small town, but, it is very prutty in spring. I would like for you all stop and see me. some time While you are traveling South. Tell Miss Helen4 I still have her Motto what she but in kitchen. Tell her I keep that in my home all time I havent much but I keep clean. I would like call you all some time on telephone I have bell phone in my home No. 118. I know it would cost lots.
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You find enclose post office money order for $1.75 the book The house behind the Ceders.5 I certain thank you for paying the postage. how would like a chicken from South. I can send it live are dressed. I will close hoping you all will have a pleasant Thanksgiving regard to all family
I am Very Truly Bettie Wilson.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. 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]
2. Bettie Wilson's daughter was Roosevelt Jaunita Wilson Greenlee (1905–1961); she was 16 at this time. [back]
3. 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]
4. 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]
5. The House Behind the Cedars (Houghton Mifflin, 1900) was Chesnutt's first published novel. House evolved over more than a decade from a short story, "Rena Walden," first drafted in the late 1880s. It was the only novel by Chesnutt to be serialized, once in 1900-1901 in the monthly Self Culture and again in 1921-1922 in the Black weekly Chicago Defender. House was also his only novel to be adapted to film (1924 and 1932). [back]
