Mary Ochiltree Chesnutt to Charles W. Chesnutt, 27 December 1921
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[1]
541 Russell St.1
Fayetteville, N.C.
Dec. 27, 1921.
Dear Charles:
Your letter came, I was very glad to hear from you and to know that you had not forgotten me. I wish to thank you very much for the $10. that you sent me. I appreciate it very much indeed.
I also received money from Lily,2 Sara,3 and John4 and a box from Sara containing some gifts for Anne5 and me from Sara and Lily.
[2]
I am not well at all, have been suffering all Fall and Winter with rheumatism. Anne has been in bed with the Grippe but she is better and able to be up and about. She keeps very busy with her school work.
Hoping you and your family had a very Merry Christmas and will have a Bright and Happy New Year. I remain,
Yours with much love, Cousin Mary. ChesnuttP.S. Anne joins me in love to you. I mailed you a Xmas. card hope you read it.
C.M.Correspondent: Mary Elizabeth Ochiltree Chesnutt (1850–1926) spent her entire life in Fayetteville, NC. She was a niece of Chesnutt's maternal grandmother Chloe Sampson Harris and came to take care of Chesnutt and his five full brothers and sister after his mother's death in 1871 (Helen M. Chesnutt, Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Pioneer of the Color Line [Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1952], 6-7). "Cousin Mary" married Chesnutt's father Andrew Jackson Chesnutt (1833–1920) in 1873 and had six more additional children between 1875 and 1888, of whom the fourth, Jane, died as a child (1883–1887). The others were John, Sara, George, Anne, and Herbert. After Chesnutt's father's death in 1920, she continued to live with her daughter Anne (1882–1965).
1. Chesnutt's father Andrew Jackson Chesnutt (1833–1920), his wife Mary, and some of their adult children had lived at 541 Russell St. in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at least since the census of 1910; he owned the adjacent lot as well. When Andrew Chesnutt died in 1920, the property went to his widow, and then to his daughter Anne (1881–1965). [back]
2. Lillian Chesnutt Richardson (1871–1940), called "Lilly" or "Lily," was Chesnutt's youngest sister. Born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, just before their mother Anne Maria (1835–1871) died, she came to join the Chesnutt family in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1888. She worked as a typist and stenographer in Cleveland, first for Chesnutt and then independently, both before and after her marriage in 1893. Her husband Gerrit (also Garrett) S. Richardson (1871–1926) was head telegraph operator for a railroad company in Cleveland, and a nephew of Chesnutt's mentor Robert Harris (1839–1880). The couple had one son, Charles. [back]
3. Sara (also Sarah) N. Chesnutt (1877–1969) was Chesnutt's half-sister, the second of the five children of Andrew Jackson Chesnutt (1833–1920) and his second wife, Mary Ochiltree Chesnutt (1850–1926). Sara attended the State Normal School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and became a teacher. She seems to have lived in Fayetteville most of her life, first with her parents and then with her younger sister, Anne Chesnutt Waddell (1881–1965). [back]
4. John Henry Chesnutt (1875–1922) was Chesnutt's oldest half-brother, the first of the five children of Andrew Jackson Chesnutt (1833–1920) and his second wife Mary Ochiltree Chesnutt (1850–1926). John moved to Ohio as a young man, and after 1901 was briefly married to Esther A. Skeene (born c. 1876), a niece of distant Chesnutt cousin John Patterson Green (1845–1940). During this time, he worked as a photographer. By 1910 he had divorced and returned to North Carolina to live with his parents, before marrying again in the 1910s and moving to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, about 100 miles northwest of Fayetteville, where he worked at an oil factory and died of influenza at the age of 46. [back]
5. Anne (also Ann E. or Annie) Chesnutt Waddell (1881–1965) was Chesnutt's half-sister, the fourth of the five children of Andrew Jackson Chesnutt (1833–1920) and second wife Mary Ochiltree Chesnutt (1850–1926). Anne became a teacher after graduating from the State Normal School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and was later employed by an organization working to improve rural education in the area. She lived with her parents in Fayetteville until the death of her mother. Three years later, in 1929, she was married to Charles A. Waddell (1867–1943), who managed a restaurant, but she continued teaching until her retirement in 1936. In 1939, a new Black high school in Western Fayetteville (later an integrated middle school) was named in her honor. [back]
