Emilie Skarabotta to Charles W. Chesnutt, 29 August 1931
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[1]
The GRAND
Mackinac Island
MICHIGAN1
Aug. 29/31
Dear Mr. Chesnutt—
Had a very pleasant trip back to Detroit in the plane at a speed of between 95 to 100 miles an hour. It's lots of fun. You ought to try it if you can sneak away some time. I was in Detroit at 5 00 o'clock.2
Came up on a Mich. Central Sleeper last night.3 Got Miss Moore4 out of bed an hour early this morning because I did n't know we were in another time zone. To top it off the train was about 1½ hours late. Is n't that fate, or something, for you?
We just came back from a horse & buggy ride to the places of interest on the island, among which is Mr. Luther Day's home.5 Came back & had tea.
Forgot to tell you about the ferry ride over. The spray went over the deck & nobody ventured out except some Boy Scouts.
[2]
Hope you're not too busy Monday. We'll be back Tuesday morning to attend to the fall rush, unless we drown on the way home, which is n't likely in spite of the fact neither of us can swim.
Regards from both of us.
Sincerely yours, Emilie SkarabottaCorrespondent: Emilie Skarabotta (1908–1990), the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, was a White stenographer and notary public who worked for Chesnutt and Helen Moore's stenography business in the early 1930s. Later, she was listed on the firm's letterhead.
1. Mackinac Island, Michigan, a small island in the straits between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, became popular as a tourist destination in the late nineteenth century; it had been accessible by ferry from the mainland since the 1870s. The Grand Hotel had been in operation since 1887 and had hundreds of rooms. [back]
2. The National Shorthand Reporters' Association annual meeting was held at the Hotel Fort Shelby in Detroit, Michigan, from Monday, August 24, to Thursday, August 27, 1931. Emilie Skarabotta and Helen Moore attended the meeting and then visited Mackinac Island, Michigan. [back]
3. The Michigan Central Railroad had a line that connected Detroit, Michigan, to Mackinaw City, Michigan. Tourists would arrive by overnight train and then take the ferry to Mackinac Island. Michigan Central Railroad was part owner of the Mackinac Island Hotel Company that had built the Grand Hotel. [back]
4. 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. [back]
5. Automobiles were never permitted on Mackinac Island as per an 1895 ordinance; the horse and buggy rides around the island wewre a major tourist attraction. Skarabotta is confusing Ohioan William R. Day (1849–1923), U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1903–1922), with his father Luther Day (1813–1885), who served as a judge on the Ohio Supreme Court (1865–1875). William Day owned a vacation home on Mackinac Island, MI that was built in 1883, and died there at the age of 74. [back]
