Emilie Skarabotta to Charles W. Chesnutt, 17 August 1931
| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| alterations to base text (additions or deletions) | added or deleted text |
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added text | Deleted text Added text |
| position of added text (if not added inline) | [right margin] text added in right margin; [above line] text added above the line |
| proofreading mark | ‸ |
| page number, repeated letterhead, etc. | page number or repeated letterhead |
| supplied text | [supplied text] |
| archivist note | archivist note |
Cleveland, Ohio,
August 17, 1931
Dear Mr. Chesnutt:
Miss Moore1 and I received your letters this morning.2 Congratulations on the picture fish! Hope the pictures turn out real good, so you can show them to all skeptics -- if there should happen to be any who would doubt your word.3
How would you like to get a thrill you've never had before? As you probably know, Miss Moore and I are thinking of going to Detroit the latter part of next week for the NSRA convention4 -- if nothing happens. We're getting deps. and things like that arranged, and actually have hopes of getting there.
Here's the thrill part of it. I'm thinking of flying back over the lake, and certainly would enjoy your company and comments on the way back, so we thought you might like to fly back, too. We'll know definitely in a few days when we expect to come back, and could arrange to meet you in Detroit then. Miss Moore said she would be petrified if she went up, so she is coming back some more prosaic way. If you can manage to save $10.00 out of your vacation funds, it would be lots of fun for you to come along.
We don't expect to leave the office for more than about two days, and our principal customer right now, Mr. Cull,5 has already promised not to set any deps. for that time, so you won't need to do any worrying.
I sent you a batch of papers, etc., Saturday, and won't send any more unless you say so. There probably won't be so many more.
The weather is starting to warm up again. It is quite hot outside, but the heat has n't penetrated in here yet, for which we're thankful.
Regards from all of us to all of you, and be sure to finish your vacation up with a bang, because it will be a year before you'll get another one -- we might make you work hard when you come back, you never can tell.6
Sincerely,Correspondent: 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. 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]
2. The letter in question has not been located. It would have been sent from Chesnutt's vacation home in Idlewild, Michigan, where he spent July and August, requesting and receiving regular updates from his business partner, Helen Moore, and his office staff. [back]
3. See Chesnutt's October 16, 1931, letter to Wendell Phillips Dabney in which Chesnutt enclosed some of these photographs for "scurrilous defamers." [back]
4. 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]
5. 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]
6. After discovering Idlewild in 1921, the Chesnutts spent every summer at this location in Lake County, Michigan, about 380 miles west of Cleveland. Idlewild was a popular lakeside resort for hundreds of Black families from the urban Midwest from the 1910s to the 1960s, when racism excluded them from many White resort towns. In the spring of 1924, Chesnutt purchased a plot of land, and had a lakeside cabin built (14240 Lake Drive), which was completed in 1926. [back]
