Speeches & Writings File A Colored Woman in a White World (16) Written by Mary Church Terrell 1615 S St., N.W. Washington, D.C. The Confessions of a Colored Woman. Chapter 1 My Family. To tell the truth I came very near not being on this mundane sphere at all. My dear mother in a fit of despondency tried to end her life a few months before I was born. By a miracle she was saved and I finally arrived on schedule time none the worse for the prenatal experience which might have proved decidedly disagreeable if not fatal to my future. As a baby, I distinguished myself by having no hair on my head at all for a long time. I was perfectly bald till I was more than a year old. I have a picture of myself taken in those days when my little head looked for all the world like a billiard ball. I have often wondered why my mother who had such excellent taste about every- thing wanted to hand down to posterity such a bald-headed baby as I was. Although she knew that her little daughter would never take a prize for pulchritude at a baby show she always hotly resented the imputation that she was ever ashamed of the face I wore. But with commendable frankness she also admitted that she did not take the same pride in exhibiting me to the friends who came to see me that she would have felt if my head had been covered with a reasonable, normal amount of hair. But even babies who are born under far more favorable conditions than those which confronted me when I was ushered into the world do not have all the blessings of life showered upon them. Bald- headed though I was, the fates were kind to me in one particular at least. I was born at a time when I did not have to go through life as a slave. My parents were not so fortunate, for they were both slaves. I am thankful that victory perched upon the banner of the North in the Civil War in time to save me from a similar fate. I learned about my father's antecedents in a very matter of fact, normal sort of way. It was his custom to take me in his buggy to see Captain C.B. Church on Sunday mornings, when I was four or five years old. He always welcomed us cordially to his beautiful home, would pat me on the head affectionately and usually filled my little arms with flowers and fruit when we left. "You've got a nice little 2 girl here, Bob," he used to say to my father. "You must bring her up right." As for myself I simply adored him. " Captain Church is certainly good to us, papa," I said one day, just after Father and I had left his house." And don't you know, papa, you look just like him. I reckon you look like him because he likes you," I added, trying to explain in my childish way the striking resemblance of the two men. Then my father told me that Captain Church was his father. I can hear the intensity and fervor in his voice even unto this day, as he said, "He's been a good father to me, honey, all my life. He raised me from a little boy." Captain Church was my father's master who acknowledged him as his son. Although slave-holding fathers of colored children did not do this every day in the week it happened much more frequently than is generally supposed. Long before slaves were emancipated it was no uncommon thing for colored boys and girls to be sent to Europe by their masters who were also their fathers but who loved their children born of a slave mother too fondly to allow them to remain in the United States where they would have to bear the hard and humiliating lot of the slave. These children were educated abroad, where most of them were married, and their descend- ants are living today, not dreaming they have a drop of African blood in their veins. But even if my father's master had not acknowledged him to be his son, anyone who used their eyes and saw the two men together could plainly see that this was the relationship between them. By a strange irony of fate my father looked more like Captain Church than any of his legitimate children. Hanging on the wall of our house at Memphis, Tennessee, where I was born, near the close of the Civil War, there used to be a picture of Captain Church dressed as a Knight Templar and nearby one of my father wearing the same kind of uniform. They looked exactly like the picture of the same man taken at different periods of his life. My father was so fair that no one would have suspected that he had a drop of African blood in his veins. As a matter of fact he had very little. A few years ago I received a letter from a white man of whom I had never heard before, saying, "Your grandmother was my mother's nurse and life long companion. My own mother died some two years 3 ago at the age of 78 and but a short time previous to her death she gave a sketch of some of her early life. I did not take down any of the scenes described, but one of them I remember very vividly, because there was such a beautiful touch of the polished fiction in real life connected with it. It was something of the early life of your great grandmother as well as of your own grandmother Emmeline. Your great grandmother was not an African or of African descent, but a Malay princess brought over from the Island of San Domingo in captivity by a salve ship, bound for the United States from the shores of Africa. After the ship had secured it's cargo of slaves it touched at one of the ports of an island in San Domingo, at a time when the island was in a state of revolt and revolution. The revolution had in this particular instance overthrown the royal family, and had them in captivity. When the captain of the slaver went ashore, he found this state of affairs, and the Rebels had given the royal family, then in prison, the choice of either being sold into slavery or beheaded. Among those then in prison was a beautiful Malay girl, about 14 years old, a member of the royal family. Her complexion was a deep red and her hair was very straight and black. She had around her neck a beautiful coral chain attached to a gold cross, which her captors had allowed her to retain. The captain of the slaver made a trade for her. She was not placed among the African slaves, but was given a place in the cabin. Upon arriving at Norfolk, Va., one of the favorite ports of both entry and sale in those days, she was sold to a rich tobacco merchant at what was then considered a fancy price. My grandfather had three plantations in Virginia at that time, and it was his custom to go down to Norfolk upon the arrival of these slavers and purchase more or less of these wild Africans. By distributing them among the other slaves on the plantation, they would in the course of time become civilized. It was only after a spirited bidding that he let the young princess go to her purchaser. She was taken into the family of this merchant as seamstress to his daughters, a position in those days of prominence and distinction to any slave. In the course of a few years after her daughter Emmeline was born and but a little girl this tobacco merchant failed in business, and his slaves all had to be sold including your grandmother and her 4 mother. My grandfather went to Norfolk, and after assuring your great grandparent that her little girl would be raised among his own daughters, he bought the very little girl, Emmeline, and gave her to my mother who was then his baby girl. My mother's name was Rosalie and she and the little girl, Emmeline, were brought up more as two sisters than as mistress and maid. A planter from near Natchez, Mississippi, bought Emmeline's mother, and she was given the position of seamstress to the household in his family. In fact she was never treated as a slave and never had to do menial work. Besides speaking her own native language she had learned French while on the island of San Domingo. All through her life she retained her talisman, the coral chain and cross, which her captors in San Domingo had allowed her to keep. My mother was married at the age of sixteen, after moving from Virginia to Holly Springs, Mississippi, and thence to Arkansas. Twenty years of her married life was spent in New Orleans, where your grandmother, Emmeline, learned the French language and always passed for a creole. I have often heard my mother say she was the most beautiful type of creole she ever saw. The affection which existed between Mother and Emmeline was more on the order of sisters than mistress and maid. When Emmeline died Mother said she could never see as much sunshine in after years. Emmeline was a communicant of the Episcopal Church at the time of her death. You know we Southerners take much pleasure in watching the advancement and prosperity of even the younger generation of those whose parents were connected with our household and children's growth. I hope this little memo of history will be interesting to you. If it does may I ask you to send me a photo of your own family, if possible, if not of you and your husband. Now I wish you and yours many blessings of the future. I am most respectfully yours, &" When he wrote this letter the man who says his mother owned my grandmother lived in Mammoth Springs, Arkansas, and his family resides there now. Many a time I have lived over that parting scene when Emmeline, my grandmother, who was then only a small child, was sold from her mother never to see her again. Often have I suffered the anguish which I know that poor slave mother felt, when her little girl was torn from her arms forever. 5 To me it has always seemed a bit disgusting to hear colored people boast so frequently and so fervently about the white blood which flows through their veins. But I must confess I take pride in being the granddaughter of Captain Charles B. Church, who though a slaveholder, was personally opposed to the system and immediately identified himself with the Union as soon as the War of the Rebellion was declared. To punish him for this offence his property was confiscated and held till the close of the war. Captain Church had a large interest in several boats plying up and down the Mississippi and he was reputed to be a man of considerable means for that day. I have heard my father state many times that Captain Church taught him to defend himself and urged him to never be a coward. "If anybody strikes you, hit him back," said this master-father to his slave-son, "and I'll stand by you. Whatever you do, don't let anybody impose upon you." And my father was very obedient in this particular without the shadow of a doubt. When slavery is discussed and somebody rhapsodizes upon the goodness and kindness of the masters and mistresses towards their slaves in extenuation of the cruel system, it is hard for me to conceal my disgust. There is no doubt that some slaveholders were kind to their slaves. Captain Church was one of them and the daughter of a slave father is glad thus publicly to express her gratitude to him. But the anguish of one slave mother from whom her baby was snatched away outweighs all the kindness and goodness which were occasionally shown a fortunate, favored slave. My father was employed in various capacities on Captain Church's boats. From being a dishwasher he was finally elevated to the dignity of steward, which was as high a position as a slave could then occupy. In this capacity he naturally became accustomed to buying in large quantities and the habit thus acquired followed him all his life. In supplying his own home he never bought a little of anything. My earliest recollection is of seeing barrels of flour, firkins of butter and large tin or wooden buckets of lard. He would buy turkeys and chickens by the crate. Bunches of bananas used to hang where we could easily reach them, in our house, and there was always a goodly supply of oranges and nuts. My father was an excellent cook and enjoyed nothing more than coming into the kitchen and preparing dishes he liked. When I came 6 home from school during summer vacations one of the first things he used to do was to broil me a pompano, a fish which has a delightful flavor and is caught in the waters near New Orleans. Although my father never went to school in his life, since he was already married when he was emancipated from slavery, he was unusually intelligent and thoughtful and reasoned exceedingly well. He learned to read by constantly perusing the newspapers and always kept abreast of the times. He taught himself to write his name legibly, even beautifully, but he never wrote a letter in his life to my knowledge. I do not know if he could not or would not do this, but he always had an employe or a member of his family write his letters for him. In conversing with my father few would have suspected they were talking to an uneducated man, except for an occasional mistake in Grammar, and the mispronunciation of a word to which even educated people in the South are addicted quite often. I was never ashamed to have my father converse with anybody, no matter how highly educated or renowned that individual might be. I was always sure he would have something worth while to say and that he would express his thought very well. When I was a mere slip of a girl I sometimes pitied other girls of my acquaintance, because their parents, particularly their fathers, made so many mistakes when they talked. But, as I grew older I was not at all disturbed by the lapses in English made by those who were not responsible for their lack of education. My father was rather reserved in his manner, was rarely familiar with anybody and had a certain innate culture which few men deprived of opportunities, as he was, rarely possess. He had business ability of high order and gave proof of that fact over and over again. It is a great temptation for me to say much about my father, for he was a remarkable man in many respects. I am not trying to paint him as a saint, for he was far from being one. He had the vices and defects common to men born at that time under similar conditions, reared as a slave and environed as he was for so many years from necessity rather from choice, after he was freed. My father had the most violent temper of any human being with whom I have ever come in contact. In a fit of anger he seemed completely to lose control of himself, and he might have done anything desperate in a rage. He was, however, one of the most courageous men I have ever known. 7 If it ever has been true of a human being that he knew no fear, it can be said of Robert Reed Church during the major portion of his life. As he grew older and feebler, he lost some of the fire and dash of youth, as was natural, but even then he had plenty. I could cite a number of cases in which my father faced danger fearlessly, but I shall refer only to two. Shortly after the Civil War what is commonly called "The Irish Riot" occurred in Memphis, Tennessee. During that disturbance my father was shot in the back of the head, at his place of business, and left lying there for dead. He had been warned by friends that he was one of the colored men to be shot, and they and my mother begged him not to leave his home that day. But he went to work as usual in spite of the peril he knew he faced. He would undoubtedly have been shot to death, if the rioters had not believed they had finished him, when he fell to the ground. Till the day of his death there was, at the back of his head, a hole left by the bullet which wounded him into which one could easily insert the tip of his little finger. All his life he suffered violently from excruciating headaches which attacked him at intervals and lasted for several days. Sometimes the pain was so great he threatened to take his life. I believe it was related in some way with the wound which he received during the Irish Riot, when he was a young man. I want to relate just one more incident showing the fearlessness of my father. He had bought an unusually beautiful sleigh on one of his trips to the North, not because he needed it in the South, but because he admired it. His friends considered it a huge joke that he had brought such a sleigh to Memphis, but he insisted that he would have occasion to use it some day. And so he did. There came a heavy fall of snow in Memphis one winter and everybody who owned a sleigh brought it out. My father drove up and down Main Street several times in his beautiful new sleigh drawn by a horse that was decidedly a high stepper. People were enjoying the unusual fall of snow immensely and were throwing snow balls at each other in the street with high glee. As father drove up and down Main Street, a shower of snow balls struck him. At first he took it good naturedly and laughed with the crowd, although they hurt him and frightened his horse. He soon discovered that the innocent looking snowballs were stones and rocks covered with snow and thrown at him to injure him. After he had been pelted with these missiles several times, a particularly large rock was hurled at him and struck him in the face. Then he pulled out a revolver and 8 shot into the crowd of men who had injured him. It was a desperate thing for a colored man to do anywhere, particularly in the South, and it is a great wonder that he was not torn limb from limb on the spot, even though he was shooting in self defense. In temperament and disposition my mother was as different from my father as two human beings could be. She irradiated good will and cheer upon all with whom she came into contact. She was a ray of sunshine all the time and nobody, no matter how depressed he might be, could withstand the infection of her hearty, musical laugh. She had troubles of her own, to be sure, financial, domestic and otherwise. But she could have said literally and truthfully with Saint Paul, "none of these things move me." Before her death she had lived with me fifteen years in Washington, after she left New York City which had been her home for a long time. I can not recall that I ever saw her depressed but once, although she had lost all her worldly possessions and was not in good health. If I was gloomy or worried about anything and went to my mother's room to talk it over with her, when I left her presence I always felt like a child who had hurt it's finger and had it's mother "kiss it well." She had a way of really convincing me (and I was not so easily convinced) that the matter was not as bad as I thought it was, that the prospects didn't begin to be as gloomy as I had painted them and that everything would turn out all right in the end. As I look back upon my habit of confiding my troubles to my mother, I reproach myself severely for placing upon her mind and heart any burdens which she herself was not obliged to bear. It seems to me it was a weak and inconsiderate thing for her daughter to do. The only reason I can forgive myself for imposing my woes upon my mother is because she never seemed to let anything worry her at all. She possessed artistic talent of a high order and I believe she would have acquired considerable reputation as an artist, if she had had a chance to study in her youth. When I had completed my Sophomore year in college, I spent the summer vacation in Oberlin, Ohio, where I had been attending school. My mother came to see me and began to take lessons in painting. She was thoroughly absorbed in her work and did nothing from morning till night but paint. So enthusiastic and industrious was she in the pursuit of art that I was really concerned about her and feared she might be losing her mind. She painted pictures of birds, butterflies and flowers ad infinitum on 9 little trays and articles of various kinds, till her room was fairly overflowing with them. I have to this day a beautiful screen on which she painted wistiria and which has been highly commended by artists. My mother also possessed remarkable business ability and established a hair store in Memphis which was a brilliant success. I am sure that she was the first colored woman in Memphis to establish and maintain a store of such excellence as hers undoubtedly was. The elite of Memphis came to "Lou Church's" store to buy their hair goods. And way back in the 70s women had to buy a quantity of false hair to keep up with the prevailing style. They wore waterfalls and curls galore hanging coquettishly under their chignons at the side of their heads. So fearfully and wonderfully made was the coiffure of the 1870s that my lady who could afford it always secured the services of a regular hairdresser and rarely attempted to do her hair herself, for any important social function. Lou Church was considered an artist and her reputation as a hairdresser spread far and wide. She used to relate with pride that when the Duke of Alexis came to Memphis, some of the ladies who were to attend the big ball given in his honor, came to her store as early as seven o'clock in the morning to have their hair dressed, because when they put in their orders, she had so many engagements ahead of them, she had to start early and work hard all day till nearly midnight to fill them all. Mother's hair store was in the most exclusive section of Memphis, right off Court Square. If she were alive today I doubt very much that she or any other colored women could rent a store in such a prominent business section of the city. To her husband Mother was a helpmeet indeed, for it was she who bought the first home and the first carriage we had. She was the most generous human being I have ever known. There are several people living who can testify to that fact. I am sure she would have cheerfully given away the last cent she possessed, if she had thought it was necessary. But, alas, she had less conception of the value of money or the necessity of saving it than anybody I have ever known. She lavished money on my brother and myself in buying us clothes and giving us everything the heart of a child could desire. Not only did she spend money freely on her own children, when she happened to have it, but she delighted in making presents to her friends. My mother and father separated when I was quite young. This 10 pained and embarrassed me very much. In those days divorces were not so common as they are now, and no matter what caused the separation of the couple, the woman was usually blamed. The court gave my brother, who was four years my junior, and myself into the custody of my mother. My little brother had been living with my father, and Father wanted to keep him, but the Court refused to grant his request. I remember very distinctly the day the hack drove up to my mother's house on Court Street, a block below her hair store, and deposited my little brother, bag and baggage, on the sidewalk in front of our home. My joy knew no bounds. Mother finally sold her hair store in Memphis, and moved to New York City where she established another one on Sixth Avenue, which she managed with brilliant success. Although Mother had been a slave, she rarely referred to that fact. When I questioned her about it, she would usually say that her master had not only taught her to read and write, but had also given her lessons in French. She enjoyed relating that her wedding trousseau had been bought in New York by "Miss. Laura," her white half sister, who had gone there on a visit, and that she had been given a nice wedding at which a delicious repast had been served. I can not leave my forbears without saying a word about my dear grandmother on my mother's side. In complexion she was a very dark brown, almost black, with a straight, shapely nose and a small mouth. In her manner she was quiet, refined and reserved, always spoke in a low tone of voice and tried hard to teach her grand daughter to do the same thing. My grandmother was called "Aunt Eliza" by everybody, white or black, old or young, and was generally beloved. She could tell the most thrilling stories imaginable, and I listened to her by the hour. I wish I had inherited the gift. Most of all I enjoyed hearing her tell about a "hoop" snake which had spied some children walking through a wood, had decided to give them a good scare for being so far away from home alone, had put its tail in its mouth and rolled after them, "jes as hard as he could." One of the roving children happened to look back, saw the "hoop snake" pursuing them and warned the others of their danger. My eyes were big as saucers and my hair stood on end at Grandmother's realistic imitation of the agonized tones of the oldest child, as he called out, "Run, chillun, run. The hoop snake's after you. Run 11 for your lives." Occasionally Grandmother told me tales of brutality perpetrated upon slaves who belonged to cruel masters. But they affected her and me so deeply she was rarely able to finish what she had began. I tried to keep the tears back and the sobs suppressed, so that Grandmother could finish to the bitter end, but I rarely succeeded. Then she would stop abruptly and refuse to go on, promising to finish it another time. It nearly killed me to think that my grandmother whom I loved so devotedly had once been a slave. I do not know why the thought that my parents had once been slaves did not affect me in the same way. "Never mind, honey," she used to say, "Gramma aint a slave no more." She had an unpleasant experience herself which it pained me to hear her relate. She was reared in the house and was the housekeeper for "Ole Miss," so she rarely came into contact with the overseer. But one day she went into the field on an errand and the overseer challenged her about something. She resented what he said and he threatened to whip her. "I dared him to tech me," she said. "Then he started toward me raising his whip. I took out and run as fast as ever I could and he right after me. When I got to the kitchen door, I picked up a chair an said, ef you come a step nearer, I'll knock your brains out with this here chair. And he never came a step further, neither." James Wilson, my father's only brother, was as fair as a lily, with eyes as blue as the sky, and was as perfect a specimen of the Caucasian as could be found anywhere in a day's march. Uncle Jim was forced to fight in the Confederate Army very much against his will. He was usually "as cool as a cucumber," but nothing riled him as quickly as a reference to what he considered a painful and disgraceful episode in his life. Not many people have as few relatives as I had. Until my father married a second time, for many years our family consisted of my mother, father, brother and myself. 12 Chapter 2 Early Childhood. During my childhood my parents lived in what was then called the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee, where I was born near close of the Civil War. The first playmates I can remember were German children who lived near by. My mother says that sometimes she could not understand what I wanted, because I would call things by their German names rather than by their English ones, having heard my playmates talk about them in their mother tongue. Although I was christened Mary Eliza Church, neither my family or my friends called me Mary. I was known as Molly Church to everybody who was acquainted with me. The name of one of Captain Church's daughters was Mollie. That may have influenced my father to give me that nickname. But Miss. Molle Church was deaf and dumb. As a child I talked a great deal and was never quiet of my own free will and accord, if I could find anything to do, which I generally did. When he heard me chattering like a magpie Father used often to say that nothing could have been more inappropriate than that his little daughter's namesake could be dumb. But he would usually end by saying that honors were easy, anyway, for I talked enought for the both of us. One of my earliest recollections is of a terrible scene which I should like to forget, but cannot even unto this day. I must have been very young not more than four years old, I think. During my mother's abscence from home a cat caughter her canary bird. A woman who worked for us decided to punish the animal, called some of her friends together for that purpose and with their assistance beat it to death. I remember well how I fought to save the cat's life. When I found I could not do so, I fled from the awful scene before it succumbed. As I look back upon that shocking exhibition of cruelty to animals, I can easily understand why those ignorant women were guilty of it. They had all been slaves and undoubtedly had seen men, women and children unmercifully beaten by overseers for offences of various kinds, and they were simply practicing upon an animal which had done wrong, from their viewpoint, the cruelty which they had seen perpetrated upon human beings over and over again. While I was very small and still lived in the suburbs, my father employed a man by the name of Dan, who often looked upon the wine when it 13 was red, and consequently got into trouble. As Dan was an excellent workman, when he was sober, Father used to pay his fines, whenever he was arrested for intoxication. One day the police came to our house to arrest the man for some slight infraction of the law, and after searching all over the premises, they were about to leave without finding him. But just as I saw them close the front gate behind them, I called out, "Mister, I know where Dan is. He's hiding under that big tub yonder." When I saw the officers taking Dan away and realized what I had done, I was inconsolable, for I loved him very much. I cried so continuously and begged so piteously that Dan be allowed to come back to the house, my father was forced to pay his fine again, although he had previously vowed that he had taken Dan out of jail for the last time. I can scarcely recall going to school in Memphis at all. Just one incident stands out prominently in my mind which proves I did, however. One day my father came to school, which was in a church near a bayou, to bring me a doll and found me tied to my teacher's apron strings. She was somewhat embarassed to have my father see me in such a plight and explained that while I was a nice child and meant well, it was utterly impossible for me to keep still. "Mollie suddenly disappeared a short while ago," she said, "and I was greatly alarmed, because in looking around the room I could find her nowhere. As I walked down the aisle, I spied her crawling on the floor under a seat to get to a girl in front of her. I can recall hearing the teacher remonstrate rather mildly with my father for bringing me a doll to school. But Father left it with me, nevertheless. I presume he had seen the doll in a store, remembered that he had a little daughter who would enjoy it, bought it and brought it to the school without thinking that there could be the slightest objection to his doing so, since he knew nothing about schools himself or school discipline on general principals. I can recall another incident which happened during my childhood and which my mother used to enjoy relating very much. In my day and time little girls who were very active were called "frisky", and that adjective was often applied to me. I was chosen "Queen" for some Christmas exercises and wore a beautiful red tarltan dress which stood out stiff and straight, and I had to sit on a very high throne. For some reason or other, 14 (perhaps because I grew tired of sitting alone on such a high perch) I decided to leave that distasteful eminence and suddenly jumped to the floor, to the horror of those in the audience who saw me take such a dangerous leap. Mother could never understand how I could jump such a distance on a hard floor without breaking my leg, at least. The first time I remember having the race problem brought directly home to me was when I was going North with my father, who used to take me with him everywhere he went. I could not have been more than five years old. there was no Jim Crow Car Law in the state of Tennessee then, so that although there was a seperate coach for colored people and they were expected to occupy it, there was no law to force them to do so. As a rule, therefore, self-respecting colored people would not go into the coach reserved for them. When my father boarded the train, he took me into the best coach, but soon afterward went into the smoker. So far as I can recall, as a child, whenever I saw my father in the company of white men, they talked with him as they did with other men and treated him on general principles as they did each other. I call attention to this fact particularly, because the period to which I refer was so soon after the emanicipation of the slave. It seems remarkable that in their relations to each other both the ex-masters and the ex-slaves could adjust themselves so quickly as they did in some instances to the new order of things. My father had been in the smoker but a short time, when the conductor passed throught the coach to collect tickets, glared at me, asked me who I was and what I was doing in that car. I replied as well as a frightened little girl of five years could be expected to answer under the circumstances. But I did not succeed in placating the irate conductor who decided then and there to put me into the coach "where I belonged." As he pulled me roughly out of the seat, he turned to the men sitting across the aisle and said, "Whose little niggar is this?" The men told him who my father was and advised him to let me alone. Seeing that the conductor was about to remove me from the car one of my father's white friends went into the smoker and told him what was happening. My father returned immediately and there ensued a scene which no one who saw it could ever forget. In that section at that time it was customary for men to carry 15 revolvers in their pockets. Fortunately no one was injured and I was allowed to remain with my courageous father in the white coach. Naturally, this incident agitated my young mind considerably. I plied my father with questions. I thought of all the sins of omission and commission against which my mother had warned me before I had left home, but I could think of nothing wrong that I had done. I could get no satisfaction from Father, however, for he refused to talk about the affair himself and forbade me to do so. In relating this incident to my mother, when I reached home, I asked her why the conductor had wanted to take me out of a nice, clean car and put me into the one that Father said was dirty. I assured her that I had been careful to do everything that she had told me to do. For instance, my hands were clean, and so was my face. I hadn't mussed my hair, it was brushed back and perfectly smooth. I hadn't lost either of the two pieces of blue ribbon which tied the braids at each side of my head. I hadn't soiled my dress a single bit. I was sitting "straight and proper." Neither was I looking out of the window, resting on my knees with my feet on the seat (as I dearly loved to do). I wasn't talking loud. In short, I assured my mother that I was "behaving like a little lady," as she had told me to do. Trying to suppress her tears she patted me on the head and comforted me by saying that she was sure that I was behaving myself, but she explained the incident to me by telling me that sometimes conductors on railroad trains were unkind to good little girls and treated them very badly. Seeing their children touched and seared and wounded by race prejudice is one of the heavy crosses which colored women have to bear. I can recall vividly just one more incident which happened during my early childhood, before I left Memphis to go to school in the North. My grandmother, Eliza, was very religious and attended the Baptist Church regularly. On one occasion when she wore a new spring bonnet which my mother had just given her, she was so impressed with the sermon that she began to shout. When I saw her jumping up and down and clapping her hands together, I became greatly alarmed on account of the damage it might do to the new spring head gear. I tried my best to stop her by holding on to her and I cried aloud, "Oh Grandma, please don't shout, you're knocking off your new spring bonnet and you'll ruin it." It is unnecessary to state the effect which this plea for the preservation of that precious piece of millinery had upon the congregation. 16 Chapter 3 I Am Sent North to School. Realizing that the educational facilities for colored children were very poor in Memphis at that time and that she could not rear me as she wished, Mother decided to send me North to school, when I was about six years old. Two of her friends had sent their daughters to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and she decided to send me there also. Mother took me there herself and arranged to have me board with a family by the name of Hunster, consisting of the parents, two grown daughters, "Miss. Maggie" and "Miss. Sallie," and two grown sons, the elder of whom was a cripple and used crutches. He kept a candy store which I patronized very well, for my father allowed me five dollars a month for sweetmeats. No little girl could possibly have been happier than I was so far away from home, for I became a member of that family in every sense of the word. I called Mrs. Hunster "Ma" and Mr. Hunster "Pa". Miss. Sallie, petite, vivacious and amiable was my favorite and I loved her dearly. The young man she married later on was attending school in Yellow Springs and it was one of the greatest privileges of my life to be allowed to carry notes from one to the other. In Yellow Springs I was sent to what I believe was the forerunner of the kindergarten in the United States. It was called the "Model School" , and as I look back upon it today, I feel sure it deserved the name of "model." This school for children was connected with Antioch College, of which, Horace Mann, the great educator, was the first president. Mrs. Hunster lived in a very large house and kept a hotel, called the "Union House." It was the best, in fact it was the only hostelry in Yellow Springs, when I was a child. Many were the gay sleighing parties which came from Springfield and the surrounding towns. In the summer there was an ice cream parlor and I considered it great sport to be allowed to sometimes serve the patrons. One of the most delightful recollections of my life in Yellow Springs is the ride I used to take with "Pa" Hunster in the wagon very early in the morning, when we went to get cream from a farm quite a distance away. For the Hunster's ice cream was made from the pure and unadulterated article, if you please. I was allowed to eat as much ice cream as I wished and I dare say that I ate too much, for I have never cared a great deal for it since. I have regretted this exceedingly many times. It is very embarassing for a 17 woman accustomed to attending social functions not to like ice cream. She must either refuse it altogether, leave it untouched on her plate to annoy her hostess, or force herself to partake of something she does not like. Many a time when I have been forced to eat ice cream to be polite, I would have preferred a sandwich. The distance between the Hunster's hotel and Antioch College was quite long for a little girl my age and on one occasion I narrowly escaped freezing to death. I had trudged bravely through the snow till I had reached the college grounds, which were enclosed by a high fence. By the time I had pulled myself to the top rail I was so exhausted and numb from the cold that I could go no further. And there I sat for what seemed to me to be an interminable time, unable to move, on that bitter winter morning, slowly freezing to death. Fortunately for me a man happened to pass by and rescued me from my perilous position. While I was attending this model school, my mother, who believed that children should learn at least two foreign languages, decided to have me study German and engaged a young woman student to give me lessons. I have no idea weather I made any progress in German or not, but I enjoyed going to my teacher's room in the dormitory. It thrilled me to see the young women walking through the halls, to and from their rooms, and I decided then and there that someday I, myself, would have a room in a dormitory. Since my teacher taught me just before noon, she always seemed to be hungry and ate an apple which she shared with me, so that whether I learned my German or not I looked forward to my lessons with pleasure. After attending the model school for several years, the Hunsters advised my mother to send me to the public schools. I enjoyed the work here as I always did in school. I cannot recall that anybody ever had to force me to study. I was ambitious to stand at the head of my class and was willing to pay the price to do so. I do not deserve one bit of credit for this, however, for getting my lessons was sort of an indoor sport with me and a genuine joy. I was always curious to know what "my books" were going to say next. But, by no possible stretch of the imagination could anyone call me a "goody, goody girl," for I played and romped, every minute that I could. Climbing trees had to be done surreptitiously, but I climbed them just the same. I used to pick cherries for the people who would let me and enjoyed disputing the fruit with the birds. One night, before our class was to be examined in Geography, 18 I learned, word for word, certain passages about which I thought it likely the class would be questioned. I guessed rightly and my paper was marked one hundred. I must have exhausted my store of geographical lore in this examination, for I have known nothing about Geography from that day to this. Ever since I was a little girl, I have been travelling a great deal in the United States, but it is very difficult for me to bound the states through which I have passed many times and which the average, normal human being under similar circumstances could do with ease and would know by heart. I believe I possess as little sense of direction as anybody, not mentally deficient, could possibly have. If there is any bump of topography in my cranium, it's growth has been arrested; it has never been developed. I once read that the great Mark Twain was similarly afflicted and it comforted me considerably. In the public schools of Yellow Springs I learned a fact that I had never known before. While we were reciting our history lesson one day it suddenly occurred to me that I, myself, was descended from the very slaves whom the Emancipation Proclamation had set free. I felt humiliated and disgraced. When I had read or heard about the Union Army and the Rebel forces, I had never thought about my connection with slavery at all. But, now I knew that I belonged to a group of people who had been brutalized, degraded and sold like animals. This was a rude and terrible shock to me. "Here you are," said a voice ironically, "measuring arms with these white children whose ancestors have always been free. What audacity!" I was covered with confusion and shame at the thought, and my humiliation was painful indeed. When I recovered my composure I resolved that, so far as this descendant of slaves was concerned, she would show those white girls and boys whose foreparents had always been free that she was their equal in every respect. I felt that I had the right to look the world in the eye as any other free woman and to hold my head as high as anybody else. I had only one disagreeable experience in the public schools of Yellow Springs. Once when I had really done nothing wrong, a nervous little teacher accused me of whispering and boxed my ears. So well did she do her work that i was quite deaf from the effect of her blows for several days, and I doubt that my hearing has ever been so good as it previously was. This so incensed the Hunsters that they went to the Superintendent to get redress. After questioning the children sitting near me and investigating the matter thoroughly, he was convinced that I had been punished unjustly and directed 19 the teacher to apologize to me. I have often regretted this occurrence for the sake of the teacher. I do not wonder that she made a mistake. It was quite natural that she should take it for granted that I was whispering on this particular occasion, since I had sinned in this respect so many times before. It was extremely difficult for me to keep still in school from the day I entered till I received my degree from college. In a great throng which was surging through one of the buildings at the Centennial a few years after this little episode I happened to see my teacher who had punished me so unjustly and I was as glad to see her as though nothing of a disagreeable nature had ever happened. It was at Yellow Springs that I was obliged to make my first decision with reference to the race problem. I was the only colored girl in my grade and one of the few colored girls in the public schools. In the town at the time there were only two colored families with whom the Hunsters associated, for there were only a few representatives of the race in that small village. A play was to be produced at the close of the public schools and the pupils were being selected for their parts. It was an amusing little play in which several nationalities were to appear. I was invited to take the part of a Negro servant who made a monkey of himself, but I refused to do so without discussing the matter with anybody at home or asking anybody's advice. I decided not to take part in the play. I knew this role had been assigned to me solely because I was a colored girl and I was embarrassed and hurt. Previous to this, while I was attending the model school, I had had an experience which indelibly impressed my racial identity upon me and about which, even unto this day, I do not like to think. Every noon I went into the cloak room to get my wraps preparatory to going home. One day when I entered, a group of young women were chatting there and several of them were posing before the mirror joking about their charms. "Behold my wonderful tresses," one was saying. "But look at my sparkling eyes," challenged another. "My rosebud mouth," called out a third, "is the admiration of the whole world." After putting on my coat I heard somebody speak to me, as I passed the mirror, and not knowing what else to say, I imitated the young ladies, as a small child sometimes will, by asking, "Haven't I got a pretty face too?" "You've got a pretty black face," said one of the young ladies, pointing her finger at me derisively. 20 The shout of laughter that went up from that group of young women rings in my ears even now. For the first time in my life I realized that I was an object of ridicule on account of the color of my skin. I was so shocked, embarassed and hurt that I was glued to the spot and could not budge an inch. I seemed to lose the power to think as well as to move, so that I could not say a word. It dawned on me with terrific force that these young white girls were making fun of me, were laughing at me, because I was colored. As I stood motionless, a pathetic little figure, in that large room, the laughter died down considerably. I had not yet put on my hat and it slipped from my hand to the floor. When I had recovered sufficiently to stoop and pick it up, the change of position seemed to restore my power to think and revive my courage. I ran to the door, stopped, turned around and hurled back defiantly, "I don't want my face to be white like yours and look like milk. I want it to be nice and dark just like it is." As I ran down the hall I heard them clapping their hands. That experience taught me a lesson which I have never forgotten. From that day to this not only have I never laughed at any human being because of any physical defect, but I have never had the slightest inclination to do so. It is amazing how many people who are otherwise kind, considerate and well-bred have the bad habit of making fun of other people, if one or more of their features are not exactly in proper proportion, for instance, or pleasing to the eye, or who carry themselves in some peculiar way. Whenever a Chinaman passed by and children, black as well as white, sang out derisively, "Ching, Ching Chinaman, do you eat rats?" I invariably reminded the colored children that just as they made fun of the Chinese, many people made fun of us. Or I would run up to white children and declare with too much emphasis and feeling, perhaps, that I liked the Chinaman's pretty yellow complexion better than I did their pale, white one. Of course there were always consequences of various kinds after such a speech, which were often decidedly unpleasant, but I made up my mind to stand them, whatever they were. I remembered the scene in the cloak room and I could hear the voice of ridicule crying out, "Your face is pretty black." But some people are natural-born game-makers. I have heard very homely women poke fun at another who was quite pretty, if the latter had the slightest physical defect which they could detect. It is amazing that it never seems to occur to the game-makers that there is anything the matter with themselves. They apply their standards of pulchritude to everybody but 21 themselves and do not sigh with Bobbie Burns: "Oh wad some power the giftie gie us to see oursels as other see us." In Yellow Springs, Ohio, I saw the beginning of the great temperance reform. It puzzled us children to see the good ladies sitting on camp stools in front of a little grog shop all day till quite late at night. And some people declared that the ladies who were trying to close this objectionable resort remained in front of it all night long. I,myself, had been reared to believe in taking liquor in moderation, and this idea of not drinking anything at all was something new "under the sun" to us children who looked at these pioneers in temperance work. Until I was sent away to school, my father gave me a "toddy" for my health every morning. It was all right except when he put garlic in it, and then it was more or less of an ordeal. In my generation many parents of children believed it was a great mistake not to give them liquor at home. They argued that if they were not taught to drink in moderation there,they would go to extremes,when they first tasted it among strangers. Few people who saw women taking turns standing before those saloons when I was a child,dreamed that in forty years an amendment to the Constitution would be passed prohibiting the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits all over the United States. By many the temperance reforms was then considered a joke and those who believed in it were regarded as cranks. There could be no better illustration of the old saw that "It is the unexpected which happens," than the passage of the Volstead Act. Speaking of drink reminds me for an experience I had when I was quite small. My father kept fine horses for many years. Some of them were such high steppers that races on the boulevard with other steeds of like mettle were of common occurence. On one occasion my father was taking me out for a drive and met a Mr.McClain,a white man, who owned a horse of which he was very proud. He immediately challenged my father for a race and the two men agreed that the loser was to give the winner a fine dinner at the Half Way House, as soon as the race and been run. My father won the race and the two men with the little girl repaired to the inn to carry out the agreement. Whenever an order was given to the waiter, it was made for three, and in the enthusiastic discussion of the race and the horses,both the host and the guest evidently forgot that one of the three was a small girl. And that little lady, who was nothing if not imitative,did everything she saw 22 her father do with the liquid as well as the solid refreshments set before her. As a consequence of this,my first and last dissipation, I was ill for several days. I had literally slipped from my chair before my father realized what had happened. As I think of that dinner given my father by his white friend at a public house near Memphis,Tennessee,I cannot help contrasting conditions which existed when I was a child with those which obtain at the present time. It is but one of the many incidents which might be cited to prove how much closer and more friendly were the relations existing between the two races right after the Civil War than they are today,and also how much greater were the privileges enjoyed by colored men then than they are now. I cannot conceive of any circumstance or situation which would induce the proprietor of a public house in or near a southern city to serve any colored man today, no matter how much he might be importuned to do so, or what the emergency might be. At Yellow Springs the first signs of that talent I have for public speaking began to manifest themselves. I learned many a poem by heart and loved to recite them to anyone I could induce to listen to me. There was one poem which appealed very strongly to me,and I enjoyed nothing more than reciting: "Give me three grains of corn,Mother, Give me three grains of corn, It will keep the little life I have, Till the coming of the morn." I used to follow "Ma" Hunster all around the kitchen,while she was preparing the meals,pursued her into the dining room or out into the yard,or wherever she went,reciting this pathetic poem. And what wonderful patience with me "Ma"Hunster had. She not only encouraged me to recite to her, but she praised the manner in which I declaimed and said she enjoyed it. During the summer vacations I remained in Yellow Springs. Learning poems by heart was one of the tasks to keep me out of mischief. It was then that I learned "Queen of the May"which I never tired of reciting. At that early age I acquired a taste for Tennyson's poems which I have retained all my life. It was also in that little town that I learned to read good books. Many of them I drew from the library of the Sunday School of the Christian Church with I attended regularly. It is the fashion among some people today to ridicule the books which used to be given out by the Sunday School libraries, because it is 23 claimed that they were not true to life and usually made the good die young. But I believe that at the time there so few books written for children, that the Sunday School did well to offer its pupils the very best in literature that was available then. The Rollo books were prime favorites with most of the children. When Louisa Alcott's books began to appear they were received with an acclaim among the young people of this country which has rarely ever been equaled and never surpassed. I could hardly wait for St. Nicholas to appear from month to month. I owe a real debt of gratitude to the editors of that magazine for the pleasure which its contents gave me as a child. There were puzzles in the back of the magazine to solve and the morning when I feverishly tore off the cover to see whether the solution that I had sent in was correct, discovered that it was and saw my name in print for the first time, was a real red letter day in my life. My interest in politics began in Yellow Springs to which the most distinguished campaign speakers used to come. I can remember some of the meetings which I attended and to which I listened with rapt attention as the spell-binders reeled off their eloquence by the yard. Young as I was, I worshipped General Grant and recited with great enthusiasm the following partisan couplet over and over again: "Grand rides a white horse, Greeley rides a mule, Grant is a gentleman, Greeley is a fool." Since I have read the life of Horace Greeley and know how upright, wise and good a man he was, I regret exceedingly that my childish partisanship for Gran, which that great General undoubtedly deserved, caused me to rattle off a rhyme so uncomplimentary to his political rival who possessed so many virtues and towered so high among the notable men of his time. Fate surely smiled upon me when she influenced my mother to send me to Yellow Springs, Ohio, and placed me in a school for children connected with Antioch College. Mrs. Caroline H. Dall has written an interesting brochure about this institution entitled "The College, the Market and the Court," in which she declares, "A more exquisite model school than the one connected with the college I never saw." When I contrast what my educational foundation would have been if I had remained in Memphis and had been sent to the school for colored children, so poorly equipped as those schools were then, with what it was in 24 this model school, I lift up my heart in gratitude to my dear mother for her forsight and for the sacrifice which she made in my behalf. This chapter in my life would be incomplete if I did not make some reference to the wonderful Christmas boxes which my generous mother used to send me. They were full of everything in the world which would delight the heart of a little girl. There were candies, nuts and oranges, of course, plus a dress or two, a hat in the latest style, a gold ring, maybe two of them, a beautiful doll, nicely dressed and other things which Mother thought I would need or like. The first Christmas box that I received was not only full of gifts for myself, but it contained gifts for each and every member of the Hunster family, including a cashmere dress for each of the Hunter girls. But one of the gifts brought me no pleasure at all. It was a hat, beautiful, stylish and becoming, too. But it was altogether too advanced in style for that small town. Nobody there had anything like it. It had a piece of velvet hanging down the back and none of the girls with whom I associated had any kind of a streamer falling off their hats in the rear. So I cheerfully wore my last winter's hat to school and to church and nobody could persaude me to wear my Christmas headgear, so stylish and new. When I was a little girl, I had the greatest horror of appearing in anything different from the clothing which my chums wore, no matter how beautiful it might be. Yellow Springs lies about seventy miles northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio, and fifty miles southwest of Columbus, midway between the thriving cities of Springfield and Xenia, about eight miles from each. There was a a wonderful glen with deep ravines, high bluffs, projecting cliffs and huge disrupted masses of rock which afforded an enchanting variety of scenery. As a child I played in that veritable fairy land, climbing the heights, gathering flowers of great variety and profusion and gazing in rapture upon a waterfall, which plunged down a cascade ten or twelve feet deep. The picturesque beauty of the place made a deep impression upon me. I enjoyed drinking from a far-famed spring which at that time attracted invalids from all over the United States. In addition to a little soda and magnesia the water is so strongly impregnated with iron that it gives a yellow tinge to everything over which it flows and for that reason is called Yellow Spring. So deep lies the source of this spring that neither drought nor flood changes it volume, 25 nor does heat or cold alter it's temperature in the least. I was so impressed with the stories I had heard about John Brown and admired his courage so much that I named the spring in his honor and many of my older friends always referred to it as the John Brown Spring. I owe much to the instruction given to me in the two years that I was in the model school and the two years that I attended the public schools of the little village of Yellow Springs. My training there was excellent and I was started on the right track. From my point of view my life in that small town was ideal. My love of nature is all the more intense, because, as a little girl, my eyes were open to the majesty and beauty of it as revealed to me in such profusion in that marvellous Glen. 26 Chapter 4 My Parents Send Me to Oberlin, Ohio. After spending four pleasurable and profitable years in Yellow Springs my parents were advised by Mr. Winter Woods, a talented elocutionist, and a strikingly handsome man, to send me to Oberlin, Ohio. He suggested that they should have me complete the course in the public schools first and then enter college. I wish that Winter Woods were living today, so that I might express my gratitude to him for giving my parents this advice. The Superintendent of Public Schools wanted me to enter the "A Grammer," as it was called then. It corresponds with the eight grade of the present time. But, since the class had finished decimal fractions and I knew nothing about them, he feared that I was not far enough advanced to enter that grade. He presented my case to a dear little teacher from New England who wore curls hanging down her back and she cheerfully consented to stay after school to teach me decimals, if I wanted to do so, in order that I might enter the eighth grade. I gladly accepted her kind offer of assistance and in a short time I had caught up with my class. While I liked all the teachers in the Oberlin High School, there was one little woman, only a few years older than her pupils, who was as pretty as a picture and as sweet as a peach, whom I adored. In the Latin class was the daughter of a man who had formerly been a professor in Oberlin College and had later been sent as Minister to Haiti. She could put up a pitiful mouth like a child about to cry and have big tears roll down her cheeks, one after another, whenever she chose to do so. It frequently happened that this mischievous girl did not know her Latin lesson, so when she had been called upon and failed, she would look at the pretty little teacher with an injured, innocent sir, primp up her mouth to cry and then let the big tears course down her cheeks. Of course I was convulsed and so was everybody else in the class who saw this exhibition. It was very difficult for the little teacher to keep a straight face, when she looked at my chum weeping and saw me shaking with laughter. One day she asked both the naughty girls to remain after class, so that she might talk to us. "You girls say you love me so much," she began, "and you are always bringing me fruit and flowers. Well, if Mary weeps every time she fails and Mollie shakes with laughter, some fine day I'm going to laugh aloud myself, and then I'll be dismissed as a teacher of this school. If you really want me to continue to teach here, don't tempt me to disgrace 27 myself any more." It is unnecessary to state that we behaved ourselves like two angels in that class ever afterwards. During the first year in the high school several incidents stand out very clearly in my mind. I made 100 in my final examination in Algebra. Although I did not care for mathematics particularly and never gave promise of writing a book on the subject I did like algebra very much and was overjoyed at my mark. Again I wrote the first essay that I ever attempted. My subject was, "Birds," and I began it thus; "There are a great many birds in the world." Then I covered four sheets of paper with the names of all the birds of which there was a record in encyclopedias which I could consult. "I like birds and I do not see how anybody can be cruel to them," was the conculsion of my first sally into the field of literature. In the middle of that first year I got into what seemed to me to be a very serious trouble indeed. Some good-natured, lazy boys who sat near me prevailed upon me during an examination to pass them the trial paper on which I had worked some examples in Algebra before transcribing them on the paper which I handed in to the teacher. These boys had been notoriously and continuously deficient in the subject. Naturally, when the teacher looked at their papers and saw that they had worked all the examples correctly she was very much surprised. Then she observed that there was a striking similarity between the methods used by the obys and those which I had sent in. Then, too, the explanation of the steps taken which was given by the boys was exactly like mine. When she confronted me with this incriminating evidence, there was nothing for me to do but confess that I had helped those boys by giving them the trial paper on which I had worked my examples and written out the reason for the method of solving the problems. The punishment inflicted upon me for assisting the boys in this examination was that my mark was reduced so low I was just allowed to pass. The boy whom I assisted were marked zero. That was a lesson I never forgot. I have sometimes felt that it was a good thing for me that it happened so early in my course. It was the last time that I ever communicated with any human being during an examination. It was also during the first year in the High School that I acquired a taste and love for Longfellow's poem. I committed to memory nearly all of Hiawatha. During the second year in the High School an incident occured to 28 which I am greatly indebted for my appreciation and love of the best music. Professor Fenelon B. Rice who was then director of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, came to the High School to train some girls to sing for Commencement. Among the nine girls selected to sing I was one of the three chosedn for the Contralot. After rehearsing us several times Professor Rice asked me to wait one day, so that he might talk to me. He told me that he would like to have me sing in either the First (Congregational) or the Second Church choir and invited me to join the Musical Union, too. I was sure I could not read music at sight well enough to pass the required examination, I said. But Professor Rice encouraged me to believe I could and I did. With but few intermission I sang in the choir of the First Congregational Church of Oberlin from teh time I was in the second year of the High School till I graduated from college, which covered a period of seven years. Most of that time I sang in the Musical Union as well. To be a member of the choir of either the First Church or the Second as well as of the Musical Union was a liberal education in the best choral works of the old masters and of the moder composers too. I looked forward with keenest pleasure to singing the Messiah every Christmas and I enjoyed taking part in the wonderful oratoria of Elijah, sometimes rendered during Commencement week. It was a great priviledge to be a member of both of these musical organizations and the experience was of incalculable value to me in every way. What greater blessing or more priceless boon could be bestowed upon a human being than the ability to appriciate good music? While I was in the High School I had to decide what course I would take when I entered college. I chose the "Classical Course," which necessitated the study of Greek and which was often called the "gentleman's course," because it was the one generally pursued by men who wanted the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Few women in Oberlin College took the "Classical Course" at that time. They took what was called the "Literary Course", which could be completed two years sooner than the "Classical Course", but which did not entitle them to any degree at all. Some of my friends and school mates urged me not to select the "Gentleman's Course," because it would take so much longer to complete than the "Ladies Course." They pointed out that Greek was very hard, that it was 29 unnecessary, if not positively unwomanly for girls to study "that old, dead language, "anyhow, that during the two extra years required to complete it, I would miss a lot of fun which I could enjoy outside of college walls, and worst of all, it might ruin my chances of getting a husband, wince men were notoriously shy of women who knew too much. "Where," inquired some of my friends sarcastically, "will you find a colored man who has studied Greek?" They argued that I wouldn't be happy if I knew more than my husband and they warned me that trying to find a man in our own group who knew Greek would be like hunting for a "needle in a hay stack." But I loved school and liked to study too well to be allured from it by any of the arguments my friends advanced. I wrote to my father and laid the matter clearly before his, explaining that it would cost more to take the course which I preferred and that few women of any race selected it. My dear father replied immediately that I might remain in college as long as I wished and he would foot the bill. When I graduated from the High School my subject was, "Troubles and Trials." Each member of the class was allotted five minutes and everybody had to speak. Many people in the audience who were either personally acquainted with me or who knew what a happy-go-lucky girl I was were greatly amused at my subject. I tried to prove that most troubles and trials are imaginary rather than real, and even if they were real, they can often be removed altogether, "by hook or by crook." But, if that is impossible, the harm that they are able to do can be considerably abated by using a little diplomacy. As an illustration I cited the case of a monk who was ordered to walk a long distance in shoes into which peas had been poured. He did so and reached his goal footsore and weary. When he saw another pilgrim upon whom the same penalty had been imposed arrive well and happy, he asked him why he had not suffered from the ordeal the same as he himself had. "But, Brother," replied the smiling pilgrim, "I boiled my peas." In the Oberlin High School I formed a friendship which has lasted throughout my life. To the casual observer no two girls could have appeared much more unlike, either in personal appearance or in disposition, than my friend and myself. To bein with, we differed in race. She was white and I was colored. She was a pretty blonde with blue eyes and a wealth of golden hair. I had an olive complexion and was decidedly a brunette. She was quiet, reticent, almost shy, rather hard to get acquanted with, but a delightful 30 companion, if you knew her well. On the other hand, I was quick, vivacious, talkative, and made friends easily and was full of fun. With a girl of my own race I also formed another friendship in that Oberlin High School which has lasted a life time and has always been very dear. I started in the 8th grade with these two girls, graduated from the High School with them, then from the Academy and later from the college department, having been their classmate for nine years. My friendship with the white girl illustrates a point which I can not resist the temptation to emphasize, namely the advantages of a mixed school. It helped both the white girl and the colored girl to form a close friendship with a girl of a different race. After having been closely associated with a colored girl whose standards of conduct were similar to her own, and whose personality appealed to her strongly, that white girl could never entertain the same feeling of scorn, contempt or aversion for all colored people that she might otherwise have done. No matter how strongly representatives of the dominant race might insist that certain vice and defects were common to all colored people alike, she would know from intimate association with at least one colored girl that those blanket charges preferred against the whole race were not true. It would be difficult for her to believe that her own particular colored friend was the only exception to the rule laid down by critics of colored people as a whole. Intuitively she would know that there are many such "exceptions", and she could never place such a low estimate upon the mental and moral qualities of the whole race as she would, if she did not know from personal experience the desirable qualities of mind and of heart which at least one representative of the race possessed. On the other hand, no matter how many sins of omission or commission white people might commit against colored people, a colored girl who has known and enjoyed the friendship of a white girl knows by this token, if by no other, that there are some white people in the United States too broad of mind and generous of heart to put the color of a human being's skin above every other consideration. No one could make this colored girl believe that all white people are innately hostile to her race and that there can be no common ground of mutual understanding and good will between them. From personal experience she knows that, as individuals, some white people are lovable, just and kind. It is unfortunate that the children of the two races early get the 31 impression that each is the mortal enemy of the other. Few efforts are being made to teach them mutual forbearance and tolerance. It is said that one man can not hate another if he understands him. The chances of having the two races understand each other better seem to be getting slimmer and slimmer every day. There is a growing tendency in the United States to segregate colored people in every way, so that the outlook for mutual understanding seems very gloomy indeed. During the second year in the High School I was quite ill. By sheer force of will I dragged myself to school which was just across the street from where I boarded. I practiced the precepts taught by Christian Science long before Mrs. Eddy founded her church, although I did not understand what I was doing. I might easily have given up the ghost. I had grown very thing, and many believed I had tuberculosis. I was boarding with the widow of the first colored man who graduated from the Homeopathic Medical School in Cleveland, Ohio. She gave me the address of one of the leading homeopathists of the city and I wrote him describing my case, telling him about my work in school, that I was taking the "Classical Course," and wanted very much to live, so that I might get a degree from Oberlin College. This skillful physician took the time and pains to travel forty miles to see a young colored girl about whom he knew absolutely nothingexcept the information gleaned from the two letters I wrote him. He had to lose nearly a whole day from his practice to make the visit, because, while the distance between Oberlin and Cleveland was not so great, the trains between the two places at that time were comparitively few. After the first visit he came several times to see me. I did not let my parents know that I was ill, because I feared they would not allow me to continue in school. After I had grown better and seemed on the road to recovery I asked my Cleveland physician to send me his bill. When I opened his letter I could scarcely believe my eyes. He had charged me only ten dollars. His fare from Cleveland and return, several times, and the time lost from his practice amounted to more than that. Throughout the months that he was treating me he wrote me regularly, as a father would write to a child. During the summer vacation following this illness I went to see my mother who had left Memphis and had established a hair store on Sixth Avenue in New York City. She often allowed my brother and myself to go to Coney Island, Manhattan and Brighton Beaches, so that we might take a dip in 32 the ocean. Living out in the open all day and taking the salt water baths completely restored me to health. I had left school so emaciated and weak that nobody expected to see me alive again, and I returned in the fall as plump as a partridge, with cheeks as red as roses, the very picture of health. One night during a fit of depression brought on by illness I felt it would be a comfort to write out my thoughts. Without intending or trying to do so I was greatly surprise to find that I was expressing myself in rhyme. I dared not light my lamp after a certain hour, as it was strictly against my landlady's rule. So by the glow from my little stove I wrote a pensive, doleful rhyme. I not only did not send it to my mother, but I never told her that I had written it. I always placed a very low estimate on anything I wrote. I was never satisfied with my essays. I usually felt like tearing them up and was ashamed when I handed them in to my teachers. I certainly had a bad case of inferiority complex when it came to appraising anything I wrote. Mother came to see me graduate from the High School and after Commencement I went to Memphis to visit my father and my grandmother who lived in a little cottage built on the site on which we had lived when I was a child. I was having a delightful time with my friends when the yellow fever suddenly broke out and I was obliged to leave. One day a German woman who lived near us came rushing into our house in great distress. "Aunt Liza," she called, "please come to see my husband right away. He's just as sick as he can be and I don't know what is the matter with him." My grandmother was known far and wide as a good Samaritan and she cheerfully went with her neighbor to render any assistance in her power. After Grandma had been gone a short while, I decided to follower her to see what had happened. As I entered the room where the sick man lay, I was struck with the color of his face. It was as yellow as saffron. My grandmother came to me immediately and I could see that she was greatly alarmed. "Go home right away," she said, "Don't stay here a minute." She told me as soon as she came home that she was sure the man had yellow fever and that he was dying. She was right and he died in a few hours. I had hardly reached home, when my father rushed in greatly excited saying that several yellow fever cases had been reported, that there would undoubtedly be another epidemic as there had been the year before, and that my brother and myself must go to New York to our mother immediately. Bitterly disappointed that her children could not spend the summer with her Grand- 33 mother packed our trunks right away. No one who left Memphis that night can ever forget the scene. Some claimed that at least five thousand people rushed away from the city, while others declared that there were more than that. The whole population seemed to be at the station trying to leave. Naturally, the trains were late in starting and the confusion was indescribable. Those who were going were weeping and those who could not go were crying as though there hearts were breaking. "You are all trying to run away from death," every now and then a defiant voice would shout aloud, "You are leaving us poor folks behind to die. We haven't got money enough to get out of the city. But you had better look out. Death can find you where you are going just as easy as he can find us here, with the yellow fever." Water was being sold at so much per glass or cup, and it was almost impossible to buy it at any price. The next time I visited her, Grandmother related harrowing scenes which she had witnessed during that awful summer. She told me that all through the night trucks laden with corpses passed along the streets. Piercing shrieks of those who were losing loved ones rent the air. Those who lived through the yellow fever epidemics of Memphis in 1878 and 1879 recall them with a shudder. In spite of the danger my father returned to Memphis, after he had accompanied my brother and myself as far as Cincinnati, and became the laughing stock of some very wise business people, becuase he invested every penny that he had saved in real estate which was being offered ad a bargain. And bargains there were a plenty during the yellow fever epidemic. The average property owner was in a panic. There had been an epidemic in 1878 and now there was another in 1879. There was no doubt in the world, it was argued, that Memphis was doomed. Nothing could save it. People were willing to sell for a few hundred dollars in cash property which was worth many thousands. And it was difficult for them to find purchasers, even though they were willing almost to give it away. Seeing my father invest every penny he had in real estate some declared that Bob Church had lost his m ind. But, when people told him that Memphis was doomed, my father would declare that there was no reason why Memphis should not be one of the most healthful cities in the United States. "Isn't it called the Bluff City?" he would enquire. "That's just what it is," he would say. "It's built on a bluff. The reason why Memphis has epidemics of yellow fever," he explained, "is because the streets are in 34 such a terrible condition. They are now paved with blocks of wood which quickly rot and there are big holes filled with great pools of stagnant water breeding disease. When Memphis is cleaned up and the streets properly paved by honest officials, there won't be any yellow fever and it will be one of the healthiest and most desirable cities in this country." My father lived to see his prediction fulfilled to the letter. I have gone into detail in this matter to prove how sagacious, logical and farsighted my father was. Many men who had graduated from college perhaps, and who had great reputations for keep business acumen lost practically everything they had in the panic, because they did not use their brains as well as did this unlettered, recently-emancipated slave who had never gone to school a day in his life. When I reached New York after running away from the yellow fever I was ill several days. I tried to believe that the attack was not even remotely related to the epidemic in Memphis, although I had a high fever and could not help remembering that somebody had said, "It was a great pity that Mollie had gone into the room of that German who was stricken with the yellow fever, while he was dying, becuase it was more infectious then than at any other time." But again I practiced Christian Science without knowing it, ate lemons by the dozen and was soon perfectly well. 35 Chapter 5 I Enter Oberlin College. In the following fall I entered the Senior Class of the Preparatory department of Oberlin College, which has since been abolished. I boarded in the old "Ladies Hall" which was destroyed by fire and has been replaced by Talcott Cottage. The tables in the dining hall seated eight and it was customary for students to choose those whom they wanted to sit at their respective tables for the term of three months. In the middle of the term some friend would invite me to sit at the table which she was arranging for the term to follow and I would accept. Somebody else would extend the same initiation and I would also accept that, forgetting that I had already promised to sit with another group. Each of these girls would send in my name as one of the eight who had accepted her invitation for the following term. Then, when I was seated at one table and failed to appear at another at which I was expected, naturally there would be more or less confusion, and explanations had to be made. The lady whose duty it was to attend to the dining room declared that I gave her a great deal of trouble, because too many people wanted me to sit at their table. If I were white, it might seem conceited for me to relate this. But, I mention these facts to show that, as a colored girl, I was accorded the same treatment at Oberlin College at that time as a white girl under similar circumstances would of received. Outward manifestations of prejudice against colored students in Ladies Hall would not have been tolerated for one minute by those in authority at that time. Occasionally a colored girl would complain about something that she considered a "slight", but as a rule, it was either because she was "looking for trouble", or because she imagined something disagreeable which was not intended. Later on, however, conditions affecting colored students changed considerably. My associates in college were naturally members of my own class. Until I reached the Junior year I had only one colored classmate and she lived in Oberlin. I boarded in Ladies Hall three years altogether, during my Senior Prepatory year, when I roomed with a girl of my own race; during my Freshman year, when I roomed alone, and during my Senior year when I roomed with my colored classmate. Throughout the whole period in Ladies Hall, never once did I feel that I was being discriminated against on account of my color. In my Senior Preperatory year I had one of the best teachers in my entire course, "Prin. White," as he was familiarly called, who was principal 36 of the department. "Prin. White," taught us Greek and he was as vivacious interesting and inspiring as a teacher could be. He had very high standards for his pupils. Some thought they were too high, but he succeeded in making most of us live up to them. When a s tudent was called upon to explain the case of a noun or the mood of a verb, "Prin. White" not only required his to give the rule for the construction, but along with the rule, he had to give a sentence in Greek illustrating that point. For a time I was the only girl in this Greek class with forty boys. It was a joy to reac the Illiad with "Prin. White." He entered so enthusiastically into the spirit of that matchless poem that his students caught the infection. I still have my recitation card. He makred on a scale of six. When he handed me my card showing 5.9%, he said in his quick, nervous way, fixing me with his keen, blue eyes, "Miss. Church, you should be proud of that record." Praise from "Prin. White" was then and is still praise indeed. And I can thrill even to this day, forty five years after the incident occured, when I think of it. I also remember another incident in my college days with pleasure and pride. It was when my Latin teacher complimented me, because I scanned a certain passage in Vergil so well. I can recall one of those Latin lines today and the genuine feeling with which I read it. The professor in Greek was also one of my favorites. He looked like an ascetic, tall and straight and thin. I usually sat on the front seat in his class and drank in every word he said. I took much more Greek than the curriculum required, both because I enjoyed the Grecian authors and was fond of my teacher. One day Matthew Arnold, the English writer, visited our class and Professor Frost asked me both to read the Greek and then to translate it. After leaving the class Mr. Arnold referred to the young lady who had read the passage of Greek so well. Thinking it would interest the Englishman, Professor Frost told him that I was of African descent. Thereupon Mr. Arnold expressed the greatest surprise imaginable, because he said he thought the tongue of the African was so thick he could not be taught to pronounce the Greek correctly. Later on Professor Frost became President of Berea College. For years before his administration this institution had admitted colored and white students on terms of equality. But, shortly after Professor Frost took charge of this school, its doors were closed to colored students and 37 arrangements were made whereby they were sent to institutions exclusively for colored youth. Many colored people believed that Professor Frost was responsible for this decision which closed Berea College in their faces and they were very bitter towards him in consequence. I can not discuss the merits or the demerits of the case intelligently, because I did not investigate it for myself. While Professor Frost taught in Oberlin College he was so free from race prejudice that I was surprised to hear that he had been accused of exhibiting it anywhere. I could not help wondering whether he was affected by his environment in the South as are so many northern white people who go there to live. Among colored people it is regarded as an axiom that when northern white people move to the South, they frequently exhibit more prejudice towards the colored race and are harder to get along with than the southern whites. If that is so, there's a reason. I have heard northern white folks say that when they go south to live, they can not succeed in business, in the professions or along any other line, while both they and there families are socially ostracized, as a rule, if they do not prove both by word and by deed that they heartily subscribe to the South's attitude on the Race Problem. In my Freshman year I attended the Bible Class regularly and believe it benefitted me greatly. I really looked forward to it with enthusiasm and pleasure, becuase I was allowed to ask questions about the passages in the Scripture which troubled me. And no verse came nearer shaking my faith in the justice of God than the one which states, "I, the Lortd thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them who love me and keep my commandments." I could not understand why a just and loving father should make innocent children suffer for the sins committed by their foreparents. The injustice of the law of heredity stunned me. It seemed terrible to me that the children of drunkards should inherit a tendency to drink immoderately, and the children of thieves might have a hard time to be honest, and so on through the category of vices. The teacher was patient with me and did his best to show me why such a dispensation was just, but I was never able to see it in that light. However, I decided not to try to understand it any longer. I finally brought a semblance of peace to my mind saying "I am finite and if I understood all the plans of the Infinite I should be equal 38 to him in wisdom, which would be unthinkable and absurd, of course." Even so, my poor brain often whirled and my heart was often sad, as I wrestled with the problem of heredity. When I tackled Geometry in the prepatory department of the college I met my Waterloo sure enough. I struggled hard to do the work, but I did not understand how to go about it properly and I barely pulled through the course. How I loathed Plane Geometry. It wounded my pride and "hurt my feelings," because it was so hard for me to understand. I did a little better in Solid Geometry, but I did not "set the world afaire," even in that. Finally I grew desperate and decided it was a waste of time and energy for me to try to understand a proposition and I calmly made up my mind to commit to memory the letters on a figure and say, big TAB is to a little tab as big AB is to little ab without having the slightest idea what it was all about. No teacher who wished to "show off" his class in Mathematics would ever have called on Mollie Church to recite in college, any more than a teacher in the public schools would have exhibited my drawing book to show the skill to which his pupil had attained. When visitors came to our class in the public school and asked to see our books in which we had done free hand drawing or had copied objects, no teacher ever showed mine. She usually managed to put mine at the bottom of the pile. Try as I might, I could never learn to draw. If I set out to draw a straight line, it would turn out to be crooked. And if I wanted to draw a crooked line, it was more apt to be crooked. My brother inherited some of my mother's talent for painting and drawing, while I inherited none. In my Freshman year I was was elected class poet, unanimously, and read a poem at the Class Day excerises which were held a short time before Commencement. I chose as my subject, "The Fallen Star," and imitated the hexameter used by Longfellow in Hiawatha. In the same year I had written the following little poem which a classmate liked so much that she quoted one of the stanza in an essay which she read at an exhibition given by her literary society when we were juniors. "I wish I could express in words Emotions which I often feel, And, sweeter than the song of birds, Sometimes my hidden thoughts reveal. Within my soul they're fettered fast, Although they long to be released, And nobly struggle, till at last From vain endeavors they have ceased. 39 Then, as a caged bird sings, through bound, Still caroling its sweet refrain, So, in my soul, though bars surround, My thoughts sing forth their sweetest strain." Because I had written several effusions of which my teacher approved I had been rather generally regarded as "Class Poet." When the time came to elect speakers for the Junior Exhibition, it was the consensus of opinion among the majority of my classmates that I would be elected class poet. After some one had nominated me, somebody else presented the name of a young man who had never written a poem in his life, so far as the class had ever heard, and had never exhibited any talent in that direction, so far as the class knew. After a great many ballots had been cast, I wanted to withdraw my name, but some of my classmates who sat near me held me down in my seat. Finally, the young man was elected. I believe I am justified in thinking that if a white girl had won the same reputation for writing poetry that I had, had been recognized by the class as I had been in my Freshman year, that she would probably have been elected class poet for the Junior Exhibition instead of a young man who had previously exhibitied no talent or skill in that direction at all. Some of my classmates criticized the successful candidate very severely, because he did not withdraw in my favor, after five or six ballots had been cast, as he probably would have done if his rival had been a white girl. But I did not allow this episode to embitter me at all. On the contrary, it encouraged me and comforted me greatly to see how many of my classmates stood by me so long. I knew also that they finally voted for the young man so as to break the deadlock, after they saw his friends were determined to elect him. There is no doubt whatever that on this occasion, at least, the fact that I am colored prevented me from receiving an honor which many members of my class thought my record proved that I deserved. Right after I attended the Junior Exhibition I attended the party which was always given by one of the professors and enjoyed myself as much as anyone else. My mother had sent me a beautiful silk dress for the occassion which I wore. I am sure nobody who saw me that day suspected that I was suffering because I felt that I had been a victim of race prejudice in failing to be elected to write a poem for Junior Ex. I know no better than I did then that "Blood is thicker than water," when several racial groups came together to elect a representative for the whole. But I received almost every other honor that my classmates or the 40 members of my Literary Society could give me. While I was still in the Senior prepatory class, a young woman in the Senior College class rushed after me one day and insisted upon having me join Aelioian, the literary society to which she herself belonged. She was one of the most brillian and popular members of her class and I felt honored to have such a student solicit my membership in her society. She did not have to persuade me long to gain my comment to join Aelioian. I am glad I began work in this society so soon in my college course. I was eligible for admission even though I was only a senior in the prepatory department, because a girl in that class was as far advanced in her studies as one taking the Literary course in college would be. In addition to the literary work required the drill in parliamentary law was invaluable. All I ever knew about it I learned in Aelioian. After I went out into the "cold world", when I was called upon to preside over meetings of various kinds, I would have been greatly embarrassed, if I had not been prepared for this service by the drills given me in Aelioian. The ability to speak effectively on one's feet was also acquired in this society. I was elected three times to represent Aelioian, when it had a public debate with L.L.S. The first time I was a sophomore and the last time I was a junior. I considered the latter selection a special honor, because, as a rule, the society elected a senior to represent it at a public debate held with L.L.S. just before Commencement. This was the most important exercise given by the society, so that no greater honor could be conferred upon a member than to be elected disputant to represent it in a debate with it's rival on that occasion. For a while I was one of the editors of the Oberlin Review and was quite excited when I saw the first article I had ever written for publication appear in print. At the Thursday lectures which students were required to attend, in my day, one was sure to hear something worth while. Occasionally a distinguished man for out of town appeared, although the professors themselves usually spoke. It was always an inspiration for me to attend these lectures and I looked forward to them with pleasure. Then, too, the literary societies brought the best orators, the most famous singers and the finest orchestrasin the country to Oberlin, so that when one had finished her course, if she had availaed herself of the opportunities offered her, she would have seen and heard the most distinguished representatives on the lecture platform 41 and the greatest musicians in the United States. During my college course a building was presented by a generous woman to the women's two literary societies and after it was completed a committee was appointed from each society to decide how the rooms should be furnished. Aelioian placed me on the committee of three to represent it. And so, I could cite numerous instances to show that the members of my society did not discriminate against me on account of my race. Since my college society conferred upon me every honor in its gift, and my classmates failed only once to recognize me as I believe they would have done under similar circumstances, if I had been white, I feel that I have very little reason to complain about discrimination on account of race, while I was a student at Oberlin College. It would be difficult for a colored girl to go through any white school with fewer unpleasant experiences occasioned by race prejudice than I did. The young men walked to and from classes with me or along the streets, if they happened to be going in the same direction, absolutely without thought of my race. I attended all the class receptions and every social function which the college gave and was sure of a cordial reception wherever I went. The sister of the acting college president decided to have a lawn tennis club, when that game was just beginning to be popular, and I was one of the twelve girls she invited from the whole institution to be a member of it. If I attended Oberlin College today, I wonder if I would be as free from the annoyances and discriminations caused by race prejudice as I was forty years ago. But once I was calle dupon to decide what seemed to me then to be a very knotty problem indeed. One of my classmates invited me to go to a reception given our Senior Prepatory class by "Prin. White". Although I thought very little about differences of race at that time, I was not at all eagar to accept this invitation from a white student. I preferred not to tell him that I thought it unwise or objectionable for a colored girl to be accompanied to a social function by a white boy, for I did not believe then that a human being should choose his or her companions by the color of their skin any more than I do today. Casting about for a good reason to assign for not accepting this invitation it occured to me to ask my colored classmates if she had company for the reception. When I discovered that she did not, I wrote to the young man that I was going with Miss. G. But even that did not satisfy him and 42 and several notes passed between us, before I convinced him that I meant what I said. Knowing him as well as I did, I am sure he wanted to escort me to the reception, because the white girls in the class would naturally be invited by other young men and it was his idea of being a gentleman not to let a colored girl feel that she was an outcast, so to speak. He had come from the secotion of an eastern state in which there was practically no race prejudice at all, and he felt that he should extend the same courtesy to a colored girl in his class that he would show to a white girl. Although for many years there was as much social equality to the square inch in Oberlin College as could be practiced anywhere in the United States, I have heard the authorities state that there had never been a case of intermarriage in the whole history of the school. The prediction of the prophets and the near prophets in this particular was never fulfilled. All sorts of dire calamities were threatened by those who strongly opposed the admission of colored students. It was predicted that if white and colored students were allowed to associate with each other on terms of "social equality" that the most disagreeable things would be happening all the time. There would be intermarriage galore, of course, and the whole tone of the school would be low. Whatever else the opponents of equal opportunities for colored people can do, they have proved over and over again that uttering true prophecies is not one of their gifts. For a long time I lead the singing in a prayer meeting which the girls in Ladies Hall held every Sunday evening after supper. At one of these meetings an incident occured which made an indellible impression on my mind. It was customary for those who attended these meetings to bear testimony concerning their experiences as Christians or offer prayer. In making some remarks I stated that although I tried to be a good Christian I sometimes did things that I knew a good Christian would not do or should not do, at least. For instance, "I sometimes whisper in class, when I don't intend to violate the rule or disturb the order, because I am thoughtless, but not deliberately obstreperous. I fear also that I giggle and laugh too much and am not serious enough." And then I expressed the hope that the Christians present would pray for me that I might change my giddy ways and become more quiet and sedate. As soon as I had finished, a tall, pale, very thin woman, heavily swathed in black, leaned forward from the back seat, fastened her sad eyes 43 upon me, pointed her bony finger at me and said most impressively, "Young woman, laugh and be merry, while you can, and as much as you can. Don't try to suppress laughter and be serious in your youth. Some day when you grow older, when the cares and sorrows of life press hard upon you, you'll want to laugh and can't." About ten days after that this woman committed suicide in Cleveland, Ohio, by jumping into Lake Erie. Both her husband and young daughter had died within a short time of each other and she could not forget it, or become reconciled to her loss. She had come to the college to study to try to divert her mind from her grief, but had not succeeded in doing so. Months before I graduated from Oberlin I realized that the carefree days of my youth would soon be a thing of the past. I dreaded leaving my friends behind and going out into the "cold world." But the desire to get my diploma and to receive my degree was an obsession with me. When I said my prayers at night I used to emphasize the fact, as much as I dared while talking to the Lord, that He could send any affliction whatsoever upon me He saw fit, if He would only let me live to graduate. I begged Him not to let me die before Commencement day. I did not see how any student could have enjoyed the activities of college life more than I did. Learning my lessons as well as I could was sort of an indoor sport with me. I had my trials and tribulations, of course because occasionally I broke the rules by going skating without permission, for instance, or breaking the study hour rule, or sitting up after ten o'clock, but that was all included in the course, I thought. I learned one thing outside the curriculum. Breakfast began at a quarter past six in the morning. That did very well in the fall or spring, but in the cold, bitter winter it was terrible to have to arise while it was as dark as midnight in a room with the temperature miles below zero, make a fire to keep from freezing to death, and dress in time to be at the breakfast table fifteen minutes past six. I did not eat very much anyhow at that period. But students were obliged to be in the dining room for morning prayers. So I calculated to a nicety the exact time when the bell would ring for the students to turn from the table to hear the Bible read. I would hop out of bed just five minutes before that would happen and I learned to dress myself so quickly that I was never late for morning prayers during the whole time I boarded in Ladies Hall. 44 Neither one of my parents came to see me graduate from college. My mother sent me a wonderful black jet dress, for the young women who graduated from the "gentleman's course", always dressed in sombre black, at that time. She also sent me a pair of opera glasses as a graduation present. While this gift was greatly appreciated, it did not compensate me for her absence on this occasion to which I had looked forward with such anticipations of pleasure, for so many years. 45 Chapter 6 Pleasures During College Course. During my Freshman year I had a thrill which comes to a school girl but once in a lifetime. Sticking out from under my door when I came to the Ladies Hall at noon one day was a letter postmarked Washington, D.C. addressed to me in a handwriting which I had never seen before. During my college course it was most unusual for me to receive a letter from a stranger, so I tore it open eagerly to see from whom it came. And then I was dumb from surprise. It was an invitation from the wife of a United States Senator to visit her during the Inauguration in Washington. It would require a word artist of the first magnitude to describe my rapture at such a prospect, so that my readers would feel teh same exuberance of spirit which I experienced, when I received this letter from the wife of Senator B.K. Bruce. I was certain that my father would let me accept the invitation, as he and Senator Bruce had been close friends for many years. The Senator had a large plantation in Mississippi not far from Memphis, and Father used to purchase mules and various supplies for him, since the planter knew very little about doing such things himself. For many years it was Senator Bruce's custom to stop with Father, as he passed through Memphis on his way to and from his plantation. After receiving the permission to accept the invitation which I was sure Father would give me, I began immediately to study ahead. I knew I could not enjoy myself in Washington, if I did not make up my college work before I went. So I read all the Latin and Greek assigned for that term, before I started on my great adventure, leaving the dreated Mathematics till I returned. Mrs. B.K. Bruce was a tall, beautiful graceful woman, so fair that no one would suspect that she had a drop of African blood in her veins. She lived in what seemed to me to be a veritable mansion, in what was then considered a most desirable residential section of Washington. She had a horse and carriage plus a coachman, Meekins, by name, who was a constant source of worry to my hostess, but who furnished no end of amusement for me. On this visit to Washington I had my first tast of society, spelled with a capital S. My mother had sent me some beautiful clothes from New York bought with the money Father had given her for that purpose, so there was nothing to mar the joy of my young heart. With Mrs. Bruce I attended receptions and dances galore, both large and small. Naturally, Senator and Mrs. Bruce took me to the Inaugural Ball which was the biggest event of all. 46 It has since been thrown into the discard, but for many years, some women would begin to plan as soon as one Inauguration was over, what they would wear to the next one four years off. Styles did not change so rapidly in those halcyon days as they do now. At the Inaugural Ball I was introduced to so many judges, Senators, Representatives and other grandees that it made my head swim. Senator Bruce, who was the only colored man in the United States Senate, was highly respected by all the worthwhile people in the official life of the Capital and was generally liked by many. When the Senator from Mississippi refused to extend to Senator Bruce the courtesy which one Senator is expected to show to another from the same state, when he makes his first appearance in the Senate, Roscoe Conkling Bruce, Senator from New York, arose from his seat and did the honors himself for the colored man. I recall distinctly how the most distinguished representatives of the Government beamed with pleasure upon Senator Bruce, as they grasped his hand. On several occasions some of the "Higher Ups" mistook me for the Senator's wife and addressed me as "Mrs. Bruce." The fact that this case of mistaken identity proved that I must have looked a few years older than I was, did not disturb my young heart in the least, but amused me very much. The mistake was probably made because Mrs. Bruce was so fair and my complexion more nearly resembled the Senator's than her's did. But if I had met none of the Grandees of officialdom of the National Capital, if I had failed to attend the Inaugural Ball or any of the other social functions, my visit would have been more than worth while, because it afforded me the opportunity of meeting one of the greatest men whom this or any other country has ever produced. As I was walking down the street with a friend one day, a short distance ahead I saw two men talking to each other. Instantly and instinctively I knew that one of the men, who had magnificent, majestic proportions and a distinguished bearing could be none other than the great Frederick Douglass. Fortunately, my friend was well acquanted with him and introduced me to him, then and there, any rules of society to the contrary notwithstanding. And thus began a friendship which I prized more highly than words can portray, because I derived so much inspiration and pleasure from it all my life. While I studied hard at Oberlin College and availed myself of all the opportunities afforded me to cultivate my mind. I did not deprive 47 myself of any pleasure I could rightfully enjoy. I entered into all the sports suggested by the fertile brains of others, and played many of the pranks proposed, provided they did not stray too far from the straight and narrow. I learned early in my course that the fund derived from breaking the rules did not compensate for the trouble into which one was plunged by doing so. Every two weeks one had to sign her name to a statement that she had obeyed the rules, that she had broken no rules since the last report, and I did not like the idea of signing my name to a lie. Putting the students on their honor had a very salutary effect on a large number, without a doubt. I have known girls who laughed at their companions who admitted breaking rules, when they first entered college, who afterwards became absolutely honest and conscientious in making out their reports. "They'll have to catch me if they want to know which one of these precious rules I break," thesegirls would say when they first arrived, but there was something in the very atmosphere of the place which caused them to change their minds in a very short while. Then, too, I discovered that one could actually secure permission to do almost anything within reason, and that seemed much the easiest way to me. During my Freshman year I secured permission to sit up till midnight for several months to do some extra work, although girls had to be in bed a ten o'clock and the authorities insisted on that as a general thing. However, a certain young woman circumvented that rule in a very ingenious way. She ahd sat up late several times and had covered her transom throughly, so that not a ray of light could shine into the hall. One of her friends who knew she had not reported the violation of that rule, although she claimed to send in an honest report, asked her how she justified herself in failing to do so. "Well," replied that young woman, "I go to bed every night between nine and ten. I put a cardboard with the figure 9 on it at the head of my bed and one with the figure 10 on it at the foot of my bed, so that I'm not breaking the ten o'clock rule at all." But such ingenious methods of breaking the rules without reporting it were very rare indeed. During my Senior year I secured permission from Mrs. A.A.F Johnston, who then had charge of college women and later became Dean, which it is claimed she had never given before. Lawrence Barrett and Marie Wain- 48 wright were producing Shakespeare's plays in Cleveland, Ohio, and I wanted very much to go to see them. The girls with whom I discussed the matter advised me not to tell "Lady J," as she was familiarly called, what I wanted to do. "Just get permission to go to Cleveland," they said, "and, after you get there you can do as you please. Then you won't be breaking any of those precious rules again." After thinking about the matter I decided that I would pursue a different course. For the life of me I could not see how an intelligent woman like Mrs. Johnston could possibly refuse to give me permission to see certain artists perform Shakespeare's plays. If she did refuse I wanted to know what reason she would assign. During the winter of my Sophomore year I had gone to Cleveland every Saturday to have my throat treated by a specialist, so I knew that I would have no difficulty in securing permission to go to Cleveland. "Mrs. Johnston," I said, as I entered her office, "I want to go to Cleveland to see Lawrence Barrett and Marie Wainwright play Julius Caesar and Hamlet. My classmate, Miss. G, will go with me. We will attend the Saturday matinee and the performance at night and return the next day." I asked permission to do this as though it were nothing unusual and looked Mrs. Johnston straight in the eye, as I spoke. "If you want to get permission to do anything," the girls used to say, "don't go to Lady J looking like a condemned criminal, but look her straight in the eye, as though you knew exactly what you wanted and expected to get it." Mrs. Johnston had auburn hair and she wore two pretty little curls, one on each side of her head. Her face became as red as fire, when I asked her to let me go to the theatre, for it was strictly against Oberlin's policy in those days to cultivate the theatre. The very audacity of the request silenced her for a moment, but when she recovered from the sock, she gave me the permission most graciously and expressed the hope that I would enjoy the plays and have a nice time. This Cleveland epispode comes very vividly before me, because it was the first time I used a long distance telephone. Havin gsuch a short time in which to arrange for the trip I phoned a friend in Cleveland to get the tickets for me, and I was quite excited when I heard someone speaking to me forty miles away. It was a great temptation to us to break the study hour rule, from 9 to 12 in the morning, 2 to 4 in the afternoon, and 7.30 till 10 at night. 49 Personally, I always felt that the study hour was my salvation. It enabled me to study at the proper time. My social nature was always highly cultivated and it is easily conceivable that I might have been visiting girls, preventing them from studying and myself also, when we should have been preparing our lessons for the next day. I have often wondered what I would have done in college if I had not been shielded by this study hour rule. It has been abolished since my day and I feel very sorry for the girls who are denied the protection which it afforded me. I was interested in baseball, and went to all the games, and learned to keep an official score. I contributed my mite to provide a spread for the boys when they won. I skated fairly well and enjoyed it immensely. It was against the rules for girls to dance at any of the college functions and decidedly against the rules for young men and young women to dance together at all. There was a girl in Ladies Hall who loved to dance as well as I did, which is saying a good deal. So she and I would betake ourselves to the gymnasium every evening after supper and trip the light fantastic to our heart's content, priding ourselves on the fact that we knew all the latest steps. Dancing was not so common in Oberlin then as it is today, and it was usually frowned upon by everybody who wanted to be considered intellectual or who sighed to be classified as High Brow. Nevertheless, several of the teachers who boarded in the Ladies Hall and some serious-minded young women used to come to see my partner and myself dance and encouraged us considerably by complimenting us. No human being has ever enjoyed dancing more than I did. Throughout my youth I would much rather have danced any day or any night in the week than eat. Even unto this day dancing is my favorite recreation. But, unfortunately for me, in these degenerate days neither young men nor their elders care especially to dance with "old dames", so the opportunities to indulge in this delightful, beneficial exercise at social functions, are growing painfully less every day, in every way, although there are some who say that I dance as well as I ever did and I know that I can dance as long. One Fourth of July a friend and I thought it would be great fun to go horseback riding in the afternoon. Neither one of us felt that we would take a prize at it, but there was nothing else exciting to do, so we decided to do it. My friend said she had been brought up with horses, knew a good saddle horse when she saw one and would select her own mount. I told the livery stable man that I would depend upon him to give me a good, well-behaved, 50 kindly animal, so he gave me a cute-looking little white horse whose name was Dixie. Of course I would have preferred another horse with a different name, but what's in a name, I said, half ashamed of myself. Now, Dixie would have undoubtedly been all right, if he had had no competition and had been alone. But, of course, there was another horse and one who went at a merry clip when he called himself going. Dixie made up his mind in the very beginning that he simply would not allow that other horse to get ahead of him. Both of the horses were continually being frightened by fire crackers which the children were shooting off, so that neither of them was in a particularly amiable frame of mind. My friend's horse had also decided that he would not let a little white horse like Dixie get ahead of him, whatever else might happen. The more Dixie tried to overtake him the faster that unmanageable horse ran. I kept begging my friend to rein her horse in, so that he would set a proper example to Dixie. But she kept shouting back that she could not do a thing with min, so long as Dixie tried to overtake him, and advised me to hold Dixie back. So we two girls went galloping down the pike like two madcaps on horses which neither one of us could control. That we finally reached the livery stable with no bones broken is a mystery which I cannot explain. Occasionally, forty or fifty people would hire "band wagons" and go on a picnic to Lake Erie. Sometimes we would go to Lorain, Ohio, about forty miles from Oberlin, and sometimes we would select a spot nearer. On such occasions it was my duty to play chords on the guitar to accompany the singing. I had asked my father to send me a guitar in my Freshman year and I had taught myself to play chords. Several times I remained in Oberlin during the summer vacations and went camping on Lake Erie with a party of friends. there were three middle-aged women, and a youth near my age, the brother of one of the women. We women had one large room with bunks on the side, on above the other, like the arrangement in a Pullman car. We youngsters used to don our bathing suits in the morning and wear them all day, part of the time trying to swim and splashing in the Lake, and part of the time rowing a little boat. It was our duty to row to the nearest town for supplies and we considered it great sport, although we had to use every ounce of our strength to negotiate the distance both ways and were usually "tired to death" when we returned. Once, we two, John and I, were invited by a party who happened to anchor near our camp to take a sail out on the lake with them. We jumped at Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.