The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-07-21
A BUSY FAMILY.
DR.. Booker T. Washineton's Has No
Idle Member.

Mr.. Booker T. Washington, in need
of relaxation from the cares of the ad.
ministration of Tuskegee institute,
used to love an old fashioned game of
marbles with his two sons, who are
grown up now. DR.. Washington has
three children. The eldest is Portia,
who is a teacher at the school of which
her father is the head, is a graduate
of the Normal school at birmingham,
Mass, and is especially skilled in in
strumental music. Each of the boys
spends every other day in the fields
at work. Booker T., the elder. is in
the executive department of the
school, while Ernest Davidson is an
assistant to the resident physician.
DR.. Washington is intensely fond Of
family life. and his keenest regret is
months at home each year. His
happiest moments are when he can
pass an evening at home, surrounded
ing to some one read.
Tuskegee institute, and learned a
trade. Booker T., for instance, learn
ed the trade of brick mason and
worked at it. His father is proud of
an incident which occurred when
Booker was about fifteen years old. Or
Washington was going away for the
summer and told Booker that he must
spend half of each day at bricklaying
and could do whatever he liked with
the rest of the day. Within FORTNIGHT
Booker wrote his father that he wanted
to work all day at his trade. Booker
tn
builder, and Davidson physician.
Booker T. Washington gave his
children entirely different surround
ings in their childhood from those he
himself had. They were born at
Tuskegee and reared in the enlighten-
ed educational and patriotic atmos-
phere for which their father has made
that tiny corner of the alabama black
belt" famous. The father was born
a. slave, never knew who his father
was. was brought up in a one-room
quarter-house with dirt floor and
potato hole" in the middle of the
room, where sweet potatoes were
stored In the winter months. After the
war his mother took him to Maiden,
w. Va, where he worked nine months
a year at the salt furnaces and went
shSC IuOuIuS u SCuOOl. he secured
work in the house of kind New Eng
land woman, who helped to teach him,
and who paid him Sc a month until
he went to the Hampton institute, in
1871.
DR., Washington has been married
three times. His first wife was a Miss
Fannie N. Smith, whom he married in
1882, and who died in 1884. She was
a graduate Of Hampton institute, and
the wedding took place at the end of
the first years work at Tuskegee. The
young couple provided home for the
four teachers which the school, which
now has 1856 instructors and helpers,
then boosted.
In 1885 DR.. Washington married Miss
Olivia Davidson, one OF the teachers
at the school. She wore herself out
assisting in the work at the school and
died in 1889. In 1893 he married Miss
Margaret ]. Murray. graduate of Fisk
university and woman principal at
Tuskegee. The present Mrs, Washing
ton carries on an enormous amount Of
work in and out of the school and is
chairman of the executive committee Of
the National federation of Colored
wOmap's clubs. DR.. Washington's
daughter was born to his first wife,
and his two sons to the second Mrs.
Washington.