May 15, 1925.

My dear Mrs. Norwood,

I received your letter dated May the third. Were there any
good intentions in your letter, I would thank you for them. Since
I find none, I cannot express much joy over the letter you wrote.

As a child of my father, I resent your writing me to retell
obscene stories about relationships between my father and your
daughter. You express great concern about the happiness of your
daughter...might it not have occurred to you to spare the feelings
and sensibilities of someone's else daughter. For you to write to
me to tell me, as you put it, "the kind of father" I have is unkind
as well as foolish. It has not been the history of relations between
daughter and father that I should be in a position to meddle in
affairs of as personal a relation as you mention. Of course, I am
sorry for any wrong that might have been done either you or your
daughter but I beg you to remember that I have absolutely nothing
to do with it.

You speak with quite a bit of conviction about my father's
"taking a seventeen year old child and ruining her". Let me say this
as a girl who has passed through the "seventeen-year-old stage",
no man can ruin any girl who does not lay herself open to both
intimacy and insult. Real fineness and purity are inviolable; true
womanhood and chastity are always in a position to combat anything
that even bears the semblance of wrong.

You speak of my knowing your daughter well....I must deny
this. The Clara Hicks that I thought I knew was lady-like. The
Clara Hicks I knew also knew that I was the daughter of the man
with whom it seems she was a party to certain immoralities. Our
acquaintance was scant. Had I known what I now know, I would not
have thought your daughter worthy of my slightest acknowledgement.

You express a hope to have the chance to tell me "all about
it". Thank you, but I do not care to discuss the matter with you or
with anyone. It is not my concern.

Law Offices

BENNETT & CLINTON

1937 Fourteenth Street, Northwest
Washington, D. C.

Dad's "Weekly Dispatch" No. 19.

Inexpressibly grateful to be able to thus CONGRATULATIONS on your aid and encouragement to the dearest girl in the world — this is but to say each week, I thank God for the wonderful daughter you have given me.

HOWARD UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON, D. C.

FOUNDED BY GENERAL O. O. HOWARD

J. STANLEY DURKEE, A. M., PH. D., D. D.
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY

EMMETT J. SCOTT, A. M., LL. D.
SECRETARY-TREASURER

SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE
HAROLD D. HATFIELD, M. E.
DEAN

Monday, January 5, 1925.

Dearest Mumsey and Daddy,

Well, as you requested I am typing a line or two to say I am here
all safe and sound. The journey was a long one on a crowded train. It seemed
that every one under the sun was on the trains twixt here and New York. The train
was about three quarters of an hour late making us just barely have time to get in
the house, get cleaned up and off to school.

Mr. and Mrs. Glenn were ever so glad to see me and I was most glad to see
them. It seemed so peculiar to be in Washington once more.....Washington with its
quiet streets and no elevators nor subways. Strangely enough the streets here
are also covered with snow. The weather overhead is beautiful. The campus is
really beautiful with the sun shining down on the snow and the trees casting
strangely fantastic shadows across all the whiteness.

I know it was awful how little we saw of each other during this my first
holiday at home. It came at an unfortunate time. You see it seemed that everything
was going on at the same time and if you lived in this God-forsaken place like
I do you'd be able to understand why I would want to do a lot of running around.
It really would have been wonderful for us to have been a little more with one
another. It is so marvelous to be in New York that I just cant go enough. You'll
try to forgive me wont you? I know it's kind of hard for you to get my point of
view but try, wont you?

I appreciate all the little things you both did for me during my brief
stay at home. So often there were little acts of love and thoughtfulness that
you might have thought that I did not see nor did I feel the proper gratefulness
therefor.....I saw, though and I loved you both for everything.

The whole campus is agog with the news of my award and the circumstances
thereof. Every body is congratulating me and wishing me all sorts of luck. The
first thing this morning I saw Dr. Scott and he congratulated me upon my award.
Mr. Herring and Dean Hatfield are going to help me get a year's leave. I
hope their plans work out all right.

Madelienne and I slept most of the way home but we are both crawling
around here like two hlf dead people. Dont possibly see how I am going to teach
this afternoon.

Give my best love to all my friends who might ask after me. Keep worlds
of it for your own dear selves. Write to me real soon....write often even
though I may not write you. I am trying to turn over a new leaf about writing.

Lots of love and kisses.....

HOWARD UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON, D. C.

J. STANLEY DURKEE, A.M., PH. D., D. D.
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY

EMMETT J. SCOTT, A.M., LL. D.
SECRETARY-TREASURER

March 24, 1925.

Dearest Mumsey,

Excuse me for writing you on the typewriter.... it isn't supposed to be done, you know. I happen to be here at school and I can get this letter off to you while I am teaching my class, for I am teaching a class right at this moment.

I am teaching night school now. It's an awful job. Here at Howard you only get paid twenty dollars per pupil for the whole space of twelve weeks. I only happen to have four pupils, which will be only eighty dollars.

Do the division in this problem and you'll have just what my salary per hour amounts to. I teach in the evenings from five thirty until nine thirty. It leaves me quite tired out at the end of it all. Three days a week I teach all day from nine till five and then return to teach night school at night. The other days I am through at twelve oclock. My work has been so heavy that I have been coming up to school on Saturdays to get every thing in order.

I have moved from Mrs. Glenn's. I am now living at her cousin's home, Mrs. McCary's. She is Anne McCary Dingle's mother. Anne is the secretary of the Delta Sigma Theta Grand Chapter. It is very nice there but very lonely because I miss both Jennie and Madeleine. I had to move because of Mr. Glenn. Don't you remember that I told you that some folks had said Mr. Glenn was "off". Well, it seems that he has these "spells" every Spring and this year he had the worst one he had ever had. He chased Mrs. Glenn out of the house in her night-gown and bath-robe, he attacked Mr. Cobb and threatened to kill me should he catch me in the house. This was such a surprise to everybody because he was so fond of all of us, but they tell me that is one of the signs of craziness... turning against every one that you like. In order to have any peace of mind I had to move; Mrs Glenn found me the place I have. The funniest thing about it all is the fact that he never even spoke crossly to Jennie. So you see your daughter has just been through quite a trying time of it. I just cant semm to get back into my easy strain of living again somehow. I certainly have been upset. It seems a shame that it all had to happen when I only had two more months here.

My debts are coming along slowly; I hope I shall be able to save something soon. So far it has been an awful struggle. I am planning to leave for Europe almost as soon as school closes. The boat that I plan taking is sailing on June the eleventh. It is a little earlier than I had planned sailing but I have decided to go to summer school in Paris.

Rayford Logan, a friend of Gene's, who was in France all during the World War and just returned this year has helped me tremendously. I loved your letter. Write me again soon.

Law Offices
BENNETT & CLINTON

Friday Evening.

Mumsey darling,

Just a little word of "hello" to let you know I am thinking
about you and that I still manage to remain in the land of the l
living.

My claim of a cold has been terrible... so bad I have remained home from school for three days. I wish you would call Mr. Holcombe for me and ask him to give me an absent treatment. I don't feel that I can work this problem out myself.

There isn't much to tell about myself except that as I
said I continue to exist.

I was happy to be home for the few hours that I was there.
It always seems so peaceful and far away from the rest of the
world... and oh so clean!

I won't be able to come home until after my next pay. But
please write to me and keep me cheered up during these long
months.

Oh yes, I do have something to tell you - the telephone rang the other night and I was called to the phone. A woman's voice, very gruff, said, "How are you?" I answered that I was all right and who was she. And low and behold it was none other than Miss Thompson... now Mrs. Robertson. And if you please she lives right in the very next block from me. The Hendersons tell me that she married a man much younger than herself and that he cried at his wedding. It seems that she had helped him through school and that was what she demanded in payment for what she had done for him. He is a doctor just starting out in his practice. She asked me to come up to see her and I suppose I shall get around to it next week. Can you beat it?

I went to the theater last night with Marion Fauset, Jessie's sister who is just my age. We saw Katherine Cornell in *The Letter*. It was quite good but I was so miserable with my cold that I could scarcely enjoy it. The only reason I went was because we had made the engagement two weeks ago.

I suppose everything at home is the same as usual. Think
of me once in a while.

Jack writes that he is going to try to come up to see me
this coming Sunday if he possibly can. As yet he is not certain
that he will be able to make it. By any way I hope he does come.

Give my love to Mittie, Miss Montier, Miss West and all the
rest. Tell Mittie I knew she wouldn't send the quilt pieces.

Take care of yourself and write soon.

Lots of love,

G. B. Bennett.

BOSTON

P. O. BOX 546

EUSTIS, FLORIDA

Mrs. M. N. Bennett,
64 Brooklyn Avenue,
Brooklyn, New York.

Law Offices

BENNETT & CLINTON

Law Offices

BENNETT & CLINTON

"Surprise" No. 8.

From Dad to
his Cherish Child

non. 18, 1925.

Law Offices
BENNETT & CLINTON

God bless my dear Baby.

God bless my dear Baby.

I am very, very grateful to God for being able to plus continuously paid and encourage my dear, wonderful, deserving Baby.

Law Offices

BENNETT & CLINTON

Dad's Weekly "Surprise" No. 18.

My gratitude for being able to bring aid and encouragement you, Baby, is inexpressible — I truly thank God, and am happy.

Law Offices

BENNETT & CLINTON

"Surprise" No. 21.

With increasing gratitude for God's wonderfullness and goodness in His demonstrating that He, Truth is allimitable supply.

Law Offices
BENNETT & CLINTON

Dad's Weekly "Dad's News" No. 22,

My gratitude for God's boundless goodness is
unexpressible. And increasing — I am so glad,
happy to be able to say and encourage you, Baby.

Here's a birthday wish or two,
Daughter dear,
I've made for you-
One for happy carefree days,
One for sunny
sheltered ways,
One for friends
and one for health,
One for just sufficient wealth,
One for all your
dreams come true
A long and happy
lifetime through.

FROM THE DEPTHS OF MY HEART THIS
BRINGS TO YOU

ACROSS THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN
BLUE

MOST HEARTY GREETINGS AND WISHES

SINCERE

FOR A RIGHT MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Gwendolyn B. Bennett,
1912 West Berks Street,
North Philadelphia, Pa.

-NORTH PHIL

Mrs. Marechal Neil Bennett,
64 Brooklyn Avenue,
Brooklyn, New York.

Tuesday Morning.

Dearest Mumsey,

Just a line to let you know I am all right and am thinking
about you. After my week at home everything here was in such con-
sternation that I didn't get much chance for writing letters. I
was reall happy when you sent Jack's letter right on the way you
did. Everybody seemed to be quite up a tree about my whereabouts.
I had to laugh about the letter Arthur Fauset said he wrote you
and also the telegram Harry Peters sent. The fellows here are so
much more thoughtful than the New York fellows. Then too, when I
left here I was feeling pretty miserable and everybody knew it but
as soon as I got home among you people who believe in Divine Love
and its healing power I seemed to be cured almost instantanteously.
What did you think when you got Arthur's letter?

And now hold your chair....I received the twenty dollars
from Betty. The letter I sent her must have hit the spot. At any
rate it came in handy. At this rate I will soon have everything
cleared up. Lord knows I will be happy. Can you imagine Betty's say-
ing this:-" I am sorry you feel as you do about money. Even though I
have had scarcely any myself I realize I should have sent yours by
now." Boor child!

I may have to come home this week end on business....I don't
know. I am writing a very important article for the Southern Workman
Magazine and I have scouted around everywhere here for some very
necessary material that I need to complete it but as yet I have found
nothing. I know that I can get what I want in the Negro collection at
the 135th Street Branch so I might have to come on up there to see ab-
out it. If so I shall be home for the week-end. So I will be with you
on the holiday all the same. Will you be glad?

I surely will be glad when I wont have to worry about money

and can go back and forwards home whenever I feel like it. Aaron
goes to New York every week-end. I surely envy him when he leaves.

Give my love to Mittie and thank her for sending the quilt
pieces. Tell her my quilt is almost finished. Ha.Ha.

Give my love to Miss Montier. Tell her I will drop her a
little note tonight. You know she sent me the quarterly. Wasn't
that nice?

How are things in California? It made my heart sink a bit
when you said last week-end that you would be glad when Sam came
East because you were tired of working. I want for you all the
happiness in the world but I shall miss you when you leave me.
If you finally decide to get married, when will you set the date?
Jack and I are definitely decided on Next January. So that is that.
I learn to love him more and more as the days go by. He "wears" very
well with the passing of time.

Did I tell you I got a lovely letter from his mother? She
seems to be very sweet and kind from her letter.

I wish you would write to me before the week-end is here.
A letter so I could get it Saturday morning.

My regards to everybody. And for you my true love.

A kiss from

Wednesday Morning Early.

Mumsey darling,

I have been just as miserable as I could possibly be about
you..... This is the first time in our whole life together that
I have not given you some little birthday remembrance and it has
made me feel terrible. I hope you know firmly in your heart that
I love you very, very dearly and that is after all the very best
gift that any one could give to another.....and these aren't
just words either! When I got back from North Carolina I had not
one red cent to rub against another as you might well have imag-
ined and as luck would have it our checks came late this month.
I had wanted to buy you some little something - if only just a
handkerchief. We got our checks on Saturday, the seventeenth and
then too late to cash them before Monday and so I had no chance
to get you anything. I didn't even have money enough to buy you
a card - fact is I just barely managed to get to and from class.
I had to ask Aaron to do the honors for me......I was so upset
and worried that I didn't know what to do. Then too, the folks at
Opportunity were telegraphing and special-deliverying and long-
distantly for the things that I was to do for them.....they are
putting out a special issue this month. And so my mind was so
crowded I didn't even get a chance to write you a letter on the
joyful day. But I don't want you to think I didn't know it was
your birthday......I just feel miserable. But I hope you will
understand and forgive what seems to be an oversight.

My trip to Durham was short and very, very busy. I left here
on Monday night and got there Tuesday morning. Did not stop over
in Washington. The conference began on Wednesday morning. It was
very interesting and I was very glad I went after all. I got offers
for two jobs next year in the even that something else doesn't

2.

come through I shall not need to worry. As I had thought it well
paid me to go. I am enclosing a program....I answered too late
for my name to be on the program. Everyone tells me that I spoke
wonderfully and I wish you could have been there to have heard me.
I kept thinking about you and longing for you to be there with me.

And right now in the middle of this letter your telegram has
come. Gee I was glad just to know that you are thinking of me as
you undoubtedly are. And I am glad you are going home; you need a
vacation, if any one ever did. I wish I could go with you. But I
just can't think of spending that money when I am in debt as I am.
You asked me to do everything in my power to get out of debt and
that is what I am trying to do. Although you say that you will
pay my fare from Washington to Kearneysville still I would much
rather you gave me that money and let me put it on some of the
debts I owe. I really couldn't enjoy a holiday that was spent as
this one will have to be spent knowing that every penny should
have been turned to my debts. So whatever you had intended giving
me for Christmas please give me its equivalent in money 'cause I
just feel that I can't go on this way....I am worrying myself al-
most crazy - three more spots have dropped out of my head, each
of them about the size of a quarter and I have gotten to the
place now where I scarcely sleep a wink at nights. In spite of
all this I am trying to write stories and articles and what-not
and am trying to sell them wherever I can.....it's pretty hard,
though, for they continue to be returned. For that reason I now
know that I just must get out of debt if I expect to remain young
and be able to do anything with my mind. I've tried a good bit
about having to be away from you and everyone else I know on
Christmas day but I guess we'll just have to pretend that I am
in Paris or some other place miles and miles away. I shall be very

3.

brave and think many happy thoughts even though I shall be sad.
I am ever and ever so happy that you are going home because I
know you need it. I shall come home to take the exams on the
29th and 30th so I shall have my Christmas then.

Please call me up tonight (Wednesday) and tell me what time
your train leaves New York and whether it passes through Phila.
I should like to try to be at the station to say "hello" to you
as you go through that's if it doesn't fall within my school
time. Please let me know. Could you stay over here in Philadelphia
a while? Maybe an hour or two....or is that one of those trains
that go straight through?

When you get to Kearneysville please speak to Betty about
my money. She has not made the slightest gesture toward paying
me. I think its a shame. I have not written her - I just couldn't
without telling her what I thought of her. She will never
know what suffering the lack of it has caused me. At any rate see
what you can do for me about it.

I told you Arthur Fauset and I were going to write a novel,
didn't I? Well, we're going to put our heads together and try to
get it well on the way during the holidays. He is very nice to
me and plans doing some nice things for me during the Christmas
holidays....however, he shall be spending his Christmas with his
family I guess.

By the by did you hear whether Frank came home or not? You
know he was planning to come home for the Christmas holidays.

Jack doesn't as yet see any way clear to spend Christmas
with me but you know how he is and he's liable to turn up at the
last minute since he knows I am going to be all alone. It's too
bad that we can't have our family reunion as I had planned it. But
when another year rolls around we'll all be together, wont we dear?

4.

I have a lot before me to do for the holidays... getting ready for these New York exams is no cinch. I haven't had a minute since I came back from Durham... that threw me back considerably. But I know I shall pull through all right... you will hold a good thought for me, won't you dear?

I am sending off the money for the telephone today - $27.46. Please send me my Christmas fund check special delivery at once. Also the furniture book... as I think it over I believe I have that here. I looked + yes, I have it. But please don't forget to send me the Christmas fund check. Little by little I am getting out of debt, thank heavens.

Please try to find a minute to write me a letter before you leave for Kearneysville, won't you? Then be sure to call me up to-night.

Give me best love to Mittie and Miss Montier. My regards to Miss West and the other people in the house. I shall send them Christmas cards from the five and ten. That will be the extent of my giving this year.

My heart is full of love for you at this season, dear Mumsey. I hope you will understand all my short-comings and make excuses for me but most of all I hope you love, love love me... cause I am a lonely little girl.

Best love and kisses,

Please save the Tribune for sending also the Afro they are the only copies I have and want them for my scrap-book. But it grand is the Tribune!!

Sunday Night.

Mumsey darlin',

I am pounding off this letter to let you know my thoughts are all of you tonight as I sit and face so many problems.

I am paying the other half of my fare to Durham out of my own pocket....I know that you will realize that this means much more to me than anything else in the world right now....it is a chance to be somebody again. I never can tell what will come out of a thing like this. You will say that I cant afford it and indeed you will be perfectly right but still I feel that this is like laying away money in the bank for a future date. I dont know what other motive you could think that I would have in going except a purely business one but whatever you think please try to see my side of it and understand why I am going. Please let your prayers and best wishes follow me through my trip - be with me, Mumsey. I have a feeling that Dr. Barnes will offer me the other half of my expenses when I return - at least I hope so. At any rate I am going to take the chance.

I am enclosing twenty-seven dollars. Please give Mittie $23.50 - I got $22.00 from her when I paid the telephone at Thanksgiving time and I owed her $1.50 from sometime in September. Thank her for me and tell her I will write her a letter as soon as I get a moment to spare - this has been a hectic week. There will be $3.50 left....I have that blue pleated cloth dress of mine in the cleaner's on Atlantic Avenue....it is to cost $4.00.....please add fifty cents to this three fifty and get it out for me. Look at the darn he was to make on the back of one of the sleeves to see whether it is carefully made neatly done also he was to remove "the shine" from it.....see if that is well done, too. Then hang it up carefully for me in that clothes cover I have up in our room... I don't want it to be crowded up in the front room closet because the pleats will get out. I'll pay you the fifty cents some other time. Please do this for me at once Mumsey cause the dress has been there for almost two months and they might sell it. Thanks so much. I intended doing it myself had I come home this week-end. I wanted to come home but since I didn't have to take the exam I thought I would save the money and put it to better use.

I am not going to be able to go anywhere Christmas for reasons you no doubt know. Couldn't you come down here and spend Christmas day with me? I'd love to have you and it would be something of a holiday for both of us. Please do. It will only cost six dollars. You see I will have to be in New York on the twenty-ninth and thirtieth for the exams.....I will of course stay over for New Year's Day. I couldn't bear to spend Christmas without you as you know we have always been together on Christmas Day except when I was in Paris. Please try to arrange to come down. I have long since given up the idea of going anywhere either Kearneysville or Washington. Please come.

Now about the telephone bill. First of all there is a Newark call listed for November fourteenth and as you know I was in Phila. at that time. Am I expected to pay that, too? Then two, there are $4.13 worth of extra calls listed .... I was only home six days during the whole month and on those days I didn't make more than three calls as an average each day....which made in all about 18 calls....you are allowed 60 calls per month. Does it seem fair to you that I should be made to pay for 35 extra calls when all in all I only used less than a third of the allotted calls. You know of course that calls are charged by the amount of time one person talks so that I image Miss West's long-winded foolish calls are in some measure responsible for this wextra charge. Mumsey, please think this over and see if you dont think I have enough to bear right

2.

in through here without that which is not my fault. I have the
twenty-seven forty-six to pay and as you know I only just have
so much money....I don't think it is fair even in the name of disci-
pline for me to have these added burdens when I wasn't even near
the telephone.

I am planning borrowing two hundred dollars from the BellInvestment Company.....I know you will groan with horror but I simply cant see any other way out of this situation. I shall then pay it back at sixteen dollars a month and at last be free when I have paid it off this time next year. I seems terrible to do it this way but at any rate I will have no worries. However, if the loan should go through I am going to give every penny of it to you and let you pay my bills so that you will know they are paid. That will cover everything and paying sixteen dollars a month is so much easier than any other way. Now when you look at it that way dont you agree with me?

Please write me a nice long heart to heart letter so that I will have it when I return to Philadelphia. I wish you could be with me on this trip.....I feel so close to you now that we have had a sort of heart to heart talk. Please try to see my point of view about the things I am talking to you about, wont you.

My heart is full of love for you....believe me when I say that I want some day to be able to contribute my share to your happiness. I shall write Miss Montier and Mittie soon, Tell them bothe "hello" for me wont you?

Kiss your dear self for me......

Your Little Girl,