Select Item below to DOWNLOAD - Once item is selected, right click and choose 'save as'
397d2366-ab2e-4cf7-8c9b-aac65176635e
Josephine Cleaton to Alice Mary Longfellow, 19 February 1906
Manuscript letter
[printed letterhead: Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute / Hampton, Virginia]
Feb. 19 1906
My dear Miss Longfellow –
Again has come the pleasant duty of thanking you for your very great kindness in paying my scholarship.
Last June when school closed I went to Oscawama on the Hudson to cook in a summer school for white teachers. The season proved a very trying one in many respects. The [p. 2] great trouble was in getting efficient help. Our lady did not feel that she could afford to get my second girl from Hampton. So she, I should say they, for I had eleven girls and boys during the four months, came from New York. I did my ordering and catering and I now feel that the whole experience was exceedingly helpful. Our greatest number of boarders was forty, of course at times [p. 3] we had only eighteen or twenty, many of them were southerners.
The first four months of this term I spent in the training school which is connected with this institution. I taught literature, composition work, geography and agriculture in the ninth grade. Those children are expecting to enter the normal school next [p. 4] fall. Never in my life did I enjoy anything more than this work. My children were so interesting and so good!
The first of this month I began my classroom work: economics, literature, composition, ancient history, drawing book-keeping, animal industry and domestic science.
If all goes well I expect to graduate in June. I shall go north to work during the summer [p. 5] months but shall teach next winter if I can get a school, which of course is not a very hard matter for a Hampton graduate. I do hate the idea of leaving not to come back in the fall. Yet I know that I must be helping someone else who is not so fortunate as I have been. [p. 6] Never before in my life did I realize how little I do know, but wherever I am placed I shall try to do each day’s duty as it comes.
Thanking you again with all my heart.
I am your
Grateful,
Josephine Cleaton.
Feb. 19 1906
My dear Miss Longfellow –
Again has come the pleasant duty of thanking you for your very great kindness in paying my scholarship.
Last June when school closed I went to Oscawama on the Hudson to cook in a summer school for white teachers. The season proved a very trying one in many respects. The [p. 2] great trouble was in getting efficient help. Our lady did not feel that she could afford to get my second girl from Hampton. So she, I should say they, for I had eleven girls and boys during the four months, came from New York. I did my ordering and catering and I now feel that the whole experience was exceedingly helpful. Our greatest number of boarders was forty, of course at times [p. 3] we had only eighteen or twenty, many of them were southerners.
The first four months of this term I spent in the training school which is connected with this institution. I taught literature, composition work, geography and agriculture in the ninth grade. Those children are expecting to enter the normal school next [p. 4] fall. Never in my life did I enjoy anything more than this work. My children were so interesting and so good!
The first of this month I began my classroom work: economics, literature, composition, ancient history, drawing book-keeping, animal industry and domestic science.
If all goes well I expect to graduate in June. I shall go north to work during the summer [p. 5] months but shall teach next winter if I can get a school, which of course is not a very hard matter for a Hampton graduate. I do hate the idea of leaving not to come back in the fall. Yet I know that I must be helping someone else who is not so fortunate as I have been. [p. 6] Never before in my life did I realize how little I do know, but wherever I am placed I shall try to do each day’s duty as it comes.
Thanking you again with all my heart.
I am your
Grateful,
Josephine Cleaton.
Archives Number: 1007.001/002.003-001#095
U. S. National Park Service
Permission must be secured from the individual copyright owners to reproduce any copyrighted materials contained within this website.
Courtesy of National Park Service, Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site; Archives Number 1007.001/002.003-001#095
Public domain
Manuscripts (1007.001), (LONG-Subcollection)
, Correspondence (1007.001/002), (LONG-SeriesName)
, Scholarship Student Correspondence (1007.001/002.003), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, Letters to Alice Longfellow (1007.001/002.003-001), (LONG-FileUnitName)
, Correspondence (1007.001/002), (LONG-SeriesName)
, Scholarship Student Correspondence (1007.001/002.003), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, Letters to Alice Longfellow (1007.001/002.003-001), (LONG-FileUnitName)
Image
Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Code: LONG
Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Latitude: 42.3769989013672, Longitude: -71.1264038085938
Latitude: 42.3769989013672, Longitude: -71.1264038085938
NPS Museum Number Catalog : LONG 16173
Title: Finding Aid to the Alice Mary Longfellow (1850-1928) Papers, 1855-1965 (bulk dates: 1873-1928)
URL: https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/archives.htm#AML
URL: https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/archives.htm#AML
20200826
02/19/1906
Manuscript letter in Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, C. Scholarship Student Correspondence, 1874-1925
Public Can View
Organization: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
Address: 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: LONG_archives@nps.gov
Address: 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: LONG_archives@nps.gov
Monday, May 23, 2022 8:55:11 PM
Monday, May 23, 2022 8:55:11 PM
1007-01-02-03-01-095 p6.jpg
jpg
429.7 kB
Historic