Tougaloo University,
Tougaloo, Miss.,
April 10, 1907.Dear Lucy,-
Your postal has just reached me on this P.M. mail, and that together with my own conscience has won a victory over my procrastinating self and driven me into writing a letter even if I hav'n't the time, which, in truth, I really haven't. I think you and I must have been thinking of each other about the same time for I sent off a postal which ought to reach you about this time. The two postals must have passed on the way. I sent off quite a few promissory notes on postal at the same time, as I really hadn't time to write letters and my conscience (I really have one) would not let me remain silent any longer. My time is more than full this week for Eula is sick and I have been trying to spend as much time with her as possible as she is very lonely. Poor child! she seems to have a touch of malaria. I fear she will not get out this week. It is the first time she has lost a day in school since she has been here.
From time to time, this winter, I have been hearing about the snow and ice in the North, but have found it very hard to realize that it was really there for here it has seemed like summer and fall all winter. Roses bloomed profusely, in the open air until the first of January, when they decided to take a two-month's rest. But now, ever since the first of March, they have been doing their best to make things beautiful. Violets and all sorts of wild flowers have been blooming all winter. - no part of the time since I have been here that something was not in flower.
It has been a very open [?] winter even for Miss. Strawberries have been volunteering enough so one could find some
fruitberries whenever they cared to go to the garden. Strawberry season here (the regular one) is nearly over. I shall get home in time to enjoy another. I am glad I like them and cannot get too many. Of course, with so much that is pleasant, a warm climate has some drawbacks, and one here is mosquitoes. We have so many of them that they almost eat us up alive, so that we have to take every means of protecting ourselves against them lest they should bring upon us the dreaded Malaria. Another thing that troubles me is the excessive heat that we are now occasionally. having. [sic] I suppose we ought to expect it here at this time of the year, but when the thermometer goes up to 85 & 90 in the shade, I begin to beg. The one consolation is that the weather is changeable and just about as we begin to think we can stand it no longer, it becomes cooler - even very comfortable.You wished to know about my work. I am teaching the sixth grade here at Tougaloo University. This is one of the highest, and best organized schools for the colored people in the South. It is an A.M.A. school, having all grades and departments from primary up through College, and Theological departments. In all departments, indust[r]ial work is taught and required. The girls are taught cooking, sewing, dressmaking and millinery, and the boys are taught agriculture, iron-working, carpentry & wood-working of al kinds. The school aims to fit those who are able to avail themselves of its advantages to become leaders and teachers of their own race. There are many here, too, who respond mostly to the call to better and higher living. They hear of T.U. where they can get a good education and indust[r]ial training for a comparatively small sum, and if they hav'n't money, when they can work their way and they come here for all parts of the South to avail themselves of its privileges. Some work all day & take their class work in night school, others work five hours aday [sic]taking part of their work in day school and the rest in night school, while others are able to pay their entire way. Those who work their way, however, often come out as well as the rest in the end. I cannot tell you how eager some of these people are for an education. They will work in the cotton fields from early spring till later in the fall to make a few months here in the winter a possibility. Some of the girls even follow the plow and do all the work that a man would do.
My work in the sixth grade this year has been most interesting. I have enrolled forty-nine pupils this year, ranging in ages from twelve to twenty-two. The fact that some of them are so old does not mean that they are dull, but that they could not come to school until they were old enough to make an opportunity for themselves, or that their people were opposed to an education and they had to wait until they could do as they pleased. The school is doing an excellent work, for many who go out from here are taking a most active part in the building up of their race - it is sending out many leaders for the people who are going to help solve these race questions which are so agitating the North & South at the present time.
Well, I have, perhaps told you all you will care to hear about my work for the present. When the new catalogs are out I will send you one if you would care to have one.
Remember me as thinking of you often even if I am slow about writing. Write when you can do so.
Love and best wishes,
from Ella.[I got lucky in identifying Ella and Eula. I thought at first it was a mother/daughter pairing, so I searched my website for those two names in one biography and came up empty. But I noticed there were a few women named Eula and Ella in the class of 1906, so I searched their bios in the biographical directory. Ella Lester and Eula Taylor both taught in Tougaloo in 1907.]