My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes's Letters to Langston Hughes, 1926-1938

Acknowledgments

acknowledgments We have many people to whom we wish to express our deepest gratitude for their generous support and unfailing assistance as we worked to create this book. We wish to thank Timothy Young, curator of Modern Books and Manuscripts at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, for providing us insight into the difficulties of determining precise dates for the donation , processing, and availability of Carrie’s letters. This book, like most contemporary Langston Hughes scholarship, builds on the work of Arnold Rampersad. At the University of Kansas, James Carothers eschewed the far easier “atta-boy” comments for a more thoroughgoing, careful scrutiny of the manuscript when we approached him for criticism. His readings of the book-in-progress were always thoughtful, cogent, and compelling, for which we can’t say enough how appreciative we are. Susan Kumin Harris enabled us to discover more fully the complexity of correspondence as a genre, when she provided a model of her own scholarship on this subject. In the latter stages of book preparation, Clarence Lang offered some very pithy comments on the sociohistorical era from 1926 to 1938. His insightful observations greatly enriched our understanding of the period in which Carrie and Langston lived and wrote. For her thoughtful introduction to the literary critical possibilities of Bowen Family Systems Theory, we are grateful to Cheryl Lester for providing us a heuristic for probing beneath apparent simplicity to discover a more complicated vision of family life. Our debt to Pam LeRow and Paula Courtney of Digital Media Services 188  acknowledgments is simply incalculable. Their preparation of the manuscript in its various stages was always done quickly, efficiently, and expertly. They were absolutely indispensable as they made our job so much easier. Of course, our colleagues in KU’s English Department were wonderfully supportive, including the award of funds for a book subvention. When research questions arose, we depended, as always, on the historical acumen of Deborah Dandridge of KU’s Kenneth Spencer Research Library. And in the eleventh hour, colleagues Nicole Hodges Persley and George E. Gibbs responded to our desperate plea for information on the history of Black theater. My Dear Boy received its first full consideration at the University of Missouri Press, where two external reviewers subjected the manuscript to a rigorous analysis and concluded that it merited publication. The temporary closure of the University of Missouri Press led us fortuitously to the University of Georgia Press and the editorial expertise of Nancy Grayson. We are especially grateful that she saw the viability of this project and decided to bring it before an appreciative group of scholars, students, and nonacademic readers as a published book. Although retirement cut short her involvement in the process, she left My Dear Boy in the exceedingly capable hands of Sydney DuPre, Jon Davies, and freelance copy editor Chris Dodge. By now, we hope it is abundantly clear that seldom does a project of this kind come into existence without the cheerful assistance of a great many people, institutions, and resources. I, Carmaletta M. Williams, wish to express my gratitude to those who inspired and helped me personally with the project. Exploring other people’s family systems always demands that one’s own family be examined. During the course of this project, I came to realize how deep were the debts that I owed to those women now passed on to Glory who considered me their “dear girl.” My grandmother Blanche Pinkie Waters Blue stood as a wonderful role model of a fully, self-differentiated woman. My mother, Doris Rebecca Grant, learned those lessons and refused to develop improper triangulation and enmeshment, as she raised five children alone on a nurse’s salary. My Mama II, the late Aileen Walker, had no children of her own but displayed a deep compassion for the children of her heart. My aunts, Jeanette Smith, Jerry Dianne Smith, Marion Jo Waters, and Vickie acknowledgments  189 Jones, appropriately functioned in their family roles. Vickie, Dianne, and my cousin Dorothy Frazier are the sisters of my heart. My own sister, Mitchi Payne, and her daughter Morgan, as well as my granddaughterdaughter Antoinette Jacine, center my life. I love them all dearly. Of course there are men in my family who deserve a strong acknowledgment , especially my sons Dwight, Jason, and Nicholas. Their journeys to growing into fairly well differentiated men continue. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Regennia Williams for...