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2. Normal, Illinois; Chicago; Wilberforce; and Chicago Public Library In 1911, after sixteen years of marriage, Regina’s parents divorced over allegations of infidelity against William. Margaret accused William of becoming intimate with a former client who obtained a divorce using William as her attorney. According to the Broad Axe newspaper, “this particular Colored lady is exceedingly good looking, and . . . most any married woman would feel a little bit uncomfortable if she would happen to get a little too close to her husband.” Margaret was awarded the family home worth about $8,000 and received $90 a month for child support.1 Apparently William was reluctant to divorce and said he tried to be a good husband and father but that no one was perfect. He cited one example to prove he was a good father. In 1909, he paid $500 to send Regina to the South because of her health.2 Regina was eleven at the time of the divorce and was once again sent away. This time she lived with her maternal grandfather, Rev. Henry Simons, and his second wife Laura in Normal, Illinois. Normal, a two-hour drive south from Chicago, was an ironic name for the little town because Regina’s life was nowhere near normal when she arrived there to live for four years. We also do not know why the divorce sent Regina to Normal.3 As far as can be established, both parents remained in Chicago—Margaret in the family home at 530 E. 45th Street and William most likely in the magnificent mahogany home he purchased with his legal fees. It is also not clear whether either sibling went with Regina. Apparently, seven-year-old Mercedes took her parents’ divorce very hard, and maybe she was allowed to remain in Chicago—most likely with her mother. We know little about Regina’s day-to-day childhood in Chicago, but two personal letters reveal a bit about what life was like in Normal. While visiting 22 chapter 2 Normal as an adult, Regina wrote these letters to a friend, Joseph Freeman, back home in New York City. The Ukrainian-born Freeman was an editor and reporter for left-wing communist publications. He traveled and worked in various U. S. cities and abroad before returning to New York City shortly before Regina arrived. During the 1920s, he handled public relations for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and wrote about the textile workers’ strike in Passaic, New Jersey. The Communist Party later denounced him after the publication of his autobiography, An American Testament, in 1936.4 It is unknown how the two met, but her letters suggest more than a passing interest in Freeman beyond his potential role as a lecturer for the North Harlem Community Forum at the 135th Street Branch library. Regina described Normal, Illinois, the location of the Illinois State University , as being very different from “Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue” back in New York City. She said Normal was “a quiet college town.” Normal was a “veritable ‘Main Street,’ with its village gossips, and neighborly inquisitiveness .” Reverend Henry Simons built the home at 405 North Fell Avenue during the 1860s or 1870s. The ten-room residence sat on a quarter-block of land surrounded by “huge elms and maples.” Like her mother before her, as a child Regina sat in a swing hanging from a pear tree. She slept in a “four-poster feather bed” and played with dolls and sleds except for on Sundays when the dolls were locked away. Her Sunday “occupation was sitting on the front porch reading the Bible, a stiffly starched and beribboned little girl.” She used to attend Sunday school across the street at an “ivy grown church” wearing a “stiff starched little white dress” with her bible at hand. Regina recalled: And today such a funny (to me) thing happened. I had gone down town [sic] to the hardware store to buy a paring knife for Mother. I picked out the one I wanted conscious of a peculiar silence from the other side of the counter, looked up to have it wrapped, and who should it be—the idol of our freshman football team, I dropped the knife, he laughed and so did I, when we shook hands. He said, “you are Regina, you sat in front of me and I used to pull your curls.” And I—“Yes, and I spilled ink in the cuff of your new shirts and you...

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