On September 9, 1898, Paul Laurence Dunbar in Washington, D. C., wrote an angry letter to his wife Alice Moore Dunbar in West Medford, Massachusetts. The Dunbars had been married for six months, but were experiencing a long separation due to domestic conflict. Alice was living with her family near Boston and Paul had just returned from a speaking engagement in Ohio, where he discovered he had a reputation for wife-beating.
I arrived at home today very lonesome and desperate and broody. Sometimes I think I never want to see you again. You have simply ruined me. The night you lay on the bed and yelled like a Comanche is reported even as far as Cincinnati and people all believe that I beat you. I was told down here that you were yelling away like an Indian and that I kept on pounding you. While another person, an old friend, told me to treat my wife better. When I think of the reputation I am bearing because you chose to scream in anger, I grow both bitter and desperate. Whatever else people have said about me, they have not before said that I was a brute. It remained for the woman I married to give me that name.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Moore Dunbar, September 9, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
If Alice screamed inside the house, their neighbors could probably hear it. The Dunbars lived next door to Robert and Mary Terrell (known as Bob and Mollie). One night when he left the window open, Paul heard them arguing (and he caught a cold).
I forgot to tell you Mrs. Terrell's father and stepmother and two children are here. Bob and Mollie had a scrap last night, or rather early this morning. Which reminds me that I slept in the damp air last night and have a lovely cold and a frog voice.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Alice Moore Dunbar, August 9, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
After the Dunbars reunited, their marital difficulties continued, as did rumors about Paul's treatment of Alice. They separated permanently in January 1902, and an acquaintance reported that it was a violent incident. The journalist T. T. Fortune, in Red Bank, New Jersey, shared the news with Booker T. Washington, in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Saturday night Dunbar went home and tried to kill his wife. He left Washington on the 12 o'clock train, and had not been heard from when I left Washington Thursday morning. His family has left his home, on the advice of friends, but I do not know their address.
Timothy Thomas Fortune to Booker T. Washington, February 1, 1902. The Booker T. Washington Papers, Volume 6. Edited by Louis R. Harlan and Raymond Smock. University of Illinois Press (Champaign, Illinois). 1972. Pages 388 - 389.
Alice also heard disturbing rumors about her marriage, as she described to Paul's mother Matilda. Alice referred to a trip to Denver that the Dunbars had taken a few years earlier.
About the Denver business, one of my good friends told me a lot of things that had happened out there, most of which had not happened at all. When I asked how they came by their information, I was told that Denver people had written East. I didn't believe it, for most of the things were fabrications. Mrs. Curtis said that Paul told her in New York that he had slapped me in Denver and I didn't seem to mind it then, and he wondered why I minded it now. So you see how much talk I have to contend with? I have had enough to last me until I am a hundred years old. All I want is peace.
Alice Moore Dunbar to Matilda Dunbar, June 17, 1902. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 2).