During December 1900, an astrologer named Margaret Bailey prepared an extensive horoscope for Alice Moore Dunbar, the wife of Paul Laurence Dunbar. The handwritten document includes a zodiac dial in the center that says "Alice Dunbar, July 19, 1875, 8 a.m. New Orleans La" (referring to the time and place of Alice's birth).
Dear Mrs. Dunbar: Here is a sample of my horoscoping. If it is like you and applies enough to make it worthwhile, I will do more with it sometime. If not, there is no use, unless we can find where the fault lies -- with myself, the science, or the hour of birth. A Merry Christmas to you and Mr. Dunbar, in spite of my predictions to the contrary.
Margaret M. Bailey to Alice Moore Dunbar, no date [December 1900]. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 9).
The Dunbars had been married for almost three years and they were both in their late 20s. The horoscope analyzed Alice's personality traits and made predictions about her future. Several excerpts are given below, along with corresponding quotations from letters and news reports about Alice and her life with Paul.
"This person was born with the celestial sign Virgo rising and is therefore ruled by the planet Mercury which was in the sign Cancer in conjunction with Venus. This indicates a strong love nature and a fondness for children, home and family. She should make a kind, loving wife and would devote her life to her children."
Promise me that you'll do your best to help me make home a little Paradise. Paul I love home, I love home life, I will sacrifice anything to make our home the place of rest and comfort it should be.
Alice Moore Dunbar to Paul Laurence Dunbar, September 13, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Oh how often have I sat with closed eyes and seen ourselves in our home loving and trusting each other, living for each other. Monday night I lay awake for an hour while picture after picture glided before me. And do you know what was the sweetest one? Dare I tell you? It was one where you bent over me and kissed a little wee Something in my arms that I insisted upon calling Paul too! Oh my husband I trembled at the happiness of the thought, and burying my face in my hands prayed God to make us both worthy of such joy.
Alice Ruth Moore to Paul Laurence Dunbar, January 12, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
"She has a retentive memory, does not forget slights and is apt to be hypersensitive in matters which concern her most."
Paul, don't quarrel with me. I can't quarrel and make up and be the same. Something in me dies every time. I hate to speak crossly to anyone. I am ridiculously tender-hearted and sensitive. Slight words and looks hurt me for days, though I may laugh it away apparently. Won't you try to remember this dear, and not be sarcastic or cross with me? Those who love me have always spoken tenderly to me and I am afraid I am too old to learn to become accustomed to any other treatment. Such is the queer makeup of an apparently leather souled creature.
Alice Moore Dunbar to Paul Laurence Dunbar, March 22, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
You will laugh at me when you get this note and say I am sentimental, silly, theatrical, hysterical. Paul, dear heart, why must you deride me so much? You do, dear, though I know you don't mean to hurt, and I'm sure you are only half the time conscious of it. Sometimes I have told you things, silly things, incidents, meaningless in themselves. Then when a time comes, when you are half-irritated, you cast them in my face in derision, and hurt me so that I cannot even speak of the simplest occurrence for days after, fearing. Let us be husband and wife, Paul, when each may feel safe to confide in the other without reservation, without fear of being hurt by angrily repeated things. Can we not?
Alice Moore Dunbar to Paul Laurence Dunbar, no date [1898]. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
"Persons born under these conditions are likely to be exceedingly sensitive to the physical and mental condition of others. They sometimes appear even eccentric because of this sensitiveness, and it is often the case that those whose influence is very unpleasant to them will insist upon forcing themselves upon their society. Such absorb, feed upon, and deplete their vitality, therefore great care should be taken to avoid inharmonious associations."
After leaving the mission we ran in to see one of our constituents in our neighborhood. Two of her boys are in my kindergarten and the oldest one -- a boy of ten in my manual training class. The two rooms were squalid, dirty, miserable, filthy to the last degree, and the entire tenement reeking with odors that made one's stomach instinctively turn over. She had no coal, but a neighbor had loaned her a handful, so an indifferent fire was sputtering away. My little boys had had nothing to eat all day -- though they dutifully came in to the mission. One baby was nursing at her breast, the other, just beginning to walk was sick and moaning with chicken-pox. We had barely carfare with us, but we ran out, bought some castile soap, Vaseline, a loaf of bread, some meat and a package of oatmeal and took it in to her, with some little cakes for the baby. The boys hung around eagerly waiting for us to go when they could pounce on the food. Don't think this is an individual case, or my first. I've been one year tugging away in the midst of such scenes until I ought to be hardened, but I never see one that something doesn't rise and grip my throat. When I come back to my dainty little room, and sit down to a well ordered dinner, the food actually chokes me at times, remembering those to whom my necessities would be luxuries.
Alice Ruth Moore to Paul Laurence Dunbar, January 23, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
I warn you that any evidence on your part toward brooding, blues, morbidity, theatrical posing, nonsensical introspection and sensation-studying that I see, I shall regard as sheer morbid nonsense, proceeding from an unhealthy mental and physical condition -- and shall treat it as such. I shall regard you as an unfortunate, unhealthy, uncontrolled child, to be humored a little, pitied a great deal, and dealt sternly with at the right time. I do not propose to have two lives wrecked.
Alice Moore Dunbar to Paul Laurence Dunbar, September 13, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
"Notwithstanding this sensitiveness, this person would be very persistent in the execution of her plans and accomplishment of her purposes, but it is very hard for her to work under the direction of others. She likes to be at the head of her own department of service, yet is anxious for the approbation of those about her."
I am as cross as the proverbial bear. Things are going so crooked at school until I feel like resigning. We have a new head of department who hates me and I despise her. So you can imagine how cheerful things are. I've asked for a transfer and if I don't get it, I'll give her one good "sassing," and go to you, may I?
Alice Ruth Moore to Paul Laurence Dunbar, January 10, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Suppose I resign on April 1 and have you come after me on the 6th? That is short enough, goodness knows! The one person whom I dread above all others to face is Mr. Scottron. He is the one who placed me in the schools here and advanced me so continually. He had planned a principalship for me -- and I know how disappointed and disgusted he will be.
Alice Moore Dunbar to Paul Laurence Dunbar, March 22, 1898. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
"She is apt to be very much discouraged over defeat and yield to depression, especially when night comes on."
Sometimes when I think you don't love me it makes me bluer than I am naturally -- then I weep little weeps all by myself and think how foolish I am to expect you to care for me.
Alice Ruth Moore to Paul Laurence Dunbar, October 21, 1897. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
Oh, I have been so miserable, so woebegone, so unhappy since Saturday. Your letter from Philadelphia was such a cold little thing that I thought you angry at me -- oh well, I just thought and brooded and brooded. I haven't slept a decent sleep in nights, and try as I might I couldn't conceal from Leila's eyes that I was worried. When your letter came Saturday morning, I went upstairs and buried my face in the bed and cried until I don't believe there was a tear left in my body. Then I didn't eat my dinner and told Leila I had neuralgia to account for my wobegon face.
Alice Moore Dunbar to Paul Laurence Dunbar, March 7, 1899. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
"She has a great deal of family pride, is rather artistic and inclined to like display. She is dignified always and in matters of dress precise."
The beauty, the elegance and culture of the people of the Crescent City are simply overwhelming. I doubt anywhere can be found a more finely cultured bevy, not only in the fine arts but in the practical things of life, than in New Orleans. The young ladies there are more advanced in music than anywhere I have ever been. That true artist of the beautiful, Alice Ruth Moore, sat demurely with her great, luminous, dreamful eyes bent on her cello. A fragile bewitching creature, beautiful and full of poetry.
"Rambles in the South: What a Northern Woman Saw in the Crescent City," by Victoria Earle Matthews. Afro-American Sentinel (Omaha, Nebraska). May 30, 1896. Page 1.
Will you please bring me two shirtwaists (white) from the dressmaking department? I need shirtwaists and they do such beautiful sewing down there I'd like two from them. They'll be cheap too. They must be white summer waists, good material and prettily turned, late style (they do stylish work too), size 36, extra long sleeve. Don't be cross now. It will be such a nice souvenir and I need waists badly. Haven't a summer one to my name.
Alice Moore Dunbar to Paul Laurence Dunbar, April 14, 1901. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 8).
"She is subject to gastric troubles and derangement of the stomach and may suffer at times with her heart."
At night had another severe gas attack. Thoroughly frightened at pressure on heart. Thought I'd croak once. Quiet about four, after two hours of agony.
Diary entry for October 8, 1931, by Alice Dunbar-Nelson. Published in Give Us Each Day: The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, edited by Gloria T. Hull. W. W. Norton & Co. (New York, New York). 1984. Page 451.
Mrs. Alice Dunbar Nelson, noted teacher-author-lecturer, once the wife of the poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, died at midnight Wednesday, at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. She was removed from her home to the hospital recently, in a grave condition, following an illness of more than a year from a heart attack.
"One-time Wife of Paul Laurence Dunbar Dies in Philly." The Afro-American (Baltimore, Maryland). September 21, 1935. Page 2.