On October 7, 1901, Paul Laurence Dunbar in Washington, D. C., wrote to his mother Matilda in Chicago about a kitchen accident that happened to his wife Alice.
I would have written before, but I have been housekeeping. Alice would have written, but that she mistook her hand for a chicken she was smothering. While she did not entirely smother her hand, it was slightly suffocated.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Matilda Dunbar, October 7, 1901. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 2).
A week later, once she was able to use her hand again, Alice wrote to Matilda about the incident. She described how, after friends helped comb her hair, she looked like "Old Nick," or a devil with horns.
I suppose by this time you have Paul's letter telling you how I tried to fry my hand. I was cooking a spring chicken in butter sauce, when I dropped the whole chicken in the whole pot of butter, my hand tumbled and the blessed chicken fell, plop and the whole pot of butter got on my whole hand and I grabbed up a dish rag that was full of salt and rubbed it in the raw flesh. Oh, but I howled! Now, mother mine, why weren't you here to look after your poor daughter? Do you know I couldn't even get on my panties without assistance? Couldn't do one blessed, single, solitary thing for myself. Paul wasn't exactly a success as a lady maid. Edith Fleetwood, Hattie Curtis and Miss Webb took turns dressing me and combing me, and I looked so much like Old Nick when they'd get through combing me that I took to wearing my hair in a braid down my back. Could we get a girl to help us? Oh, no, no. Did you think anything so decent could happen? I am able to use my hand now. Washed dishes today for the first time. I got an entirely new skin in my hand. Aren't you jealous?
Alice Moore Dunbar to Matilda Dunbar, October 14, 1901. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 2).
This was not the first time Paul had mentioned Alice's cooking skills to Matilda. Two years earlier, when Paul's friend Bud Burns visited the Dunbars in the Catskill Mountains, "the old lady" had more difficulty in the kitchen.
We went out the other day and gathered some mustard greens and got the old lady to cook them. She didn't know how, so we told her. When they came to the table, they looked fine; but think of my surprise when I found she had cooked them with beef. She said she didn't have any bacon, only shoulder meat and she thought that wouldn't do.
Paul Laurence Dunbar to Matilda Dunbar, July 9, 1899. Paul Laurence Dunbar Papers, Ohio History Connection (Microfilm edition, Roll 2).