‘how are things out Chicago way?’

I am the girl I’ve always been.

On May 20, 1963, nearly two years after Alice Dunnigan left the Associated Negro Press, she sent a letter to her former boss, Claude Barnett, about a piece of mail mistakenly delivered to her. She concluded the typewritten letter, “How are things out Chicago way?”

Barnett was a longtime Chicago resident, and from there he ran the news service from the time that he founded it in 1919 until it shuttered in 1964. Presumably after his death, his wife, Etta Moten Barnett, donated his papers to the Chicago History Museum, which I visited last week to see the hundreds of letters Claude Barnett exchanged with Alice Dunnigan.

I saw as many as I could in the few hours I was there; I definitely need another visit to see more. That’s the third time I have viewed a collection of papers that Alice actually touched, typewrote on, and signed, and the thrill is no less than the very first time. If anything, it’s even more meaningful after more time spent with Alice and her story. Now I have the exciting, though daunting, task to go through the photos I took in more detail and incorporate them into my manuscript as needed.

For my trip, things out Chicago way were pretty good. It was like I was an only child again, which I haven’t been since I was just over two years old, because just my parents and I made the trip. We ate deep dish pizza twice; we visited the American Girl Doll Store that my mom and I last visited in 2005; we walked a sweaty mile along the Lake Michigan beachfront; we visited a typewriter store I have long been a fan of; we photographed our reflection in the Bean; we watched the University of Kentucky volleyball team become the only team to ever win a volleyball game at Wrigley Field; and much more!