Letter to Michael Gladden Jr. from Edith Aileen Means

The Gladden Correspondence Collection

Two-page ruled paper letter and envelope

1931-05-13

Edith Aileen Means Gladden; Edith Aileen Means; Aileen Means Gladden; Aileen Gladden

Michael Gladden Jr.; Michael Gladden

Montgomery, Alabama, United States of America.

A two-page handwritten letter and envelope to Michael Gladden Jr. from his first wife, Edith Aileen Means, written on the date May 13th, 1931, and sent from Montgomery, Alabama- presumably the location where Aileen lived and worked. In the letter, Aileen expresses to Michael Gladden Jr. her relief to know that he is safe, noting that "I could barely work the day you left. I though some thing would happen." This statement could allude to the targeted racial violence during the Jim Crow era (roughly 1877-1964), which Michael Gladden Jr. could have been a victim of, given his position as a college-educated, business-owning Black man heavily involved in community activism.

Born in 1905 in Montgomery, Alabama, Edith Aileen Means was married to Michael Gladden Jr. on September 13th, 1926, in Orange County, Florida. Michael Gladden Jr. would marry his second wife, Marie Stapler, on June 10th, 1935, after Aileen had left, expressing dissatisfaction with life in Apopka. On a marriage record from Vigo County, Indiana, it shows that on July 23rd, 1943, Edith Aileen Means married a man by the name of Robert E. Davis from Illinois. Aileen lists the year she divorced Michael Gladden Jr. as 1939. This date was notably four years after Marie Stapler married Michael Gladden Jr. in Volusia County, Florida. It is reasonable to infer that Mr. Gladden and Marie Stapler were married in another county because there would not have been a preexisting marriage record under his name.

LETTER:

Montgomery Ala.
May. 13th, 1931

Dear Sweetheart:
It is rather nice to write to you again. Isn't it?

I find your letter waiting for me when I came in from work. I was so glad to hear from you as I've been worried every day since you left. I could hardly work the day you left I thought maybe some-thing would happen. Such a relief to me to know every thing is O.K.

I am so glad you are enjoying your trip. I regret very much I could but be with you. You must see and enjoy enough for the two of us. I know the place must be wonderful as I've always heard so much about it. Maybe some day you'll take me back eh? I hope when you stop there, you will stay the night with me. Will you? I shall arrange for you to do so. Mother says you must.

I shall be home every night waiting for you. Write me so I can fix a real nice supper and we can be alone together.

Regard to your party
Be sweet for me
Yours
Aileen