Delaney Sisters' Mementos Among Artifacts Sent to St. Augustine's

Black Issues in Higher Education, Sept 2, 1999

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Paperwork, photos, and other mementos of the Delany sisters have returned to the St. Augustine's College campus where the famous centenarians were raised.

Several months after Sadie Delany died at the age of 109, her descendants have donated to the school materials from her estate and those of her sister, Bessie, who died at 104 in 1995.

"This is not just St. Augustine's College history, but it's the Episcopal church history, Raleigh and North Carolina's history," says Linda Simmons-Henry, library director at the school. "It's just a very rich collection."

The sisters' best-selling 1993 novel, "Having Our Say," chronicled their lives at St. Augustine's, where they were reared with their eight brothers and sisters. Their father, Bishop Henry Beard Delany, the principal of the college, was the first Black elected African American Episcopal priest in the United States. The sisters are buried in Raleigh's Mount Hope Cemetery between the graves of their father and mother.

In May, St. Augustine's interim president, A. Melvin Miller, told Simmons-Henry that the Delany family was interested in donating the sisters' papers to the college. A few weeks later, Simmons-Henry and two of her staffers were at the Delanys' home in Mount Vernon, N.Y., sorting through a historical treasure trove.

"I had no idea that the collection would be as rich as it is," Simmons-Henry says. "This is a collection of a 100-year period of an African American family."

The collection includes photographs, letters, and correspondence. It will be sorted chronologically by an archivist, who also would put the collection on microfilm. Simmons-Henry says she expects the entire project will take at least two years to complete and cost as much as $300,000 -- which she hopes to pay for through a grant.

Meanwhile, the North Carolina Museum of History purchased several articles from the June estate sale, including one of Bessie Delany's dental uniforms. Bessie Delany was the second Black woman licensed to practice dentistry in New York state.

"We are tickled to have the items," says Lisa Yarger, a curator at the museum. "The Delanys are an important Raleigh family, and their story is very important to the history of the city and the state."