Cornelio Vargas
On March 19, 1900, John S. Jones, president of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home in Xenia, wrote to Captain George B. Donavin[3] about a boy from Puerto Rico who had assisted Ohio troops in the 4th O.V.I. during the Spanish-American War. Newspapers reported that the Ohio soldiers had “adopted” Cornelio Vargas as their “pet” or “mascot.”[4] This patronizing, animalistic language obscures the fact that Vargas helped the American troops as a translator. Accounts differ as to how, but by 1900 he had ended up in Ohio (one newspaper article claims he was a stowaway; other reports make it seem as though the soldiers invited his passage in some way). In his letter, Jones explained that by Ohio law, Vargas was not entitled to admission to the state-run orphans’ home. However, “the case, which the facts of which you are familiar, is a most pathetic one that appeals to patriotism and humanity.”[5] The only way to accommodate Vargas would be through a joint resolution passed by both houses of the Ohio General Assembly. Harding introduced this measure to the Senate, who voted unanimously in its favor:[6]
Harding’s relationship with Cornelio Vargas did not end there. Following his 1905 graduation from the orphans’ home, Vargas lived in Marion, trained to become a printer (like Harding), and secured a position in the Columbus post office. After moving back to Puerto Rico in adulthood, he paid several visits to his friends in Marion. Twenty years after their paths first crossed, Harding was elected president, a position which, thanks to the Spanish-American War, also gave him executive power over the territory of Puerto Rico. One of his first appointments in 1921 resulted in Vargas being named as postmaster of Guayama – the town where he had first met the Ohio soldiers. Years after Harding’s death, the Marion Star published a lengthy article about Vargas’ visit to the memorial “of the man whom he regards as one of the finest who ever lived.”[7]
Bessie Glenn
Central State University has its roots in an 1887 resolution passed by the Ohio state legislature, which established a two-year program known as the Combined Normal and Industrial Department at Wilberforce University. To forward their goal of providing vocational training to African Americans, members of the Ohio House and Senate could award an annual scholarship for a student from their county to attend.
“I want to put an application for Miss Bessie Glenn,” wrote George McPeck of the Marysville Light & Water Company, “a graduate of our High School and one of the nicest little girls you will find anywhere and who I believe if admitted will make the most creditable record of herself.”[8] (Marysville schools would have been legally integrated at this time.) Receiving no reply, McPeck wrote to Harding the following week to press the issue, noting that even “a democratic friend of mine said she is a ‘sweet little girl’ and bright and beside[s] it would be good politics.”[9] From these letters and other accounts, there is no doubt of Bessie Glenn’s intelligence and talent. But the diminutive descriptions of her as “sweet” and a “little girl” (she was 19), and passing mention of her use as a political accessory, is certainly part of her story.
Bessie Glenn did receive that scholarship, and she and her sister Nellie both attended the teachers’ program at Wilberforce. Bessie graduated with honors in 1902, and a few years later she wrote a letter to Florence Harding that is now preserved among her husband’s papers. Glenn wished to become the first African American teacher at the Ohio Girls’ Industrial Home. “I am informed that there are incorrigible colored girls, inmates of that Institution,” she wrote. “Mrs. Harding, if ‘those girls’ are admitted why cannot colored girls who have duly educated themselves be admitted to teach in said Institution[?]” This time, Bessie Glenn didn’t need a local businessman to represent her. She stated her own wishes, and did so strategically to a politician’s wife. Glenn also reminded Mrs. Harding that her father was a taxpayer who “by his votes has aided your Husband to be Senator.”[10]
Four years later, Bessie Glenn gained the appointment she sought to become the first African American teacher at the Girls’ Industrial Home, a post she held for over a decade.[11] Glenn left the Girls’ Industrial Home in the early 1920s to join her sister Nellie, first in Cadiz and later in Columbus. This photograph from our collections does not identify any individuals, but I believe it could be from Glenn’s time there:
