Earliest items in the collection are personal and business correspondence that relates to the management of the farm and medical practice of S.M.F. Dabbs' parents, Dr. John Howard Furman and his second wife, Susan Emma Miller; papers from the Dabbs family, include several that date from the single-term that E.W. Dabbs spent at the University of South Carolina. Letters relating directly to Sudie Furman begin with 6 Dec. 1880, in which her brother Donald wrote to describe his experiences at Greenville Military Institute in upstate S.C. Letters of 1884-1886, describe Sudie's student life at the Charleston Female Seminary, including classes grades, studying, church services, and incidents such as a funeral for an African American who died in a shooting and concerns over racial tensions, "The people seem to be afraid it may cause a good deal of trouble between the whites and the blacks" (4 Oct. 1885). She also told of a sightseeing excursion to Ft. Sumter in a letter of 9 May 1886. Beginning in 1890 she became involved with the Mary Hanley Society of Bethel, a Women's Mission Society located at Society Hill, S.C. A series of letters from a colleague in this organization, Eliza Y. Hyde, discuss Sudie's interest in missionary work, and her efforts to send material aid to missionaries overseas, "These are always welcomed by missionaries to be used in inducing the heathen children to attend Sunday School... and before long South Carolina will be indeed an army trained, and marching onward to noble deeds for the Master" (9 Nov. 1891). At this same period of time, Sudie Furman began a running correspondence with several missionaries stationed around the world, and the resulting letters give insight into the situations faced by Americans serving on the mission field in a number of other countries. Ida Hayes, for one, wrote from Saltillo, Mexico, discussing the reaction by Roman Catholics to the presence of Protestant missionaries and vandalism to her church (22 Nov. 1893). An extensive correspondence, 1895-1902, with Mrs. Florence N. League, a Baptist mission worker stationed in various areas of China detail her dissatisfaction with the management of missionaries overseas, the conditions in which she worked (poverty, rebellions, and foreign wars) and the state of the people she hoped to convert to Christianity, and in a letter, 3 Oct. 1896, the agricultural conditions in China that resulted an increasing reliance upon the cultivation of the opium poppy among the peasant farmers. S.M.F. Dabbs undertook missionary work herself, living in Cuba from 1903 to Feb. 1904; she terminated her duty due to difficulties with her superior. After she returned from Cuba, Sudie Furman worked as a nurse, beginning her nursing career at the Baker Infirmary (Charleston, S.C.). In later years she served as a board member for the Graduate Nurses Association of South Carolina, an agency through which she sought to standardize requirements for women becoming nurses in South Carolina and thereby to assure their recognition in the nursing profession throughout the United States. Courtship between Sudie Furman and E.W. Dabbs began ca. Mar. 1909, leading to marriage a year later, after which the collection holds few letters written by Sudie Dabbs and a majority penned by E.W. Dabbs, reflecting his work for the South Carolina Farmers Union and his speaking engagements in various states. Letters from the children include news from James McBride Dabbs, at the University of South Carolina re classes, music lessons, and other student activities. Both James McBride Dabbs (317th Infantry Division) and his brother, Eugene Dabbs, Jr. (324th Infantry Division) served in the American Expeditionary Force during the First World War and wrote home to their parents regarding their experiences overseas. Papers reflecting activities of the Furman family include letters from a nephew, R.M Furman, and his wife, Annie Furman. After John Furman suffered a stroke, Sudie was instrumental in bringing R.M. Furman and his mother from England to America. She sponsored the education of R.M. Furman, paying for his schooling at Locust Grove Institute, a military academy in Georgia. This began a prolonged correspondence between Sudie Dabbs and R.M. Furman. After leaving Locust Grove, he entered Furman University, again with financial help from Sudie Dabbs. Writing on 18 Sept. 1919, Furman commented on the stark differences between the two schools, "Everything here is so different to Locust Grove that in comparison this place seems to be a palace of ease and luxury...." And again on 12 Nov. 1920 he addressed what he perceived as one of society's major injustices, "in their materialistic selfish cycle of pleasant luxury they are really unhappy; for, to be really happy one must not be out on a joyride, but upon an errand of mercy, doing something for somebody else." Among other items of interest is a letter, 14 Mar. 1921, from George B. Christian, Jr., the Secretary to the U.S. President, Warren G. Harding indicating that Sudie Dabbs had written on 11 Mar. 1921. The papers, however, contain no record of her letter to the President nor any indication of what it entailed. The remainder of the letters from 1922 to 1926 are primarily from Eugene to Sudie and discuss events on the family farm, weather, and crop news. In addition to correspondence the collection contains a variety of other materials relating to the Furman and Dabbs families, among them financial records, account books, and printed materials collected by family members. Collection includes several published titles: Canary birds: A Complete Guide for their Breeding, Rearing, and Treatment (published 1883); two titles related to fine sewing and lace-making: Florence Home Needle-Work (1887) and Home Needlework Magazine (Oct. 1901); and several religious booklets, ca. 1823-1830s, for religious instruction of children (filed in Box 3).
