Love and Partnership

Mollie Church met Robert Heberton Terrell when she moved to Washington, D.C., to teach Latin and Greek at the M Street High School. Robert Terrell played a crucial role in Mollie Church’s life for almost forty years, first as a suitor and then beloved husband. Enslaved as a child, Robert Heberton Terrell went on to graduate from Harvard College and was appointed as the first black Municipal Court Judge. As their correspondence and her diaries reveal, Mollie and Berto Terrell built their relationship on an enduring love and sexual passion as well as on a shared vision of social change and civil rights for all Americans. The couple’s newlywed bliss was severely tested by a series of tragic reproductive health crises over seven years, including a late term miscarriage, a stillbirth, and infant’s death. This chapter discusses how the couple coped with Mollie’s health crises and bouts of deep depression. Throughout their marriage, Robert supported his wife’s advocacy for woman suffrage, anti-lynching, and civil rights.