Callis' First Wife - Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar

[Professor]

"Jewel Henry Arthur Callis first wife was Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar, the first wife of noted writer
Paul Laurence Dunbar (whom she was married to for four years) and a distinguished singer and
society matron. Jewel Callis married her in 1911 in Wilmington, Delaware. She was 33, he was
24. Callis and Miss Dunbar remained married for nine months. He was teaching in the Department
of English at Wilmington High School where she was also teaching. Alice Moore Dunbar Callis
had matriculated at Cornell, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania. She was the organizer
of the Women Suffrage campaign for the mid Atlantic States and the first woman to serve on the
State Republican Committee of Delaware. More importantly, she wrote the words to the National
Hymn of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority."

Skip Mason