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Mary Alice Simmons

At age eight, Mary’s family moved to unit #10. The differences between conditions in Overtown where they lived before and the new complex were like night and day.
 The place had a bathroom, electricity, a yard with grass, and sidewalks. Before that, their shotgun house had no running water. They pumped water for bathing, washing dishes and laundry.  There were three tubs to wash, rinse garments, and rinse again. Before Clorox, a boil pot whitened clothes. An outhouse 15 feet from the house was used. A portable oil stove was the major kitchen appliance and kerosene lamps provided light.  An imaginary boundary line kept community children from veering past 10th Street. Simmons only ventured across the line to grocery shop with her grandmother. “We would walk down Main Street and smell peanuts in the five-and-dime store. I remember asking, ‘Granny can I have an ice cream cone.’ She said, ‘sit here.’ I sat on the curb. I never forgot the place, Oleander’s. Granny went in, got it, and brought it outside. I looked at her, looked at the cone, looked at the people sitting inside. But you didn’t ask adults questions, the end. You just did as you were told.”
It’s early in the morning in 1955 and Mary Alice Simmons leaves her Orange Avenue apartment in public housing, on the way to school. At the bus stop is a line of African American women dressed in white uniforms heading to work in the homes of prominent, wealthy families.