Author: Amber Craig

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Mandy “Millie” Brown

(1884-  ? )

Contributed by her Great-Granddaughter Amber M.C. Craig

Lowndes County’s courthouse where Many and Peter recieved their marriage license.

Mandy (Millie) Brown was a woman who loved making pies, likely born in Lowndes County, Alabama, in 1884. On January 6th, 1911, Mandy married her first husband, Sidney Bruce, whom soon after she divorced. At the age of 29 Mandy married tenant farmer, Peter Brown. In 1920, Peter and Mandy Brown resided in Hayneville, Alabama, a little town between Mobile and Montgomery, where they began working as sharecroppers. Together Mandy, Peter Brown and their family of four boys and one girl (Ed Brown, Thomas Brown, Peter Brown, Abram Brown and Lucille Brown) lived the rest of their life as farmers, selling pies within their small town as means to make extra income.

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Grandma’s Pies

photo of a marriage license
Marriage license for Mandy Brown and her first husband, from Ancestry.com

Mandy [Millie] Brown, my maternal great-grandmother, was a homemaker who worked hard everyday to provide for her family. Although she didn’t often contribute to working outside of the house doing farm labor with her husband, she was the queen of her kitchen and loved making pies. Born in 1884, she married her first husband, Sydney Bruce, at the age of 27 on January 6th, 1911; he was a farmer in Montgomery County, Alabama . Continue reading “Grandma’s Pies”

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Negro Housing

Lorch, Emil. Children Playing outside of Brewster Projects. 1930. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. http://michiganradio.org/post/here-s-why-brewster-douglass-housing-projects-were-built-1930s
These are the Brewster Projects my Grandmother lived in when she left Alabama

Johnson. Negro Housing: Physical Aspects, Social and Economic Factors Home Ownership and Financing

This report, located in UA’s Hoole Special Collections library, addresses the physical, social, economic, and financial factors of home ownership within the Negro communities—more specifically “from the farm of the South to the

Continue reading “Negro Housing”