Besides raising children, she did domestic work and worked with the City of Alexandria to provide housing for the elderly African Americans. She purchased her home in Alexandria in 1907 at 307 Gibbon St. Jennie worked in the District of Columbia in 1910 as a laundress. Her last husband, John Edward Cantey, died in 1936. Cantey was married three times and outlived all her husbands. She was illiterate but she knew that she was born on the day John Brown was killed. Jennie Settle Travis-Bell Cantey was born in Rappahannock, Va. Jennie, she said, “Mama was a fantastic mother, I never wanted to leave home.” Carolyn Phillips-McCrae what kind of mother was Mrs. From the time Carolyn was in elementary school until she graduated from Parker-Gray School in 1957, Mama attended all of Carolyn’s school and church activities. Jennie’s house to Lyles-Crouch but Mama took Carolyn by the hand and walked her to school. when she started school at Lyles-Crouch Elementary School. Jennie showered all her affection and devotion on Carolyn, and Carolyn loved Mama as if she was her biological mother.Ĭarolyn was living with Mama at 307 Gibbon St. Jennie known to Carolyn as “Mama” bonded as mother and daughter. But Carolyn’s mother never made any attempts to take back the infant baby. Jennie and she entrusted her premature child to Mrs. She was a premature baby weighing two pounds, and she was not expected to live. 2, 1938 at the Alexandria hospital on Duke Street. The 77-year-old was already beyond her years of raising children when she took the infant Carolyn. One of those foster children, Carolyn Phillips was very dear to her. Those children were kids that she kept while their mothers were working and some of the kids were her foster children. Jennie Bell-Cantey, who was a special package that helped raise 44 children in her lifetime. Mothers are made of all kinds of packages, especially Mrs. Jennie Bell-Cantey prior to the 20th century. Photo courtesy of Carolyn Phillips-McCrae
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