African Americans families were pulled apart during slavery when they arrived in America.
224 Elizabeth Ave highlights families coming together.
My panel is a visual tribute to my great grandmother Hattie Evans.
Letha E. Payton (my grandmother) a mother of thirteen children, had emigrated from North Carolina to the Rockville area in search of work.
When she found a job, she sent for her mother Hattie Evans and eight of her children to live with her.
Mrs. Payton and her family moved into the abandoned Milo movie theater where they lived until in 1952, when the theater and small grocery store was sold and the Payton family would have to move.
To ease their burden, the owner of Stern Furniture, offered the grocery store as a house for the family on the condition they move it to a new location.
Members of the community and parishioners of Mount Calvary Church ensured the home had a strong foundation and could be moved.
My mother, Virginia, daughter of Letha Payton, remembers her grandmother Hattie sitting in her rocking chair inside the house as it was moved by tractor and rollers down Frederick Avenue to Elizabeth Avenue where the home still stands.