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My name is Florence Elizabeth Lester Johnson. I was born in Chicago, IL. It was a great childhood. My mother was a beautiful lady. A sweet lady, she made all my clothing for me when I was growing up and when I was finally working, I went to what there’s a store called Stevens in Chicago and I looked at the prices on the clothing. I thought, Oh my God, because she sewed so well that I could never afford to buy a piece of clothing that she made for me, but then I went on and made clothing for my daughter and for myself and then later I gave the sewing machine to my daughter. My father went into the post office when he met my mother. He needed a job at the time he was working for a tailor, I believe, and the Chicago I grew up in, even though it was segregated, there were no shootings like there are now. Those started about the time I left Chicago. I left Chicago in the 60s and the gangs were coming in.
Prior to that, it was a wonderful city but my neighborhood was not wealthy, but it was neat, clean, nice houses. People took care of their properties. Now we lived in a 1/6th flat and my father could leave out the back door of the apartment, walk down the stairs, walk through the alley and be at work at the post office.
I went to McCosh Elementary School, where later I did some student teaching and that kindergarten was the best plan kindergarten room I’ve ever seen or been in. Everything was geared toward little kids and when I started you didn’t have Head Start. You had nursery schools in schools. In school math was always a problem. I had a teacher, Miss Bennett, and she was hard. She’s scared me to death. We were getting ready to have a program. Says I don’t want you coming in here with all those nitpicky braids in your hair. I always wore 4 braids, 2 here, 2 here. But I think you know even though I was scared to death of her I did learn math. I’m not good at it. I still count on my fingers, but there was a wealthy white woman from the suburbs of Chicago who wanted to do something for the inner city Black child. Mildred Hessler, was her name and she would come in every weekend and she had a woman who played the piano, Miss Pacheco. And my mother took me down and I stood in the corner for three weeks. I was so shy. I didn’t want to venture out and finally I did. I fell in love with it. With classical music, I listen to classical music all the time. We would study at the Rosenwald and it had a field house and we would go there and Miss Vishaka would play the piano and Mildred, Miss Hessler would tell us what to do or show us what to do and some of the young ladies who were taught by Mildred Hessler went on to become actresses in some of these television soap operas. Before I started teaching, I had an aunt, my mother’s, mother’s sister. I would go to her house on Fridays and clean, and when I got home, if it wasn’t done well, she’d call and tell my mother and I’d have to go back and fix it, which made me very particular. I do things well that I don’t want to do them again and again. My husband and I were active with the Urban League. When the 100th year anniversary came up of the Pittsburgh Urban League, Esther said, I can think of no better way to celebrate than to go home, so we went to Ghana. In fact, there’s a young lady I met. She came to Pittsburgh to study law from Kenya and my husband’s a former judge and so she was working with the judge down the corridor. He brought her to church. I met her when I went to church for some meeting or something and she’s there, Justin, and taking her. So she became like a member of the family when she graduated her and her parents came from Kenya. They said you must get to Kenya before the end of the year. So we said OK and so in order not to wear out our visit, we also went to Egypt on that trip. Love yourself, now by that I don’t mean be conceited, but take care of yourself. Eat well, eat good food. Study hard. Always try to look nice and that doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money. Enjoy people, talk to people they’re a part of your life.