Family papers of Linda Crichlow White, 1907-2015 (inclusive), 1942-1987 (bulk)

Linda Crichlow White was born in 1949 in Washington, DC, the daughter of Marietta Stevens Crichlow and Martin A. Crichlow. Her mother was a social studies teacher and her father was a mechanic and plumber. Crichlow White attended the University of Cincinnati, West Virginia State College (BA, Home Economics, 1972), and Howard University (MS, Human Ecology, 1979). In 1971, she went to West Africa with Operation Crossroads Africa, a cross-cultural exchange program. She lived in the village of Anfoeta, Ghana, for six weeks and also traveled through other parts of Ghana and neighboring countries for an additional two weeks. In 1976 she married Eric White; they have two children, Kwame and Khalila. Crichlow White worked as the Washington representative for Operations Crossroads Africa from 1980 to 1984, and taught home economics first at Roosevelt High School in the first half of 1986, before beginning work at Eastern High School in the fall of 1986; she continued teaching there until 2004. In 2004, White received an MLS from Catholic University. She worked as a school library media specialist at Parkland Middle School until her retirement in 2013. Crichlow White and her mother Linda Stevens Crichlow co-wrote a family memoir, Back There, Then: A Historical Genealogical Memoir (2014). The book was primarily written by Crichlow, with supplementary notes by Crichlow White, and provides information on several branches of the Crichlow, Stevens, and Glover families. Crichlow White also developed a web site to accompany the book.

Mary Etta Louise "Marietta" Stevens Crichlow was born in 1919, in Washington, DC, the daughter of John and Florence (Garland) Stevens. She had one sister, Edna. Her mother died in 1926, and the following year their father sent Crichlow and Edna to live in Pennsylvania, with the family of his sister, Ida Stevens Johnson. Crichlow graduated from Duquesne High School in 1937 and returned to Washington to attend Howard University, graduating in 1941 with a BA in sociology. In 1937, she joined the Mount Carmel Baptist Church and she remained an active member of this church throughout her life, serving as a Sunday School teacher for both children and adults, and as secretary of the church's library. She learned upon her first visit to the church that her mother had also been a member.

While studying at Howard, Crichlow worked for the National Youth Administration (NYA), a program established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide employment opportunities to young people. She was accepted into the graduate school of social work at Howard, but due to a lack of funds, instead continued her work with the National Youth Administration, before beginning a series of governmental jobs in December 1941. In her genealogical memoir, Back There Then, she noted, "Before World War II, most government jobs were open only for White people. There were few if any Colored typists or office workers, just laborers who cleaned. The war was a horror, yet it did break down the color barrier somewhat." She married Martin Crichlow in 1942. In 1950, Crichlow resigned her job as a typist in the procurement department of the General Services Administration, in order to study at Howard University with the goal of becoming a teacher. She began working as a substitute teacher in 1951 and continued studying at Howard University, earning a master's degree in education in 1956. In 1957, she began teaching social studies at Hine Junior High School in Washington, DC. In the mid-1950s, Martin Crichlow became the first African American plumbing supervisor in the General Services Administration. He died in 1992 and Marietta Stevens Crichlow died in 2020.

Marietta Stevens Crichlow's great aunt, Goldie Glover Bruce, was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1888, the daughter of James and Lucy (Stewart) Glover. She had eight siblings: Bettie (the maternal grandmother of Marietta Stevens Crichlow), Florence, Elijah, Lawrence, Carrie, James, Joseph, and Annie. Her parents owned a neighborhood grocery store and Bruce began working at the store at a young age. In a 1943 autobiographical essay titled "Story of My Work Life," she noted that if she had been "especially good," she was allowed to sell produce in her father's stall at the Public Market, or serve the customers at the "Elite Glover's Restaurant" managed by her mother. In 1901, the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where they opened another grocery store. In 1907, Bruce graduated from the Girls' High School in Boston, and began an apprenticeship under a French dressmaker. She then worked as a plain sewer and finisher. She married Charles H. Bruce in 1908; the couple had three children, Charles Jr., Constance (1915-2012), and Althea (1917-1987). In 1928, Bruce opened a shop called "'Goldie': Sew and Help Sew" in the family home in Somerville, Massachusetts. It included a lending library, and she sold greeting cards and other small products, with a sewing room in the back of the shop. Bruce also took in boarders during this time.

Bruce and Charles divorced in 1933, and in 1935 Bruce and Althea moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where Charles Jr. was teaching and Constance was studying at the Nashville Agricultural and Industrial State College (later Tennessee State University). Bruce worked in the college's cafeteria before becoming the school nurse. She took a correspondence course in nursing through the Chicago School of Nursing, receiving her diploma in 1938. She worked a variety of other jobs, including as assistant dean of women, at the college before returning to Boston in 1941 and working as a nurse at Massachusetts State Hospital and at a rest home for "aged Jews." In 1943, she moved to Washington, DC, where she took a civil service job in the war department. Later that year she became assistant resident manager of Lucy Diggs Slowe Hall, at the time a residence for young African American women doing war work. She later worked at a store called Gini (later The Lamp Mart) before retiring in 1950. She bought a house in Washington in 1945, and remained in Washington until her death. In the "Story of My Work Life" document she notes that "My salaries have grown from 50 cents a week from my dad to $2200 which I am now getting." Bruce died in 1977.

Charles Bruce Jr. (1911-1987) graduated from Harvard University in 1933. After teaching at the Nashville Agricultural and Industrial State College in the 1930s, he joined the United States Merchant Marine as an engineer, eventually reaching the rank of commander. He was married twice, first to Nan Nance and after Nan's death, to Dessye (sometimes spelled Dessie) Goines. Constance Glover Bruce (1915-2012) lived and worked in New York City for much of her life. In 1959, she was a member of a National Council of Negro Women delegation, led by Dorothy Height, which conducted a tour of Europe. In the 1970s, Constance moved to Washington, DC, to live with and help care for her mother. Althea Bruce Tibbs Allen (1917-1987) married Reubin Allen Jr. in 1936. Their son Reubin Allen III (known as "Third") was born in 1939. The couple subsequently divorced and Third was raised by his father and his second wife, Vivian, seeing Althea only occasionally during his childhood. Althea married Harold Tibbs in the early 1940s but the marriage soon ended and she lived with her mother in Washington from the mid-1940s through the early 1970s. She worked as an administrative secretary at either the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. In 1976, she and Reubin Allen Jr. remarried.