Leithe Hill Thompson’s life and legacy are part of the rich historical tapestry of Black women working and raising their families for generations.
We do not have a photograph of Leithe Hill Thompson but we do have one of her great-granddaughter, Linda Dayle Taylor, posing for the Chicago Tribune in 1962 as a Norshore Twelve debutante.
Taylor’s great-grandmother, Leithe Hill Thompson was born in Georgia during the American Civil War, a century before the photograph was taken.
After her father passed away, Leithe and her mother, Rhoda Hill (1848-1908) were living in Greenville, SC. They rented out rooms in their home. In 1880, one of the lodgers was Bonus Thompson (1850-1926), who worked as a tinner.
Six years later, Leithe and Bonus were married. They had three children; two sons, William and Avery, and a daughter, Amiel.
It would not be long before the family sought to leave the Jim Crow South. An 1881 article in the Greenville News provides just a hint of the oppression there when it reported that Bonus Thompson and another man were arrested for failing to pay a poll tax. Bonus was able to pay the tax, but the other man had no money. He was sent to jail for 20 days.
Around 1903, the family moved to Evanston. They lived in several locations before settling at 1910 W. Railroad Ave (now Green Bay Road).
Around 1910, Bonus Thompson opened a hardware and general repair shop at 1910 W. Railroad Ave. His business offered “tin and metal work,” among other services. The Thompson sons, now in their early 20s, worked as porters in a barber shop; the job likely involved providing “grooming” services to customers, including brushing clothes and shining shoes.
On the 1910 census, Leithe Thompson reported that she worked as a “laundress” “away from home.”
She was one of nearly 400,000 Black women in the U.S. who worked as “washerwomen” in 1910 – the year the number of Black women working in laundry reached its peak.* In Evanston, the number of wealthy white people who sought domestic help grew exponentially around this time, and many of the city’s Black female residents worked as domestic workers, doing laundry, childcare, cooking, and housework; many Black male residents worked as chauffeurs and housemen.
Households along the North Shore, including Kenilworth and Wilmette, frequently placed help wanted ads in Evanston papers looking for domestic workers, some even specifying that they preferred Southern Black women.
In the 1910 census, Leithe Thompson noted that she did her work away from the house. But by 1923, it appears that she now “called for and delivered” laundry, meaning that she had to travel to the location, pick up the laundry, return home to launder, dry, and iron it, and then deliver it to the household – an arduous process that could take several days to complete.
Leithe Thompson also posted her own ad offering her services in “bundle washing.”
After Bonus died in 1926, Leithe or her sons began to sell the hardware store’s stock.
The Thompson’s daughter, Amiel Thompson Curry (1899-1964), graduated from Evanston Township High School and later worked as a cook at the Community Hospital of Evanston. Her husband, Leroy Curry, worked as a chauffeur for the wealthy Wing family at 1827 Asbury.
In 1919, Amiel and Leroy had a daughter, Leitheia Florence Taylor (1919-1991), who later worked for Evanston Hospital in the laboratory. One of Leitheia’s daughters, Linda Dayle Taylor, graduated from ETHS and, as noted above, she soon made her debut as a Norshore Twelve debutante.
We honor Leithe Thompson and the many generations of hard-working Black women who raised their families and invested in their children their hopes that each generation would find more and better opportunities.
Written by Jenny Thompson, PhD
Visit Shorefront’s ongoing project to document and share the stories of care workers: Care Work: Black Women’s Labor in Early Evanston (1855-1960).
*In “The Negro Washerwoman, a Vanishing Figure,” historian Carter G. Woodson noted that nationwide “the Census in 1890 reported 151,540 washerwomen, 281,227 in 1900, and 373,819 in 1910.” (The Journal of Negro History, Vol. XV, July 1930, 269.)
Sources: U.S. Census, Evanston City Directories, Evanston News Index, Evanston Press, Greenville News.
