I found work in a garment factory on the South Side. Twelve-hour shifts, sometimes fourteen. My fingers bled from the needles. My back screamed from hunching over the machines.
The factory floor smelled like machine oil and sweat, and the dreams of women just like me—women who came north thinking they’d find something better and learned real quick that better is something you have to build yourself.
I made $3.35 an hour.
I lived in a room so small you could touch both walls if you stretched your arms out. I shared a bathroom with six other women, ate rice and beans five nights a week, and saved every penny that didn’t go to rent or food.
Every New Year’s Eve while other people partied, I sat on my narrow bed with a notebook and counted my money. Planned my next move. Calculated how long until I could afford something real—something they couldn’t take—something that was mine.
By 1982, I had $8,000 saved. Not enough for a house, but enough for a lot.
A small lot on the South Side. Nothing pretty. The neighborhood was rough, but I knew land was the only thing they can’t make more of, and I knew Chicago was growing.
I bought that lot for $6,500.
Paid cash.
The white man at the title office looked at me like I’d stolen the money. He counted it three times. Made me sign the papers twice. Kept asking if I understood what I was signing.
I understood just fine.
That lot is worth $340,000 today.
Everything I built started with that one piece of land.
I met William in 1983. He was an electrician—good man, steady. He never asked about my money and I never told him the full truth.
Not because I didn’t trust him, but because my mama’s voice was always in my head.
Protect what’s yours.
We got married in 1984. Had Benjamin in 1985, Barbara in 1987.
I kept working, kept saving, kept watching the real estate market like a hawk watches a field mouse. Every time the market dipped, I bought.
In 1989, I bought a two-flat. In 1994, another lot. In 1998, a three-unit building that needed work but had good bones. In 2003, a small house I could rent out.
In 2007—right before the crash—I sold two properties and waited.
Then, in 2010, when everyone was panicking, I bought three more.
Everything I built, property by property, dollar by dollar.
William never knew the full extent. He knew I was smart with money. He knew I owned some properties, but he didn’t know about all of them.
He didn’t need to.
He died in 2015.
Aneurysm. Sudden.
