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Elizabeth Draper was Maggie Lena Mitchell's mother. She was a former slave and assistant cook in the Church Hill mansion of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Civil War spy. Later Elizabeth and her husband William Mitchell moved the family to their own home in an alley between Broad and Marshall streets where Maggie and her brother Johnnie were raised. After the untimely death of William Mitchell, Maggie's mother supported the family by working as a laundress and young Maggie helped by delivering the clean clothes. Elizabeth Draper later became a midwife. She lived with Walker at their Leigh Street home until she passed away in 1922.

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Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, National Park Service

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