After 50 Beautiful Years, 'Miss Avon' And Her Sales Are Still Looking Good

African American Woman Peddled Makeup During Segregation

In 1958, Ida Pearl Green opened the newspaper to read that Avon Products Inc. needed a new sales representative. After one interview, the Gaithersburg woman was hired as the cosmetic company's first black saleswoman in Montgomery County.

Last week, the woman who is still "Miss Avon" to her longtime customers -- and their grandchildren -- celebrated her 50th anniversary on the job.

"I called them, and this lady said, 'Come on Feb. 12,' " Green, 89, recalled of her start with Avon. "She explained to me about Avon, and she gave me a territory. Of course, this being segregation, she gave me a territory in Rockville that we called Lincoln Park, that was all African American."

And so began Green's weekly trips to show off the latest lipstick, powder, blush and perfume. Green's husband, Gerard, dropped her off at her cousin's house on Saturdays, and she spent the days walking her territory.

"It was not hard to get sales," she said last week. "African American churches got together a lot for entertainment then, so I knew a lot of people over there."

Green, who lives in the house her husband built on Quince Orchard Road, grew up on Riffle Ford Road in Gaithersburg. Her family roots in the city date to at least 1868, when her grandparents helped found the Pleasant View Methodist Episcopal Church there. The historic church, purchased with $54 three years after the Civil War, was a home away from home until 1968, when family members joined the Fairhaven United Methodist Church, where Green worships today.

Though it was just a few years after Rosa Parks made history by refusing to go to the back of a bus, Green does not recall her choice to sit up front at her very first Avon meeting -- and at every meeting since -- as a statement of protest.

"I didn't know anybody, and I had to learn about the product," she said. "I liked to sit up front."

No one was ever harsh, she said, although some women may have been surprised.

Lincoln Park residents started to call her "Miss Avon."

"I was telling a girl the other day, 'Anna Rose, do you realize I've been selling Avon to you for 50 years?' " Green said.

Green said Anna Rose Moten of Rockville and Frances Jenkins, who is in a nursing home in Wheaton, are longtime customers. Younger generations also approach her with their memories.

"Most of the older people are passed, but their grandchildren come to me and say, 'Miss Avon, do you remember when you used to come to my grandmother's house?' " Green once opened her front door to see a county Department of Public Works and Transportation engineer getting out of his orange truck. He said, " 'Miss Avon, I've been meaning to stop by,' " she said.

Over the years, sales prizes from Avon included a living room suite, a washer and dryer, an organ and a record player.

In 1972, Avon began issuing porcelain dolls to those who attained the President's Club, achieving at least $1,850 in sales in a year. Green's curio cabinet holds one doll for every year since then. It also holds 16 porcelain cup-and-saucer sets awarded to Avon's Honor Society, the next level of achievement.

Green still brings in business, working a beat she developed herself. She drops off Avon catalogues at office buildings, posts an Avon sign on her lawn and keeps catalogues in her purse and at her front door. Her sons help her distribute products once a week. A daughter-in-law is helping her get online.

"She's a phenomenal lady," said Rita Green, who is married to Green's son, Gerard Jr. "Last year she thought about retiring after 50, but she's not talking about retiring now!"