Mayflower Hotel, 1956 (File)

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Timeline

I started when I was in my late twenties. At that time my oldest sister had been working there, so she was able to get me a job. And I started out scrubbing. It wasn't easy, it was hard work. In those days, we had buckets of water and pails and scrub brushes and all of that. Now you have a little squirt bottle. They call it working now, with their squirt bottles. They just spray and wipe.

Lincoln Theater, renovated for the '90s (File)

The Lincoln Theater ~ 1935
Washington

In the basement, they had this big ballroom. The first floor is the theater, and then under the theater, the whole side of the building is where they had the dances. Important bands played. And it would be crowded. We used to meet people, and we used to get partners. And a lot of times, I just enjoyed myself sitting up in the balcony, making fun. The gentlemen would always come and ask you if you wanted to dance - the waltz, the two-step. Sometimes you'd find a good dancer. If it was a big affair, you'd have on evening gowns and silver slippers.

Aurea Marshall, born in 1907 to a family of five children, learned the value of strong family ties early.

While her mother worked in the District, Marshall and her siblings grew up in Falls Church, Va., under the care of their grandmother. Not able to afford a horse and buggy, the family members would walk mile after mile on the country roads to get around, including to church every Sunday.

As a young girl, Marshall moved to Washington, where she attended Stevens Elementary School. She later attended Dunbar High School but became disenchanted and dropped out after a semester.

At 18, Marshall gave birth to her first daughter, Esther, and two years later, she had Iris. Cooking, washing, ironing - without the help of washing machines and electric dryers - kept her busy. "We had that good ol' washboard," she says. "We'd scrub up and down. That's the reason I have a bad back today - being lazy and washing in the bathtub."

When the Depression hit, Marshall got a job at the Mayflower Hotel, where her first job was scrubbing floors. She worked there for 39 years and retired as a floor supervisor.

Juggling both a full-time job and motherhood, Marshall had little time for socializing. But occasionally, she found time for a waltz or a two-step at the Lincoln Theater, where she went in her blue-brocade dress and silver slippers to hear the live orchestra.

In 1933, she married John Henson Marshall, a special messenger for the post office, and in 1942, she gave birth to her third daughter, Carmen. At 92, Marshall, a grandmother and great-grandmother many times over, lives downtown - in the neighborhood where she grew up.