Susie Mae Reaves

Longtime Grant Park resident Susie Mae Reaves, 98, died Wednesday morning at her home.



Mrs. Reaves was born on July 15, 1911, in Cumming, GA., to Reese and Duskie Barrett. She attended school through seventh grade at Haw Creek Elementary School in Cumming. Her first job was in the sewing room of the Works Progress Administration. Her daughter, Dorothy Isenberg of Atlanta, remembers Mrs. Reaves getting up each day to feed the cows and make biscuits for the family, then walking four miles to work.



In the early 1940s, Mrs. Reaves came to Atlanta to work as a seamstress. She worked for a time at the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills in Cabbagetown (now the site of an upscale condominium complex). She later took a job with drapery-maker George and Associates, which outfitted some of the swankiest homes and businesses in Atlanta, including the governorâ