Lucille Crowder began her employ as a cook and housekeeper with the artist’s family when she was a young lady. She is pictured here with the artist’s cousin William “Bill” Eggleston, who would grow up to become a world-renowned photographer.

During the 1940s, when this photo was taken, there would have been few signs that American apartheid commonly known as Jim Crow would ever change. The Civil Rights Act, effectively ending legal segregation, would not take place for another twenty years. In the segregated South, many African Americans worked for white families in racially prescribed roles. Lucille remained employed with the artist’s family well into the 1990s and was present for the full spectrum of the artist’s life—the death of her parents, the marriage to her husband, and the birth of her children.