My Grandmother Used Vaseline As a Moisturizer

What she taught me about being a lady

Photo of Alice DeVone uploaded by the author (courtesy of the Frazier family; taken outside of Harlem apartment building, 274 W. 140th Street on Frederick Douglass Blvd circa 1979 or 1980)

My maternal grandmother's name was Alice. Some people affectionately called her Miss Alice, Ms. A, or Ali Moe.

She was a military wife who had traveled around the world with her husband and children. After their separation, in the late 1950s, she and her children moved to St. Nicholas Housing…