The Story of Aunt Jemima

¿ The story of Aunt Jemima ¿ is a biography about the life of the real Annie Short Harrington (1897- 1955) ,written in picture book form. She was born in rural Marlboro County in the community now known as Wallace , South Carolina. The county seat is Bennettsville. The Short Family lived on the Peguese Plantation , where they picked cotton and worked in tobacco as ¿ sharecroppers. ¿ Her last surviving sibling, Lila Short Davis, provided most of the information about her through interviews. She died during the early 1990s. Her niece, Lenora Harrington Peguese also contributed to this story. Annie(also known as Ann and Anna) Short Harrington left the South going North to look for work, to support her five young children ¿ three daughters and two sons. She found domestic work in the homes of wealthy people , including Governors. Syracuse, New York was where she eventually settled. There she worked for a fraternity house at Syracuse University. Mrs. Harrington¿s fame was launched at a Fairground in the Syracuse , New York area in 1935. She was cooking pancakes there when she was discovered by the Quaker Oats Company ¿ her picture drawn ,and her image publicized all over America as ¿Aunt Jemima. ¿ She died in 1955 at the age of fifty- eight. Her remains were buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, New York , at grave plot number 63 ¿ section H-4 . Many of her relatives continue to live in the Wallace Community in South Carolina. They are proud of her niche in history.