Growing up Without Her Parents
Billie grew up in Baltimore and endured a challenging childhood. Her mother had to take what were then known as “transportation jobs,” where she served on passenger railroads. But Billie wasn’t raised by her mother. Eva Miller’s mother-in-law Martha Miller was the one who took care of her, and Billie suffered from her mother’s absence for the first decade of her life.
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Young Billie frequently skipped school, which resulted in her being brought to juvenile court on January 5, 1925, when she was just nine years old. She was then sent to the House of the Good Shepherd, which was a Catholic reform school for troubled African American girls. She was baptized there at the age of 10. It was during her time there that she became a victim of sexual assault.