File:Estella Belt with her husband James outside the old Kaplon’s Department Store on W. Potomac Street in the 1960s.jpg

Summary

This is a photo of Estella Belt with her husband James outside the old Kaplon’s Department Store on W. Potomac Street in the 1960s. Named a Distinguished Citizen in 2018, she was born and raised in segregated Brunswick where she attended the local black elementary school on J Street and was bused to Lincoln High School in Frederick. She graduated from Lincoln in 1946.

Hired by General and Mrs. Roland Delmar, Mrs. Belt was the longtime caretaker at the Oakland Farm in Petersville (now Crown Rose Estate) and has served as a Master Docent at the Brunswick Heritage Museum since 1975. As part of an ensemble cast which performed skits to tell the history of Brunswick in the early days of the museum, she played the role of her great-grandmother Mary Pauline Brooks, the daughter of a freed slave on the Johnson farm in Jefferson. Today she remains active at St. Mary’s Church in Petersville and continues to live in the caretaker's residence on Crown Estate.

(News clipping from the Brunswick Citizen)