Granddaughter of slaves, devoted nanny Redditt dies at 90

Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2000 | 10:07 a.m.

On the nightstand beside her bed, Mary Alice Redditt kept an autographed copy of late Sun Publisher Hank Greenspun's 1966 autobiography "Where I Stand -- The Record of a Reckless Man."

The inscription from Greenspun to his longtime housekeeper and nanny read: "Mary Alice, who keeps my children and household straight."

She fell asleep Sunday night reading that book in her room surrounded by walls adorned with numerous photos of the Greenspun family -- "my family," Mary Alice would boast.

Redditt, a granddaughter of slaves, who built a lifelong career as a domestic worker by meeting her responsibilities with fierce devotion, died in her sleep Monday from apparent heart failure. She was 90.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 51 years are pending.

"She was very protective of us," said Danny Greenspun, president of the Greenspun Media Group and the youngest of Hank and Sun Publisher Barbara Greenspun's four children. "She was not a sophisticated woman, but she taught us a lot about people and having respect for people. She taught us that everyone in the world counts."

Redditt was employed by the Greenspun family from 1950 -- the year Hank Greenspun bought the Sun -- to 1990, a year after he died.

"We had just bought the newspaper and I had to be there to help Hank, so we needed someone to care for our children during the day," Barbara Greenspun said, noting it was rare in the 1950s for both parents to hold jobs.

"I could not afford to pay her much of a salary at that time, but she cared for my children with great devotion. Once when I was in Ireland visiting my ailing father, she got sick and refused to go to the hospital for surgery until we returned home. That is how devoted she was to my children."

At Redditt's 90th birthday party earlier this fall, Barbara Greenspun thanked Redditt by saying she gave her the freedom to pursue her dreams by helping to raise Danny; the Greenspuns' eldest child, Susan Fine; Sun Editor and President Brian Greenspun; and second youngest, Janie Greenspun Gale.

"Mary was proud of everything we did -- she even called our children her grandbabies," Fine said.

"In many respects, Mary was a parent and a grandparent to us and our children," Brian Greenspun said.

Ollie Mitchell, Redditt's friend and caretaker, found Redditt's body when she visited Monday to make her breakfast and do chores. She said it was fitting that Redditt apparently had been reading Hank Greenspun's book just before she died.

As a nanny, Redditt, who barely stood 5 feet tall, was not shy about meting out mild physical discipline when simple scolding was not enough.

"Mary could wield her slipper like a six-shooter," Danny Greenspun said. "But she also walked me to school and was there when I got home. I loved her deeply."

Redditt was born Mary Alice Johnson on Sept. 1, 1910, in Delhi, La. Her mother, Arlene Johnson, was born just 13 years after slavery was abolished and died in 1981 at 103. Redditt's grandmother, Jane Bradford, was a freed slave, Barbara Greenspun said.

Redditt told the Greenspuns stories of how she picked cotton and tobacco as a child. She was educated in a one-room schoolhouse and had the equivalent of about a fourth-grade education. At age 8, Redditt worked side-by-side with her mother as a domestic.