Annie L. "Jennie" Hinton, a retired waitress and longtime active church member, died of respiratory failure April 22 at Envoy Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Sudbrook Park where she had lived since 2002.
She was 91.
Annie Lucinda Meachman was born and spent her early years in Palmer Springs, Va. In the early 1930s, she moved to Baltimore, where she attended city public schools.
In the late 1930s, she worked as a housekeeper, and with the outbreak of World War II, worked in a Curtis Bay munitions plant.
After the war, she began working at the old Huyler's restaurant on West Lexington Street.
"She was one of the first African-American waitresses to work there" said her daughter, Mary E. Jones of Baltimore.
After the restaurant closed in 1951, she began working as a waitress in the tea room at the Stewart & Co. department store's York Road store in Anneslie, and later at Reisterstown Road Plaza
The former Reisterstown resident retired after the department store closed in the early 1980s.
Mrs. Hinton had been a member of Fulton Baptist Church since 1960, where she had been a member of the Sunday school, church aide auxiliary and the nurse's ministry.
Mrs. Hinton enjoyed cooking and baking and was known for her pound cake, Southern fried chicken and cakes.
Her husband of 29 years, Elvin Hinton, a retired Bethlehem Steel worker, died in 1989.
Services will be held at noon today at her church, 1630 W. North Ave.
Also surviving are a sister, Georgia Stokes of Baltimore; a stepson, Elvin Hinton of Baltimore; three stepdaughters, Evelyn Hinton and Cynthia McCowan, both of Baltimore, and Arnetta Campbell of Virginia; five grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and a great-great-grandson. An earlier marriage to Wiley Bunn, a postal worker, ended in divorce.
