On a recent morning, Lizzie Reynolds, who has been staying at Kennedy's house since police found her wandering on February 4, sits down in a soft chair in the office of the Freedmen's Town Association. She's wearing some of the few articles of clothing she has managed to hang onto the past few months: a faded maroon sweat suit, a soiled white sweater and a pair of simple black house slippers.
Freedmen's Town Association
The former house at 1023 Bailey, in the Fourth Ward.
Deron Neblett
Reynolds returned home to find her house had been razed.
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It's hard to reconcile the irrational behavior attributed to Lizzie with the shy, good-natured matron she appears to be. While it's obvious she doesn't have any teeth, her face is smoother, less wrinkled than one might expect from a woman who turned 79 in November.
Lizzie says she told the Mattalino family that she was planning to leave 1023 Bailey Street very soon. In fact, she says, her belongings were boxed up by the front door the morning the constables arrived. She fought like hell, she says, a recollection accompanied by a huge smile.
Asked if she fought because she enjoyed living there, Lizzie simply shakes her head. She says the Mattalino family wanted her out of the house, because "they must have hated me." She's extremely reticent on the subject of Hazel. At the mention of her sister's name, she smiles tightly, unnaturally, and looks down at her lap. She doesn't say a word.
A few days later, however, Lizzie offered that she thought Hazel had her "committed" in order to lay claim to the $500 she receives each month in social security.
Gladys House, founder and president of the Freedmen's Town Association, claims that Hazel was after the government checks and was in cahoots with the Mattalinos to evict Lizzie and other tenants. But House has no proof. She accuses the landlords of intimidating the tenants by sending them notices to vacate on Vinson & Elkins letterhead, signed by Montague.
House also has advised Lizzie to sue the Mattalino family for $5 million. While no one is pleased with the eviction outcome, the Mattalinos did try for more than two months to coax Lizzie out of the house before going to court to force an eviction. And House's accusations against Hazel Cotton clearly upset her. "She's using my sister to fight the landlord," Hazel says. "ŠMy sister was suffering. She wasn't suffering."
House got a lawyer from the Gulf Coast Legal Foundation to challenge the Mattalino family for tearing down 1023 Bailey Street before anyone had a chance to remove Lizzie's household furnishings. If the case is proved, the family will be liable only for the fair-market value of those possessions.
While House pursues her righteous cause, Lizzie Reynolds is awaiting approval to move into a new apartment at the Historic Oaks of Allen Parkway Village. Oddly, she holds no grudge against the Mattalino family.
"It don't bother me that I lost everything," she says. "Seems like so many people lose everything, you know, but the clothes on their backs. I just get on my knees and pray. God always give me the strength to fight."
E-mail Brian Wallstin at brian.wallstin@houstonpress.com.
