Mrs. Alvina Maudvella Nichols was born on October 21, 1925, in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to Mr. James Rosemond (born July 4, 1902, in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi) and Mrs. Mattie Bell Johnson Rosemond (born December 29, 1903, in New Orleans, Louisiana). Her father was a fisherman who came from a fishing family, residing in Bay St. Louis. Her mother was a seafood processing factory worker. Her mother’s family originated in New Orleans and migrated to Bay St. Louis in the early 1900s. Nichols attended St. Rose de Lima Catholic school from which she was graduated from eighth grade. She earned her GED in the 1980s and attended Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College where she studied Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Management. She has owned a catering business, nightclub, and restaurant. In her early life, she worked at some of the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s many seafood processing factories. She has five children, Russell Nichols (born July 14, 1947), , Sylvia Nichols (born September 10, 1951), Eric Nichols (born March 18, 1956), Goldie Fairconnetue (born March 10, 1953), and Lylie Nichols (born August 17, 1959). Her husband is deceased. Nichols enjoys fishing, traveling, and singing in the St. Rose de Lima Catholic Church Choir. She works for the Hancock County Poll Workers/Democratic Party. She is a member of Disabled American Veterams, Purple Heart Women’s Auxiliary, and the Ladies of St. Peter Clavier. She received the St. Rose de Lima Catholic Church Dedicated Parishioner’s Award, the Krewe of Diamonds Lifelong and Dedicated Member Award, and the Operation Wake Up for Excellence in Church and Leadership Award. Alvina Nichols worked in a Mississippi Gulf Coast seafood processing factory as a young woman in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

Scope and Content Note:
She talks about father who fished and worked in seafood processing factory, cleaning shrimp by hand in factory, shucking oysters, wages, beginning of union, canning oysters, child care for working mother, factory whistles, regional foods (pralines, gumbo, fried fish), factory workers, seafood market on beach in 1940s, net-making, species in Jourdan River, subsistence fishing, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Hurricane of 1947, BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.