CINCINNATI – The kids call her Grandma. Others know her as Mrs. J. Everyone knows she’s a real character.
On a recent Thursday afternoon, Anna Joiner looks straight into the camera and smiles. She’s already been talking for several minutes, but now she’s ready to get started.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Ask your questions.”
Joiner has been cutting hair in Avondale for decades. She lived through life-changing unrest here in the ’60s, and her salon became a staple in the community afterward.
For almost 50 years she lived on the top floor of her house on Reading Road and worked as a hairdresser downstairs.
“I love Avondale,” she said.
Joiner also likes to talk. That’s one of the reasons she cut her hair so long, because she got to know people – all kinds of people. And when she could, she tried to help them.
“I can’t tell you how much free hair I’ve done over the years,” she said.
Because her salon was about more than just hair. Over time, it became a meeting place for her neighbors.
“It meant everything,” she said.
The sign painted on her porch can still be seen today: “Mrs. J’s Beauty Salon.”
Most of it has been painted over now, although the barber chairs and hairdryers are still there downstairs. And Joiner also tries to help her community in any way she can, even if she no longer cuts hair.
Keith BieryGolick
“I love Mrs. J,” said Jennifer Foster, vice president of the Avondale Town Council. “Mrs. J has been a pillar of the community for a long time.”
But the 86-year-old now has to rely on a cane. And when she goes down the stairs in front of her house, it takes a while.
During the pandemic, Joiner stopped cutting hair, and in the years since, she’s transformed her home into another community space.
She’s essentially given her backyard over to the Avondale Neighborhood Council, and officials are in the process of turning it into a children’s garden, growing everything from watermelons to snap peas.
But this isn’t just another story about a garden. It’s a story about the community that Joiner continues to build even after his retirement.
It’s the story of a community that refuses to give up, even though recent police data shows it is one of Cincinnati’s most dangerous neighborhoods. The garden is just blocks from where a 14-year-old and two other people were shot last month.
On a recent sunny day, a group of children from the library across the street visited Grandma Anna’s Garden. They come every week.
A group of girls squat around strawberry plants.
“It’s not ripe for picking yet,” said one, holding a small strawberry in her hand. “You have to let it grow.”
Keith BieryGolick
A few feet away, Foster watches. She laughs and hugs Joiner.
“A few weeks ago they thought the potatoes came from McDonald’s,” Foster said of the children.
And alongside carefully designed wooden garden beds, Crystal Russell is creating new space in the ground. The kids always want to plant, she said.
Russell is not a gardener. Before she took over this garden, she killed most of what she wanted to grow. But Russell wanted to do her part to highlight something other than violence in her neighborhood.
“Fighting violence with violence is stupid,” she said. “That’s why I try to fight it with peace.”
After the children leave, Russell stays to finish the work they left undone, and she starts crying.
“I’m trying to hold it back,” she said, apologizing and leaving our interview for a moment. “For me, being out here means everything.”
Because she helps every visitor, just like Joiner has been doing for over 40 years.
