There is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset

If Peter was unconscious of the utter desirability of association with the young Marshalls, Maggie Ellersley was not. Ever since her childhood when she had overheard a conversation between a cousin and her mother, she had made up her mind to attach herself to some such family and see what came of it.

The cousin and her mother worked together for some wealthy white people. Maggie's mother was a laundress, a spare hardworking woman to whom life had meant nothing but poverty and confusion. On Thursdays and Fridays of each week she washed and ironed and gossiped with "my cousin Mis' Sparrow" who was cook at the house on Madison Avenue. Maggie used to come there for dinner and go home with her mother.