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When newlywed Bernice Leonard arrived in Corpus Christi in 1940 for her husband s new job, she had no idea that her life would soon include a large number of children. Within two years she was the director of the first licensed day care in the city. Carlyle Leonard accepted the position of the manager of the new D.N. Leathers Housing Center, and Bernice began assisting her husband by helping conduct home visits to see which families would be eligible to move in. What she discovered was a rampant need for care for preschool-age children in the city s Black community. We saw the need for a day care center. Children were left alone in small shacks, sharing a toilet with four of five other houses along the railroad tracks. she told the Caller-Times in a 1977 interview. Most women were domestics, some schoolteachers, and the preschool children would be left at home under the care of older children. ....