BACK WHEN IT WAS JUST BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ELEMENTARY...:

EAST ORANGE, N.J. -- To the people who knew her here she was always Nippy, the long-legged girl who ran track and liked to act out scenes from television. Sometimes she introduced herself to strangers by her full name, Whitney Elizabeth Houston, but in the makeshift memorial at her old elementary school, it is the local name that carries the day: "Nippy," one card begins, "thank you for sharing God's gift, your voice."

East Orange was her town, an aspirational city where middle-class black families bought big houses and went to church alongside less-affluent neighbors. When she moved here from neighboring Newark at age 4, the family left behind a city on a downward arc for one then on the rise.

Henry W. Hamilton, the principal of her old elementary school, remembered when Ms. Houston arrived in the first grade with her two older brothers, the children of a famous gospel singer. The boys always had her back, he said.

"I never thought she had the potential to be a great singer," said Mr. Hamilton, 73, who is still the school's principal. 

"I thought her brother Gary had the potential. I missed that one."

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