SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

"The way my folks learned they was free wast a white school-teacher who
wa3 teaching school where we stayed told my mother she was free, but not to
say nothing about it*i About three weeks later, the Yankees come through
there and told them they was free and told my old boss that if he wanted
then to work he would have to hire them and pay them* The school-teacher
stayed with mother* s folks—mother f s white folks* The school-teacher was
teaching white folks, not niggers * She was a Yankee, too* My mother was
the house girl, and the school-teacher stayed with her folks* The War was
so hot she couldn't git no chance to go back home*
*My daddy farmed after the War* He farmed on 3hares the first year*
The next year, he bought him a horse» He finally owned his own faim* He
owned it when he died* He had about one hundred acres of land*
*I have pretty fair health for an old woman like I am* I am bothered
with the rheumatism* The Lawd wouldn f t let both of us git down at the same
tiiae. (Here she refers to her husband who was sick in bed at the time she
made the statement« You have his story already* It was difficult for her
to tell her story, for he wanted it to be like his—edf)
*I belong to the Primitive Baptist Church* I haven 1 1 changed my
membership from my home*
"I got married in 1882, in February. How many years is that? I got
so I can't count up nothing Fifty-six years* Yes, that's it; that f s how
loud X been married* I had a little sister that got married with me. She
didn't really git married; she just stood up with mo* She was just a little
baby girl* They told me I was pretty near twenty-three years old when I
carried* I have a daughter that's been married twenty-five years* We had
older daughters, but that one was the first one married* I have got a
daughter over in North Little Rock that is about fifty years old*