SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

30508 ~° w
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed Mary Teel
Holly Grove, Ark,
Age 74
"Our Masters was Wade and Curls, Miss Fannie was Master
Wade's wife. They was kin somehow, I heard Ma say they wouldn't
let their boys work. We girls growd up together. They called
Ma 'Cousin'•
"Ma say she come from Marshal County Tennessee to Holly
Springs Mississippi, She never did see her pa. My papa's papa
was a white man. My pa was Lewis Brittman, He was a carriage
driver. He made and mended shoes. My Ma was a fine cook. She
had nine children but jes three living now. One of the girls -
Miss Fannie's girls - married bout when I did. We jes growd up
lack that, I left the girls at Mt, Pleasant, Mississippi, I / '
stayed on their place a while, I wish I had money to go back
to my old home and see all »em livin', I never heard 'em say
if they give 'em somepin'. Pa lernt us to do all kinds of
work. He knowd how to do nearly everything cause he was brought
up by white folks. Measles broke out, then small pox and the
white folks put us in a room all together at the white house so
we could be seen after. We lay on the same beds. My brother
would whistle, I was real little but I member it well as yester-
day. Ma say stop whistlin' in that bed and Miss Fannie say let
him whistle I want to hear him cause I know he better. They say
it bad luck to sing in bed or look in the lookin'-glass (mirror)
if you in the bed. We all got over it.