SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

"They wouldn f t allow him to go to school in slavery time* After the
War, he got a Blue Back Speller and would make a bowl of fire and at night
he would study—sometimes until daybreak* Then he found an old man that
would help him and he studied under him for a while* He never went to any
regular school, but he went to night school a little* Most of what he got,
he got himself«
"He was horn in Louisville, Kentucky. I don't know how he happened to
meet my mother* During the time after the War, he went to running on the
boat from New Orleans to Friars,Point, Mississippi. Then he would come over
A
to Helena* In going f round, he met my mother near Harianna and married her*
"Mother never had much to say, and the other girls would have a big
time talking* He noticed that she was sewing with ravelings and he said,
f Lady, next time I come I 9 11 bring you a spool of thread if you don f t mind.*
He brought the thread and she didn f t mind, and from then on, they went to
courting* Finally they married* They married very shortly after the War*
*lfy mother was a motherless girl* My daddy said he looked at her
struggling along* All the other girls were trying to have a good time* Bat
she would be sett in* down trying to make a quilt or something else useful*
and he said to a friend of his, f That woman would make a good wife; I am
going to marry her» f And he did*
•She used to spin her fine and coarse sewing thread and yarn to make
socks and stockings with* Her stockings and socks for the babies and papa
would always be yarn* She could do pretty work* She had a large family*
She had seventeen children and she kept them all in things she made her-
self* She raised ten of them* She would make the thread and yarn
and the socks and stockings for all of these* I have known the time
when she used to make coats and pants for my father and brothers*
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