First-Person – Page 2 – Reckoning, Inc.

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Mary Jane Mooreman

The interviewer records this interview in the first person, writing down the words of Mary Jane Mooreman using heavy dialect. The reader should note that these are not necessarily the exact words of Mary Jane Mooreman – they are the interviewer’s version of Mary Jane Mooreman’s speech. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts how Mary Jane Mooreman learned how to read and write before documenting her memories of the Civil War.

Miss Maud is Mary Jane Mooreman’s employer, who was also present for the interview.Miss Mary is the interviewer, Mary D. Hudgens.

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Excerpt:

…Yes ma’am we learned to read and write. Oh, Miss Maude now–I don’t want to recite. I don’t want to. (But she did Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and The Playful Kitten–the latter all of 40 lines.) I think, I think they both come out of McGuffey’s second Reader. Yes ma’am I remember McGuffey’s and the Blueback speller too.

No, Miss Mary, there wasn’t so much of the war that was fought around us. I remember that old Master used to go out in the front yard and stand by a locust tree and put his ear against it. He said that way he could hear the cannon down to Bowling Green. No, I didn’t ever hear any shooting from the war myself.

Yes ma’am, the Confederates used to come through lots. I remember how we used to go to the spring for water for them. Then we’d stand with the buckets on our heads while they drank–drank out of a big gourd. When the buckets were empty we’d go back to the spring for more water. Once the Yankees [Union soldiers] come by the place. It was at night. They went out to the quarters [where the enslaved people lived] and they tried to get them to rise up. Told them [the enslaved people] to come on in the big house and take what they wanted. Told them to take anything they wanted to take, take Master’s silver spoons and Miss’ silk dress. ‘If they don’t like it, we’ll shoot their brains out,’ they said. Next morning they told Master. He got scared and moved… It was near the end of the war and we were already free, only we didn’t know it…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Mary Jane Mooreman	[Year (age at interview)]	Mary D. Hudgens	Charles Wickliffe Mooreman

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
AR	AR	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation, Literacy, Education	Hartford County, First Person, Sold, Union Troops

Mooreman_M_1

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Mary Wooldridge

Mary Wooldridge was sold multiple times while enslaved, including at around fourteen years old when she was separated from her twin sister. Thomas McElroy enslaved over three hundred people on his two plantations, among them was Mary Wooldridge. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts Mary Wooldridge’s thoughts on Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, emancipation and voting.

The interviewer records this interview in the first person, writing down the words of Mary Wooldridge using heavy dialect. The reader should note that these are not necessarily the exact words of Mary Wooldridge – they are the interviewer’s version of Mary Wooldridge’s speech. Teachers might ask students to consider how the interviewer’s choice to present the words in this manner might impact the reader’s opinion about Mary Wooldridge. Students may also need help understanding why in the 1930s when she was interviewed Mary Wooldridge would say she preferred slavery.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted].   See more information.

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Excerpt:

…Yah, yah, I sure do remember Abraham Lincoln. my missus and master did not like Mr. Lincoln but, pshaw, all the [redacted] did. I remember him, I saw him once, soon after I was freed.

They were hard times during the [Civil] war, my missus and some of the… [enslaved] gals and the children had to stay in the woods several days to keep way from the soldiers. They ate all the chickens and killed the cows and took the horses and we were sure scared out there with those varmints [soldiers] roving around.

[redacted] ain’t got no business being set free, [redacted] still ought to be slaves. We…did not have to bother about the victuals [food] or anything

When my missis called us…together and told us we were free I was as happy as a skinned frog, but you see I didn’t have any sense… Oh how I miss my missus and master so much. Wish I had them now.

… I’m a Republican – who ever heared of a Democrat [redacted]? [Redacted] never did own anything so they cant be Democrats, and if they vote a Democrat ticket they are just voting a lie. Because no [redacted] never did own slaves… You just have to have owned slaves to vote a Democrat ticket…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Mary Wooldridge	Unknown (Unknown)	Unknown	Bob Eaglin, Thomas McElroy

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clarksville Pike, KY	KY	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Voting, Emancipation, Civil War	Washington County, First Person, Dialect, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops

Wooldridge_M_1

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Mary Wright

Mary Wright was born the year the Civil War ended. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts in the first person Mary Wright’s retelling of her mother’s story of the Ku Klux Klan using violence to intimidate Black people after the Civil War in Kentucky.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [ ___ ]. See more information.

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Excerpt:

…My [Mary Wright’s] mammy bound me out to Miss Puss Graham to learn to work, for my vittles [food] and clothes. Miss Puss gave me a pair of red morocco shoes and I was so happy, I’ve never forgotten these shoes. I heard my mammy talk of thee [ ___ ] Rising. The Ku Klux [Klan] used to stick the [ ___ ]head on a stake alongside the Cadiz road and the buzzards would eat them till nothing was left but the bones. There was a sign on this stake that said ‘Look out [ ___ ]! You are next.’ We children would not go far away from the cabin. I tell you that is so. I just knew that this Ku Klux would do that to us sure if we had been caught…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Mary Wright	1865 (Unknown)	Unknown	James Coleman

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
KY	KY	Gracey, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence, KKK	Christian County, First Person, Dialect, Klan/Mob Violence, Bound out After War

Wright_M_1

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Mrs. Preston

The interviewer records in this interview in the third person and does not record Mrs. Preston’s first name. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts how the KKK drove Mrs. Preston and her family from their home after the Civil War.

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Excerpt:

…At the close of the war, her [Mrs. Preston’s] father was given a house, land, team and enough to start farming for himself. Several years later the Ku Klux Klan gave them a ten days notice to leave, one of the masked band interceded for them by pointing out that they were quiet and peaceable, and a man with a crop and ten children couldn’t possibly leave on so short a notice so the time was extended another ten days, when they took what the Klan paid them and came north. They remained in the north until they had to buy their groceries “a little piece of this and a little piece of that, like they do now”, when her father returned to Kentucky. Mrs. Preston remained in Indiana. Her father was burned out, the family escaping to the woods in their nightclothes, later befriended by a white neighbor. Now they appealed to their former owner who built them a new house, provided necessities and guards for a few weeks until they were safe from the Ku Klux Klan…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Mrs. Preston	Unknown (83)	G. Monroe	Brown

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Jefferson County, IN	IN	Frankfort, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
KKK	Franklin County, First Person, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence,

Preston_1

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Mrs. Preston

The interviewer records this interview in the third person and does not record Mrs. Preston’s first name. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts Mrs. Preston’s memories of the Civil War.

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Excerpt:

… Her ‘Master Brown’, resided in Frankfort, having taken his best horses and hogs, and leaving his family in the care of an overseer on a farm. He was afraid the Union soldiers would kill him, but thought his wife would be safe. This opinion proved to be true. The overseer called the slaves to work at four o’clock, and they worked until six in the evening…

She remembered seeing Union and Confederate soldiers shooting across a river near her home. Her uncle fought two years and returned safely at the end of the war. She did not feel that her master and mistress had mistreated their slaves…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Mrs. Preston	Unknown (83)	G. Monroe	Brown

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Jefferson County, IN	IN	Frankfort, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War	Franklin County, First Person, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence,

Preston_2

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Susan Dale Sanders

In this interview, recorded in the first person, the interviewer recounts Susan Dale Sanders’s emancipation.

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Excerpt:

…After I [Susan Dale Sanders] grew up, I worked for Mrs. Susan Lovell, who was the ole master’s married daughter. She lived down the road from his farm. She was good to me! You see I was named after Susan Lovell. It was while I was working for her when the [Civil] war ended. She told me I was free after the war was over. I got happy and sang, but I didn’t know for a long time what to be free was, so after the war she hired me and I stayed on doing all the cooking and washing and all the work, and I was hired by her for four dollars a month…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Susan Dale Sanders	Unknown (Unknown)	Byers York	Rueben Dale, Susan Lovell

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Louisville, KY	KY	Taylorsville, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Emancipation	Spencer County, First Person, Veteran or Widow,

Sanders_S_1

September 29, 2020September 29, 2020

Mrs. Sam Duncan

The interviewer recorded this interview in the first person and most of the original document in a discussion of superstitions. In this excerpt, the interviewer recounts a time after the Civil War when Mrs. Sam Duncan had to flee with her family, ending up at what appears to be her former enslaver’s home.

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Excerpt:

…After the War was over Mammy’s old man did not want us with them, so he threatened to kill us. Then my old mammy fixed us a little bundle of what few clothes we had and started us two children out to go back to the Campbell family in Albany. The road was just a wilderness and full of wild animals… Mammy gave us some powder and some matches, telling us to put a little down in the road every little while and set fire to it. This would scare the wild animals away from us. We got to the river at almost dark and some old woman set us across the river in a canoe. She let us stay all night with her, and we went on to ‘Grandpap Campbells’ (We always called him Grandpap instead of Master, as the others did.) When he saw us coming he said ‘Lord have mercy here comes them poor little children’…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Mrs. Sam Duncan	Unknown (age at interview)]	Gertrude Vogler	Unknown

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Wayne County, KY	KY	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
	First Person

Duncan_S_1

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Joana Owens

In this short excerpt, Joana Owens describes her life as an enslaved person and the brutality of enslaver Nolan Barr. The interviewer recounts the words of Joana Owens in the first person. The excerpt ends with a brief memory of the Civil War.

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Excerpt:

…My mother and father were slaves, and there were two children born to them, my sister, and me. We used to live in Hawesville, Kentucky, on the Ohio River. My people’s name was Barr, and their master’s name was Nolan Barr. You know they all had to take their masters names in slave days.

I will never forget how mean old Master Nolan Barr was to us. I was about fourteen years old and my sister was a little younger. We lived in an old log cabin. The cracks were filled with mud. My Mother did the housework for Master Barr’s house. My father and sister and I had to work in the fields. He had a big farm and owned lots of slaves, and when the old master got mad at his slaves for not working hard enough he would tie them up by their thumbs and whip the male slaves till they begged for mercy. He sure was a mean old man. I will never forget him as long as I live. I don’t know exactly how old I am, but I am close to ninety now. After I grew up and married a man named Owens, we come here to Louisville to live. That was a short while after the slaves were freed. I can remember how I and my sister used to go down to the river and watch the red hospital boats come in, bringing the wounded soldiers [from the Civil War] in to be cared for…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Joana Owens	Unknown (about 90)	Unknown	Nolan Barr

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Louisville, KY	KY	Hawesville, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence, Civil War	Hancock County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty

Owens_J_1

September 29, 2020November 10, 2022

Nannie Eaves

The interviewer records this interview with Nannie Eaves in the first person. Both Nannie Eaves and her husband Ben Eaves fathers were their enslavers. Their father’s were brothers, making Nannie and her husband first cousins. In this excerpt, Nannie Eaves explains this relationship and how it impacted her life while enslaved. Nannie Eaves also references her husband’s service during the Civil War and slave traders.

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Excerpt:

…I guess I was about twenty one years old when I was freed. I was never once treated as a slave because my master was my very own Daddy. Ben Eaves, my husband, was a slave and child of George Eaves, my master’s brother. He ran away from his master and Daddy and joins the U.S. [Union] Army during the Secess War [the Civil War] and is now drawing a pension from Uncle Sam. I’m sure glad that he had sense enough to go that way [since his pension provides her with money to survive]…

…We had two slave traders in this town. They were Judge Houston and his son-in-law, Dr. Brady. They gathered up all the slaves that were unruly or that people wanted to trade and housed them in an old barn until they had enough to take to New Orleans on a boat. They traded them down there for work in the cotton fields.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Nannie Eaves	Unknown (91)	Unknown	William Eaves

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
KY	KY	KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Slave Traders	McLean County, First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father, Slave Traders, Veteran or Widow

Eaves_N_1

September 29, 2020October 4, 2020

Susan Dale Sanders

In this interview, recorded in the first person, the interviewer recounts how Susan Dale Sanders’s parents were enslaved people who lived on separate plantations.

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Excerpt:

…The next farm close to the master’s was owned by a man, Colonel Jack Allen, and he had a big farm and owned lots of slaves. And Mammy was allowed to marry one of the Allen slaves, and my father’s name was Will Allen. You see the slaves had the same name as the masters, as he owned them. My mammy had seven children and we all grew up on our master Dales farm. My father had to stay at his master’s, Col. Jack Allen’s, and work in the fields all day, but at night he would come to my mammy’s cabin and stay all night, and go back to his master’s, Col. Allen’s fields the next morning…

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Susan Dale Sanders	Unknown (Unknown)	Byers York	Rueben Dale, Susan Lovell

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Louisville, KY	KY	Taylorsville, KY

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Marriage	Spencer County, First Person, Veteran or Widow,

Sanders_S_2

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Clay Reaves

Clav Reaves was born to an enslaved family very late in the Civil War. In this excerpt, he describes his earliest memories, while still living on the farm where he was born, after Emancipation. He describes his lineage with the enslavers, his mother’s life and why she stayed on the farm, and his search for his estranged father who changed his name after gaining freedom.

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Excerpt:

Father was bought from Kentucky. I couldn’t tell you about him. He stayed on the Reaves place that year, the year of the surrender, and left. He didn’t live with Mother ever again. I never did hear any reason. He went to Joe Night’s farm. He left me and a sister – older, but there was one dead between us. Mother raised us. She stayed on with the Reaves two years after he left. The last year she was there she hired to them. The only thing she ever did before freedom was cook and weave. She had her loom in the kitchen. It was a great big kitchen built off from the house and a portico joined it to the house. I used to lay up under her loom. It was warm there in winter time. I was the baby. I heard mother say some things I remember well.

She said she was never sold. She said the Reaves said her children need never worry, they would never be sold. We were Reaves from back yonder. Mother’s grandfather was a white man. She was a Reaves and her children are mostly Reaves. She was light. Father was about, might be a little darker than I am (mulatto). At times she worked in the field, but in rush time. She wove all the clothes on the place. She worked at the loom and I lay up under there all day long. Mother had three girls and five boys.

Mr. Reaves (we called him ‘master’) had two boys in the army. He was a real old man. He may have had more than two, but I know there was two gone off. The white folks lived in sight of the quarters. Their house was a big house and painted white. I’ve been in there. I’ve never seen any grandparents of mine – that I was allowed to claim kin with.

When I got up some size, I was allowed to go see my father. I went over to see him sometimes. After freedom, he went to where his brothers lived. They wanted him to change his name from Reaves to Cox and he did. He changed it from James Reaves to James Cox. But I couldn’t tell you if at one time they belong to Cox in Kentucky or if they belong to Cox in Tennessee or if they took on a name they liked.

I kept my name Reaves. I am a Reaves from start to finish. I was raised by mother and she was a Reaves. Her name was Olive Reaves. Her old mistress’ name was Charlotte Reaves, old master was Edmond Reaves

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Clay Reaves	Year Unknown (79)	Irene Robertson	Edmond Reaves

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Palestine, AR	Arkansas	Unknown

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Emancipation	First Person, Bound out after war, breeding

Reaves_C_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Dan Bogie

Dan Bogie was enslaved on a small plantation with few slaves. In this excerpt, he describes the living conditions he and his family experienced.

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Excerpt:

Master Bogie owned about 200 acres of land in the eastern section of the county, and as far as I can remember there were only four slaves on the place. We lived in a one-room cabin, with a loft above, and this cabin was an old fashioned one about hundred yards from the house. We lived in one room, with one bed in the cabin. The one bed was an old fashioned, high post corded bed where my father and mother slept. My sister and I slept in a trundle bed, made like the big bed except the posts were made smaller and were on rollers, so it could be rolled under the big bed. There was also a cradle, made of a wooden box, with rockers nailed on, and my mother told me that she rocked me in that cradle when I was a baby. She used to sit and sing in the evening. She carded the wool and spun yarn on the old spinning wheel. My grandfather was a slave of Talton Embry, whose farm joined the Wheeler farm. He made shingles with a steel drawing knife that had a wooden handle. He made these shingles in Mr. Embry’s yard. I do not remember my grandmother, and I didn’t have to work in slave days, because my mother and father did all the work except the heavy farm work. My Mistus used to give me my winter clothes. My shoes were called brogans. My old master had shoes made. He would put my foot on the floor and mark around it for the measure of my shoes.

Most of the cooking was in an oven in the yard, over the bed of coals. Baked possum and groundhog in the oven, stewed rabbits, fried fish and fried bacon called streaked meat all kinds of vegetables, boiled cabbage, pone cornbread, and sorghum molasses. Old folks would drink coffee, but children would drink milk, especially buttermilk.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dan Bogie	1858	Eliza Ison	Bob Wheeler, Arch Wheeler

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Garrard County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Gender Roles	First Person

Bogie_D_1

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Dan Bogie

Dan Bogie lived in enslavement on a small plantation with few enslaved persons. In this excerpt, he describes the relationship he developed with the enslavers’ children, as well as his first experiences with education and religion.

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Excerpt:

There were four slaves. My mother did cooking and the men did the work. Bob Wheeler and Arch Bogie were our masters. Both were good and kind to us. I never saw a slave shipped, for my boss did not believe in that kind of punishment. My master had four boys, named Rube, Falton, Horace, and Billie. Rube and me played together and when we acted bad old Master always licked Rube three or four times harder than he did me because Rube was older. Their daughter was named American Wheeler, for her mother.

White folks did not teach us to read and write. I learned that after I left my white folks. There was no church for slaves, but we went to the white folks’ church at Mr. Freedom. We sat in the gallery. The first colored preacher I ever heard was old man Leroy Estill. He preached in the Freedom meeting house (Baptist). I stood on the banks of Paint Lick Creek and saw my mother baptized, but do not remember the preacher’s name or any of the songs they sang.

We did not work on Saturday afternoon. The men would go fishing, and the women would go to the neighbors’ and help each other piece quilts. We used to have big times at the corn shuckings. The neighbors would come and help. We would have campfires and sing songs, and usually a big dance at the barn when the corn was shucked. Some of the slaves from other plantations would pick the banjo, then the dance. Miss America married Sam Ward. I was too young to remember only that they had good things to eat.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dan Bogie	1858	Eliza Ison	Bob Wheeler, Arch Wheeler

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Garrard County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Family, Gender Roles, Education, Literacy, Religion	First Person

Bogie_D_2

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Dulcina Baker Martin

In this excerpt, former enslaved person Dulcina Baker Martin describes Union soldiers raiding her enslavers’ farm for food and supplies, and her optimistic feelings about this experience.

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Excerpt:

When I lived with Ole Miss (enslaver), I remember a pack of soldiers coming and taking’ all the saddle and buggy horses, and only leaving one old brokedown nag in the barn. Ole Miss cried and cried, but there ain’t no use a crying’ after the colt is gone. The soldiers took all the meat from the smokehouse, and that was something awful, because we didn’t know what we were going to do for meat, for most folks was having’ the same thing happen.

It wasn’t so pleasant to have soldiers come and do things like that, but Mother, she says, she was always glad, because she felt the Union was being’ helped to win the war by us having enough to feed the soldiers.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dulcina Baker Martin	1859 (78)	Unknown	Jack Rutledge

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	Ohio	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation,	First Person, Union Troops

Martin_D_1

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Dulcina Baker Martin

In this excerpt, Dulcina Baker Martin recites a story her aunt told her about an enslaver who was presumed dead, and her grave raided by an enslaved person.

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Excerpt:

They used to talk about such things, like ghosts, and haints, and spirits. My aunt says, once there was a young Miss who died and her folks had buried her with lots of jewelry. One of the slaves looked hard and long at all that fine jewelry going into the ground. So when night comes, he goes to the graveyard and starts digging in the young Miss’ grave. When he came to the casket and opened it, and was taking a ring off of her hand, the young Miss spoke to him. He started running’, and she came up out of the grave and started running’ too. When she got to the house, the family knew she wasn’t dead as soon as they saw her, and they were sure glad, and day set the slave free and gave him a lot of money and a fine horse.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Dulcina Baker Martin	1859 (78)	Unknown	Jack Rutledge

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Clark County, OH	Ohio	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Religion, Violence	First person, dialect

Martin_D_2

September 27, 2020September 28, 2020

Easter Sudie Campbell

Easter Sudie Campbell was born near the end of the Civil War. She describes her many experiences as a free midwife in Kentucky. Here, she describes several experiences she has had supporting women during pregnancy and while giving birth.

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Excerpt:

When I go on a baby case, I just let nature have its way. I always test the baby, the first thing I do is blow my breath in the baby’s mouth. I spank it just a little so it will cry and I give it warm catnip tea so if it is going to have the hives they will break out on it. I always have my own catnip and sheep balls, for some cases need one kind of tea and some another. I give sink field tea for the colic. It is just good for a young baby’s stomach. I have been granning for nigh under forty years and I only lost two babies that were born alive. One of these was the white man’s fault, this baby was born with the jaundice and I told this white man to go to the store and get me some calomel and he says, whoever heard of giving a baby such truck, and so that baby died.

Of course you can tell whether the baby is going to be a boy or girl before he is born. If the mother carries that child more on the left and high up, that baby will be a boy; and if she carries it more to the middle, that will be a girl. Mothers ought to be more careful while carrying their children not to get scared of anything, for they will sure mark their babies with terrible ugly things. I know once a young woman was expecting and she went blackberry hunting and a bull cow with long horns got after her and she was so scared that she threw her hands over her head. And when that baby boy was born he had two nubs on his head just like horns beginning to grow. So I had her call her doctor and they cut them off. One white woman I waited on liked hot chocolate and she always wanted more, she never had enough of that stuff, and one day she spills some on her leg and it just splotched and burned her and when that gal was born, she had a big brown spot on her leg just like her mammy’s scar from the burn. Now you see, I know you can mark the babies.

There was a colored woman once I waited on that had to help the white folks kill hogs and she never did like hog liver but the white folks told her to take one home and fix it for her supper. Well, she picked that thing up and started off with it and it made her feel creepy all over. And that night her baby was born, a gal child, and the print of a big hog-liver was standing out all over one side of her face. That side of her face is all blue and purplish and just the shape of a liver. And it’s still there.

I grannied over three hundred children and I know what I’m talking about.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Easter Sudie Campbell	Unknown (72)	Mamie Hanberry	Will Grooms

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Christian County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Gender/Gender roles, Family, Equality	First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father

Campbell_E_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Easter Sudie Campbell

Easter Sudie Campbell was born near the end of the Civil War. She describes her many experiences as a free midwife in Kentucky. Here, she discusses her belief in ghosts and specific experiences she has had.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.

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Excerpt:

Sure there are ghosts. One night as I was going home from work, the tallest man I ever saw followed me with the prettiest white shirt on, and then he passed me and waited at the corner. I was feeling creepy and wanted to run but just couldn’t get my legs to move. When I got to the corner where he was, I said ‘Good Evening’ and I saw him plain as day and he did not speak and just disappeared right before my eyes.

…Once I had a dream, I knew I near about saw it. I always did cook every night a pot of beans on the fire for the children to eat next day while I was at work, and Lizzie, my daughter, used to get up in the night and get her some beans and eat them. And this dream was so real that I couldn’t tell if it was Lizzie or not, but this woman just glided by my bed and went afore the fire and stood there, then she just went twixt my bed and went by the wall. I just knew when I woke up that my child was sick that lived away from home and wanted my son to take me to see her. He said he would go himself and see, so he went, and when he came back he had a headache, and afore morning that [redacted] was dead. So you see, that was the sign of the dream. I was just warned in the dream and didn’t have sense enough to know it.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Easter Sudie Campbell	Unknown (72)	Mamie Hanberry	Will Grooms

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Christian County, KY	Kentucky	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Religion	First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father

Campbell_E_2

September 27, 2020November 10, 2022

Edd Shirley

Edd Shirley was enslaved and sold to several enslavers in his life. In the excerpt below, he describes the different treatment the enslaved were given based on their masters. Specifically, he recalls several examples of violence against the enslaved.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [people]. See more information.

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Excerpt:

I am 97 years old and am still working as a janitor and supporting my family. My father was a white man and my mother was a colored lady. I was owned three different times, or rather was sold to three different families. I was first owned by the Waldens; then I was sold to a man by the name of Jackson, of Glasgow, Kentucky. Then my father, of this county, bought me.

I have had many slave experiences. Some slaves were treated good, and some were treated awful bad by the white people; but most of them were treated good if they would do what their master told them to do.

I once saw a light colored gal tied to the rafters of a barn, and her master whipped her until blood ran down her back and made a large pool on the ground. And I have seen n***o men tied to stakes drove in the ground and whipped because they would not mind their master; but most white folks were better to their slaves and treated them better than they are now. After their work in the fields was finished on Saturday, they would have parties and have a good time. Some old n***o man would play the banjo while the young people would dance and sing. The white folks would set around and watch; and would sometimes join in and dance and sing.

My colored grandfather lived to be 115 years old, and at that age he was never sick in his life. One day he picked up the water bucket to go to the spring, and as he was on his way back he dropped dead.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Edd Shirley	Unknown (97)	Lenneth Jones	Walden

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Monroe County, KY	Kentucky	unknown

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Violence	First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, sold (self or family), enslaver father

Shirley_E_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Eli Coleman

Eli Coleman was born in 1846 and has a long memory of enslavement. In this excerpt he describes what it was like to serve alongside his enslaver in the Civil War.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.

See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

Excerpt:

Master was a colonel in the war and took me along to care for his horse and gun. Those guns, you couldn’t hear anything popping. We [redacted] had to go all over and pick up those who were killed. The hurt we carried back. Those too badly hurt we had to carry to the burying place and the White man would finish killing them, so we could roll them in the hole.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Eli Coleman	1846 (91)	Unknown	George Brady

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Texas	Texas	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Civil War	First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, Union Troops

Coleman_E_1

September 27, 2020October 2, 2020

Eli Coleman

Eli Coleman was born in 1846 and has a long memory of enslavement. He also lived a long life after Emancipation. In this excerpt, he describes his experiences immediately after being freed, and his ultimate move to Texas from Kentucky. He also reflects on the state of African Americans in the early 20th century, notably discussing sharecropping as re-enslavement.

*Historically-used terms that are offensive, marginalizing and/or disparaging have been removed from the transcripts and replaced with [redacted]. See more information.

See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

Excerpt:

When Master said we were free, we all began to take on. We didn’t have no place to go and asked Master could we stay, but he said no. But he did let some stay and furnished teams and something to eat, and work on the halves. I stayed and was sharecropper, and that was when slavery started, for when we got our crop made, it took every bit of it to pay our debts and we had nothing left to buy winter clothes or pay doctor bills.

. . . I’d heard the railroad was building in Texas and they hire lots of [redacted]. I get a horse from Master, and roll up a few clothes and get my gun. I never got very far before the Indians took my horse away from me. It was about fifty miles to a train and I didn’t have any money, but I found a White man who wanted wood cut and I work near a month for him and get $2.00. I get on a train and come a hundred miles from where that railroad was going across the country, and I had to walk near all that hundred miles. Once and now a White man coming or going let me ride. But I got there, and the job pays me sixty cents a day. That was lots of money those days. Near as I remember, it was 1867 or 1868 when I came to Texas.

. . . Since the [redacted] been free it’s been Hell on the poor old [redacted]. He has advanced some ways, but he’s still a servant and will be, long as God’s curse still stay on the [redacted] race. We were turned loose with nothing and have been under the White man’s rule so long we couldn’t hold any job but labor. I worked almost two years on that railroad and the rest my life I farmed. Now I get a little pension from the government and the White folks are sure good to give it to me, because I ain’t good for work no more.

Interviewee Formerly enslaved person	Birth Year (Age)	Interviewer WPA Volunteer	Enslaver’s Name
Eli Coleman	1846 (91)	Unknown	George Brady

Interview Location	Residence State	Birth Location
Texas	Texas	Kentucky

Themes & Keywords	Additional Tags:
Emancipation, Sharecropping,	First person, witnessed extreme cruelty, Union Troops,

Coleman_E_2