Tag: First-Person

Posted on

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

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. HudgensCharles Wickliffe Mooreman
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
ARARKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil War, Emancipation, Literacy, EducationHartford County, First Person, Sold, Union Troops

Mooreman_M_1

Posted on

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

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 WooldridgeUnknown (Unknown)UnknownBob Eaglin, Thomas McElroy
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Clarksville Pike, KYKYKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Voting, Emancipation, Civil WarWashington County, First Person, Dialect, Sold, Slave Traders, Union Troops

Wooldridge_M_1

Posted on

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

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 Wright1865 (Unknown)UnknownJames Coleman
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
KYKYGracey, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Violence, KKKChristian County, First Person, Dialect, Klan/Mob Violence, Bound out After War

Wright_M_1

Posted on

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

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. PrestonUnknown (83)G. MonroeBrown
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Jefferson County, ININFrankfort, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
KKKFranklin County, First Person, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence, 

Preston_1

Posted on

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

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. PrestonUnknown (83)G. MonroeBrown
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Jefferson County, ININFrankfort, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Civil WarFranklin County, First Person, Union Troops, Klan/Mob Violence, 

Preston_2

Posted on

Susan Dale Sanders

In this interview, recorded in the first person, the interviewer recounts Susan Dale Sanders’s emancipation. 
See full document • Visit the Library of Congress to see the original document

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 SandersUnknown (Unknown)Byers YorkRueben Dale, Susan Lovell
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Louisville, KYKYTaylorsville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
EmancipationSpencer County, First Person, Veteran or Widow, 

Sanders_S_1

Posted on

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

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 DuncanUnknown (age at interview)]Gertrude VoglerUnknown
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Wayne County, KYKYKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
First Person

Duncan_S_1

Posted on

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

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 OwensUnknown (about 90)UnknownNolan Barr
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Louisville, KYKYHawesville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Violence, Civil WarHancock County, First Person, Witnessed Extreme Cruelty

Owens_J_1

Posted on

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

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 EavesUnknown (91)UnknownWilliam Eaves
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
KYKYKY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
Slave TradersMcLean County, First Person, Dialect, Enslaver Father, Slave Traders, Veteran or Widow

Eaves_N_1

Posted on

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

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 SandersUnknown (Unknown)Byers YorkRueben Dale, Susan Lovell
Interview LocationResidence StateBirth Location
Louisville, KYKYTaylorsville, KY
Themes & KeywordsAdditional Tags:
MarriageSpencer County, First Person, Veteran or Widow, 

Sanders_S_2