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(Told by her daughter, Nettie Johnson. Mobile County, AL. Mary A. Poole, Federal Writers Project, Dist. 2. May 7, 1937)
Nettie Johnson, of 359 Kennedy St, Mobile, AL, recalled the following incidents of her Mother's life. Her Mother was born of slave parents Benjamin and Patsy Walker (the latter a Creek Indian), who were owned by a Mr. Hammond, for whom Hammond, LA, was named from his plantation in that location. Benjamin and Patsy had several children, of these a daughter named Martha was the eldest and among the younger ones a girl named "Mahala," the Mother of Nettie Johnson.
Mahala told her children Mr. Hammond was an unusually good master and never divided families by selling off a parent or child, but when Mahala was about 9 years old, she was sent with one of the Misses Hammond, who had married a Mr. Hughes, to his plantation some miles distant. Little Mahala missed her old home and family, and when later Mr. Hughes, who was not popular in his section, was shot from ambush by one of his enemies, Mahala could not ever recall the particulars of the shooting, only the fact of her joy over the man being killed and that she could return home.
During the Civil War, Mahala told her children of the devastation wrought, how the Confederates burned the bridges in and around Hammond to try and keep the Yankees out, but that they had pontoons and built their own bridges and soon had taken possession. At the Hammond plantation, where the Federal troops were helping themselves to anything and everything, Mrs. Hammond tried to remonstrate with them, but they just laughed and asked her: "Who fired the first shot at Fort Sumpter?"
Mahala said her father went off with the Yankees and after the Surrender their Mother left the children with the married ones and went to try and locate the father but she was taken sick and died enroute, so Mahala knew but little of her Father and Mother.
Her sister Martha and her husband moved to New Orleans, taking Mahala with them, but Mahala did not get along with her brother-in-law, and went to work for a Mrs. Mason, who practically raised her, and with whom she remained until she was 25 years of age, and was married in Mrs. Mason's parlor to a negro named J. W. Burns. Annette Johnson did have the marriage certificate of her Father and Mother and was distressed that she could not locate same even when the writer made a second visit back to see her hoping it would be found.
Mahala often reminded her children when they grumbled about lighting a fire by asking: "Sposin' yo' had tuh start fire lak ah had tuh do, strike flint rock t'gether ober cotton, then blow hit into flame tuh burn?"
Mahala always preached to her two daughters to try to get an education: "The closest ah ever got tuh school war to fetch tha' books fo' little missus Mason."
Annette said her mother "Mahala" learned to read, however, by listening at night to Mrs. Mason helping her children with their lessons and that she, Annette, as a child remembers her mother reading to their father, J.W. Burns, who was a cripple from having the yellow thrash as a baby, and the disease left his foot "limber." So he couldn't do heavy work, and as a slave acted as a body servant to one of the sons of a Mr. Crumborn, of New Orleans, to whom he belonged. Mr. Crumborn operated a saw mill at Moss Point, Miss., and Burns with his family, came to Moss Point to live where he was the cook for the saw mill camp. Later he had a cook shop of his own in Moss Point.
Annette recalls her Mother reading to her father, who could not read but who was always active in politics, and Mahala would get so tired and sleepy trying to read all the news of the day to him.
Annette said her Mother often said she had the "bitter with the sweet"; and one of Annettte's most pleasant recollections was when her Mother (Mahala) after long years of inquiry and searching was able to locate her sister Martha at Ponchitoola, La., not far from their old home at Hammond, La. And their trip (her Mother and two sisters) when they visited Aunt Martha and other relations in and around these points and New Orleans, LA.
