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(Greene County, Alabama. G. Samek, October 7, 1936)
Aunt Nancy Vaughn, was born in slave times, her mother had belonged to Colonel Irvin in Greensboro. Aunt Nancy lives "different" from the other negroes. She lived in a land of her own, she heard voices, and told about them, but no one believed her.
Finally she stopped speaking of the voices, but they continued and when Aunt Nancy was a grown woman she knew it was the Lord's voice she had been hearing. One day the Lord came to Aunt Nancy and told her "Dress yo-self in a white robe, I'll tell you how to make it, and go tell the Pope, I say, his time is nigh."
"Yas Lawd, I'll go, but that Pope is 'long ways frum heah, you knows I jest gets a little washin' now and then fum de white folks, I suah ain't got money to go all dat way. The Lord told Aunt Nancy to go see Sister Jane a pious Church member, so Nancy dressed in a robe made of a bed sheet and went to Sister Jane. "Sis Jane, I done had a message fum de Lawd". "You is, what he say". Said Sis Jane properly impressed.
"He say, Nancy make yorself, a white robe, and go tell de Pope I say his time is nigh' I say, Lawd How kin I go tell de Pope, he nigh', I ain' got no money, dat Pope long ways fum Eutaw. He say, "Go tell Sis Jane, about dat." So heah I is.
"Well," said Sister Jane, "If the Lawd say so, mus he say so. Dis heah my house and land may come I kin borry the money fum de white folks. Us gotta see dem Pope somehow.
Sister Jane got six hundred dollars for her place, made herself a white robe and she and Nancy went to Rome. They took a steamboat from Mobile and then a train. Finally reaching Rome two bewildered darkies in a strange land, speaking a language neither of them understood.
"We got a mans what talks like us talks and two lak de Pope talks". He took us to de Pope's house. Fus, us kneels down and de Pope come in. I riz right up, ain't de Lawd send me?
"I sez to 'em Pope you ain't been rulin' right and yo time es nigh." The mans what talks boff lak me and same as de Pope tell him what I say.
The Pope say somethin' in his tongue which I never did know what it was he say. Then us go away fum dere an' took a steamboat and come home. By the time us gits back to Eutaw, I heahs de Pope done daid".
Neither Aunt Nancy nor Sister Jane ever told many thing about their trip so far as I know. This is the story of their journey as they have told it over and over.
Her death, which occurred when she was nearing eighty was as strange as her life. The white robe, symbol of her devoted life, was winding sheet. It caught afire against her stove one night and Aunt Nancy Vaughn left the world in a pillar of flame.
