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Age 71
"I was born the third year after the surrender. I was born in Okolona, Mississippi. My parents was Jane Bowen end
Henry Harrison. Ma had seven children. They lived on the Gates place at freedom. I'm the onliest one of my kin
living anywheres 'bout now. Ma never was sold but pa was.
"Parson Caruthers brought pa from Alabama. He was a good runner end when he was little he throwd his hip outer
j'int running races. Then Parson Caruthers learnt him a trade--a shoemaker. When he wan still nothing but a led he
was sold for quite a sum of money. When emancipation come on he could reed and write and make change.
"So dan he was cut in the world cripple. He started teaching school. He had been a preacher, too, durin' slavery. He
preached and taught school. He was justice of the peace and representative for two terms from Chickasaw County in
the state legislature. I heard them talk about that and when I started to school Mr. Saggs was the white men
principal. Pa was one teacher and there was some more teachers. He was a teacher a long time. He was eighty odd
and me was sixty odd when she died. Both died in Mississippi.
"My folks said Master Gates was good. I knowd my pa's young Master Gates. Pa said he never got a whooping.
They made a right smart of money outen his work. He said some of the boots he made brung high as twenty dollars.
Pa had a good deal of Confederate bills as I recollects, Ma said some of them on Gates' place got whoopings.
"When they would be at picnics and big corn shellings or shuckings either, all Gates' black folks was called 'Heavy
Gates'; they wes fed and treated so wall. I visited back at home in Mississippi. Want to the quarters and all nineteen
years ago. I heard then still talking about the 'Heavy Gates'. I was one the offspring.
"Ma cooked for her old mistress years end years, Mrs. Rogers in South Carolina give ma to Miss Rebecca, her
daughter, and said, 'Take good care of her, you might need her.' They come in or wagons to Mississippi. Ma was a
little girl then when Miss Rebecca married Dr. Bowen. Ma hated to leave Miss Rebecca Bowen 'cause in the first
place she was her half-sister. She said Master Rogers was her own pa. Her ma was a cook and house girl ahead of
her. Ma was a fine cook. Heap better than I ever was 'cause she never lacked the stuff to fix and I come short there.
"I heard ma tell this. Wherever she lived and worked, at Dr. Bowen's, I reckon. The soldiers come one day and took
their sharp swords from out their belts and cut off heads of turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, guineas, and took a load
off and left some on the ground. They picked up the heads and what was left and made a big washpot full of
dumplings. She said the soldiers wasted so much.
"When I was young I seen a 'style block' at Holly Springs, Mississippi. I was going to Tucker Lou School, ten miles
from Jackson. That was way back in the seventies. A platform was up in the air under a tree and two stumps stood
on ends for the steps. It was higher than three steps but that is the way they got up on the platform they tole me.
"I think times are a little better. I gits a little ironing and six dollars and commodities. The young generation is
taking on funny ways. I think they do very well morally 'cepting their liquor drinking habits.
That is worse, I think. They are advancing in learning. I think times a little better.
"My husband had been out here. We married and I come here. I didn't like here a bit but now my kin is all dead and
I know folks here better. I like it now vary well. He was a farmer and mill man."
Interviewer Mary D. Hudgins"
