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R.F.D., Biscoe, Arkansas
Age 75
"My parents was Elsie and Manuel Jones. They had five children. The Jones was farmers at Hickory Plains. Auntie
was a cook and her girl, Luiza, was a weaver and a spinner and worked about in the house.
"I heard auntie talk about the soldiers come and make them cook up everything they had and et it up faster 'en it
took 'er to fix it ready for 'em to guttle down. Dems her very words. They took the last barrel or flour and the last
scrap er meat they had outen the smokehouse.
"Uncle Sebe Jones was Massa Jones' boss and wagoner (wagon man and overseer). Auntie said Uncle Sebe drunk
too much. He drunk long as he lived 'cause old Massa Jones trained to that.
"Uncle Whit Jones was more pious and his young massa learned him to read and write. He was onliest one of the
Jones niggers knowed how or had any learning er tall.
"The women folks spun and wove all winter while the nights be long.
"Pa said Massa Jones was pretty fair to his black folks. He fed 'em pretty good and seen they was kept warm in
rainy bad weather. He watch see if the men split plenty wood to keep up the fires. Jones didn't allow the neighbors
to slash up his black folks. He whooped then if he thought they needed it and he knowed when and where to stop.
Mama didn't b'long to the same people.
"Grandma was a native of South Ca'lina. Her name was Malindy Fortner. She died over at Alex Hazen's place. She
come to some of her people's after the War. I think ma come with her. Her own old mistress come sit on a cushion
one day. The parrot say, 'Cake under cushion, burn her bottom.' Grandma made the parrot fly on off but the cake
was warm and it was mashed flat under the cushion when she got up. She took it to her little children. She said piece
of cake was a rarity. They had plenty corn bread, peas and meat.
"Grandma said after they had a baby it would be seben weeks b'fore they would let them put their hands in a
washtub. They all had teaks in winter time. They sit by the fire and talk and sing. Ma said in slavery a girl had a
baby and her hugging around a tree. Said her mistress come to the cabin to see about her and brought corn bread
and pea pot-liquor. Said that would kill folks but it didn't hurt her.
"Pa b'long to the Jones and Whitlocks both but he never told us about ever being sold. He told us about it took
nearly two weeks one time in the bad weather to meet the boat and get provisions. His wagon was loaded and when
the rain and freeze set in it caught him. He like never got back. His white folks was proud when he got back."
Name of Interviewer -- S. S. Taylor
Subject -- Ex-Slave Stories : H. B. Holloway (Dad Pappy) -- Birth, Parentage
"I never lived in the country. I lived in town. But sometimes my father would go into the country to hunt and I
would go with him
"I was born in Austin County, Fort Valley, Georgia, 105 miles below Atlanta one way, and by Macon it would be
140 . I was thirteen years old when the war began and seventeen when it ended. I was born the fifteenth day of
February, 1848.
"My mother was a nurse and midwife. My father was a finished mechanic/. I never had to do any work until after
the civil war, but I was just crazy about railroading and want to railroading early. I railroaded all my life. I did some
draying too and a lot of concreting too.
"I was born free. There weren't so many free Niggers in Georgia. None that I knew owned ant slaves. I never heared
of any owning any slaves. My mother was a full blooded Cherokee woman, and my father was a dark Spaniard. I
am the only one out of twelve children that can't talk my mother's language and don't know my father's. I remember
the Indian war whoop, and the war dance -- used to do that myself. When they run the Indians out of Georgia into
Florida, my mother never did go. She was one hundred seven years old when she died.
This information given by H. B. Holloway ( Dad or Pappy )
Place of residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation -- Old Age Pension Age 89
"Railroading" draying, etc.
Name of Interviewer -- S. S. Taylor
You know, there were n't no marriages like now with Niggers -- just like if you and your wife owned a man and I
owned a woman, if your man wanted to marry, he got consent from you and my woman would get consent from me,
And then they would marry, and I either got to buy your slave or you got to buy mine. Sometimes the white folks
wouldn't want you to marry.
They didn't force nobody to marry. They might force you to marry if both of you had the same master, but not if
they belonged to different masters. They were crazy about slaves that had a lot of children.
Niggers didn't separate in slave times because they never was married except by word of mouth. There was a lot of
old souls that came out of slavery times that lived together and raised children that never was married ( except by
word of mouth), just got together. But they made out better and were better husbands and wives and raised better
families than they do now.
Sometimes folks would get separated when the slave traders would sell them, end sometimes families would get
separated when their white folks died or would run into debt.
They had a slave block in Georgia. You see they would go to Virginia and get the people that they would bring
across the water -- regular Africans. Sometimes they would refuges them four or five hundred miles
This information given by H. B. (Dad or Pappy) Holloway
Place of residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation -- Railroad, Draying -- Pension now Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
BEFORE THEY WOULD GET THE CHANCE TO SELL THEM. Sometimes a woman would have a child in her
arms. A man would buy the mother and wouldn't want the child. And them sometimes a woman would holler out:
"Don't sell that pickaninny." (You know they didn't call colored children nothin' but Picaninnies then.) "I want that
little pickaninny." And the mother would go one way and the child would go the other. The mother would be
screaming and hollering, and of course, the child wouldn't be saying nothin' because it didn't know what was goin'
on."
They had a sale block in my home ( Fort Valley, Georgia), and I used to go and see the Niggers sold often. Some
few wasn't worth nothin' at all -- just about a hundred dollars. But they generally ran about five or six hundred
dollars. Some of them would bring thousands of dollars. It depended on their looks. The trader would Say , "Look at
those shoulders; look at those muscles."
Someone would holler out, "A thousand dollars."
Then another would holler out. "Fifteen hundred."
They went like horses. A fine, built woman would bring a lot of money. A woman that birthed children cost a heep.
Virginia was where the slaves would be brought first. The slave traders would go there and get them and take them
across the country in droves -- just like you take a drove of cattle. They would sell than as they would come to sale
blocks. The slaves would be undressed from the shoulders to the waist.
This information given by H. B. (Dad or Pappy ) Holloway
Place of Residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Name of interviewer S S. Taylor
The slaves lived in log huts on the plantations. Some men would weatherboard them. They didn't put any ceiling in.
You could lay back in your bed and see the moon and stars shining through.
Some got good food and some of the owners would make the Niggers steal their food from other folks. Old Myers
Green would make his Niggers steal and he would say," If you get caught, I'll kill you. One or two of them let
themselves get caught, and he would whip them. That was to save him form paying for it. They couldn't do anything
to you but whip you nohow. But they could make him pay for it.
They used homemade clothes made out of homemade cotton cloth. They would spin the cotton to a thread. When
they would get so many broaches of it, they would make it into cloth. A broach was just a lot of thread would
around a stick. They would take it to the wheel and make the cloth. Them women used to have tasks: -- spinning,
weaving, dressmaking, and so on. Sometimes they would have five and six spinning wheels running before they
would get to the weaving.
I don't know who made the clothes. But you know them Niggers made them. They used to learn some slaves how to
do some things, -- the right way. Jus' like they learned themselves. There was plenty of nice seamstresses. The white
folks used to make them make clothes for their children. The white folks wouldn't do nothin'. They wouldn't even
turn down the bed to get in it.
This information given by H. B. Holloway ( Dad or Pappy)
Occupation Railroading and draying Age 89 Not working now.
Place of residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Colored folks in slavery times didn't know how old they was. When you would buy a drove of darkies, you would
go by what they would tell you , but they didn't know how old they was. Some of those Niggers they bought from
Africa wouldn't take nothin' neither.
They would say: "Me goin' do what you say do, but me aint goin' to get no whipping". And when they whipped
them, there was trouble.
The masters kept records of ages of those born in their cars. Some of them did. Some of them didn't kemp nothin'.
Just' like people nowadays Raised them like pigs and hogs. Jus' didn't care.
There used to be planty of colored folk fiddlers. Dancing, candy pulling, quilting, -- that was about the only fun they
would have. Corn shucking, too. They used to enjoy that. They would get on top of that pile and start singing -- the
white folks used to like that -- sometimes they would shuck corn all night long. And they would sing and eat too.
They had what they called the old-fashioned cotillion dance -- partners - head, foot, and two sides - four men and
four women - each man danced with his pertmer. Music by the fiddlers. I used to dance that.
At the quilting, they'd get down and quilt. The boys and young men would be there too and they would thread the
needles and laugh and talk with the girls, and the women would gossip.
This information given by H. B. Holloway ( Dad or Pappy)
Place of residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation -- Formerly railroader, drayman -- Pension now Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
The masters would go there too and look at them and see what they'd do and how they'd do and make then do. They
would do that at the cendy pullin' too, and anything else.
The candy pulling -- there they'd cook the candy and a man and a girl would pull candy together. Look to me like
they enjoyed the corn shucking as much as they did anything else.
They'd give time to callbrate Christmas time. They'd dance and so on like that. But they worked them from dawn
New Years day to Christmas Eve night the next year. The good white people would give them a pig and have them
make marry. They'd make marry over it like we do now. That's where it all come from.
FM. 3,Pe.5 I seen a many a run away slave. I've seen the hounds catch them too. You could hear the hounds all
hours of the night. Some Nigger was gone. Some of them would run away from the field. And some of them would
slip out at night.
I used to mock them hounds. The first hound would say "Whoo-oo-oo, He-e-e-e he-e-e-e-e L-o-o-o-oes." The others
would say, "Put in up. Put 'im up. Put 'im up. Put 'im up. Put 'im up." My mother would laugh at me. The
lead-hound howled, and the catch dog wouldn't say nothin' but you could hear the sound of his feet. The lead hound
This information given by H. B. Holloway ) Dad or Pappy )
Place of Residence 1524 Balentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Formerly railroader, drayman -- Pension now. Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Story didn't catch the Nigger, but he would just follow him. When he caught up with him, he would step aside and
let the catch dog get him if he wasn't treed.
The pateroles were for Niggers just like police and sheriffs ware for white folks. They were just poor white folks.
When a Nigger was out from the plantation at night, he had to have a pass. If the pateroles seen him, they would
stop him and ask for his pass. If'n he didn't have it, he'd mos' likely get a beating. I was free and didn't have no pass.
Sometimes they would stop me, but I never had no trouble with 'em. I was a boy then, and everybody knewed me.
Men like Colonel Troutman, Major Holmes, and Preacher Russell -- Thomas Russell -- they didn't whip their
Niggers and didn't allow no one else to whip them. They had a little guardhouse on the plantation and they would
lock them up in it. You'd better not hit one of their Niggers. They'd take a pole or something and run you ragged.
White folks was cruel in slavery times. You see I was free and could go where I wanted too, and I see'd a lot. Old
Myer Green would take a Nigger and tie his feet to one side of a railroad track and tie his hands to the other side,
and whip him till the blood ran. Then he
This information given by H. B. Holloway ( Dad or Pappy )
Place of Residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Formerly railroader and drayman -- Pension now Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Then he would take him down to the smoke house and rub him down with lard and red pepper. "Rub plenty in," he
would say, "Don't let him spoil."
Then I have seen them take up a ten-rail fence and set it down on a Nigger's neck and whip him. If he would rare
and twist and try to jump up, he would break his neck.
One night, when me and my mother was coming from town, my mother had a demijohn of whiskey. They (
pateroles ) tried to take it. And she smashed a paling off the fence and nearly beat them poor white trean to death.
My mother was a good woman, strong as any man. I was sitting on the demijohn. I was a little fellow then. They
didn't do nothin'. to her neither, 'cause they knew what old Colonel Troutman would do.
I can carry you to Columbus, Georgia. There was ten mulatto Niggers born there and you would think they were all
white; but they were all colored. They were slaves, but their master was their Daddy.
I'll tell you somethin'. W. H. Riley and Henry Miller, -- You know them don't you -- they are blood brothers, - had
the some mother and the same father. Riley's grandfather was a white man named Miller. Miller got mad at his son,
Riley's father and sold him to a white man
This information given by H. B. Holloway ( Dad or Pappy)
Place of Residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Formerly railroader and drayman -- Pension now Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Riley. Riley took the name of his father's second master. After freedom, Henry and Josephine took the name of
Miller, their real grandfather. They said , "Miller had never done anything" for them.
I was looking right in Lincoln's mouth when he said," The colored man is turned loose without anything. I am going
to give a dollar a day to every Negro born before emancipation until his death, -- a pension of a dollar a day." That's
the reason they killed him. But they sure didn't get it. It's going to be an awful thing up yonder when they hold a
judgment over the way that things was done down here.
When the war was declared over, Abraham Lincoln came South and went to the capitol ( of Atlanta ), and there was
so many people to meet him he went up to the tower instead of in the State House. He said," I did everything I could
to keep out of war. Many of you agreed to turn the Negroes loose, but Jeff Davis said that he would made in blood
up to his neck before he would do it."
He asked for all of the Confederate money to be brought up there. And when it was brought, he called for the oldest
colored man around. He said, "Now, is you the oldest." The man said ,"Yes Sir." Then he threw him one of those
little boxes of matches and told him to set
This information given by H. B. Holloway ( Dad or Pappy )
Place of Residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Formerly railroader and drayman -- Pension now Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Then he said, "I am going to disfranchise every one of you (the white folks) , and it will be ten years before you can
even vote or get back into the Union."
Grant was the one that killed the Republican party. We aint had but three real Republican presidents since the war --
Garfield, McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt. They killed Garfield, and they killed McKinley, and they tried to kill
Teddy Roosevelt. Well, they asked Grant if they could make state constitutions. Grant said, "Yes, if they did'n't
conflict with the national constitution." But they did conflict and Grant didn't do nothin' about it.
Northern teachers ware sent down here after the war and they charged a dollar a month until the state set up schools.
Some of the Niggers learned enough in the six months school to teach, and some white persons taught.
In slave times, they didn't have any schools for Niggers. Niggers better not be caught with a book. If he were caught
with a book they beat him to death nearly. Niggers used to get hold of this Webster 's
This information given by H. B. Holloway ( Dad or Pappy) Place of Residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock,
Arkansas Occupation Formerly rairoader and drayman -- Pension, now. Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Blue Back Book and the white folks would catch them and take them away.
They didn't allow no free Niggers to go to school either in slave times.
I used to see Niggers in Georgia share cropping. Nigger work all the year. Christmas eve night they would be going
back to the plantation singing-- done lost everything -- sitting on the wagon singing:
#Sho' pity Lawd forgive
That ar' pentant rebel live."
Then they would have to get clothes and food against the next year's crop. Then you'd see 'em on the wagon again
driving back to the plantation loaded down with provisions, singing:
"Lawd revive us agin All our increase comes from thee."
I used to study how them people could live. They didn't give but ten dollars a month for common labor. They didn't
give anything to the share cropper. They took all of it. They said he spent it, borrowed it, and on like that.
Some that didn't know any better didn't want to be free. Especially them that had hard taskmasters. When the Nigger
was turned loose sho nuff, some of them didn't have a good shirt to their back. The master hated to lose then so bad,
he wouldn't give them anything.
But for twenty-five years after slave times, there ain't no race of people over traveled as fast as the Nigger did. But
when the young ones
This information given by H. B. Holloway ( Dad or Pappy )
Place of Residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Come up, they Are the ones what killed the thing. An old white man said: "We thought if you folks kept it up we or
you one would have to leave this country. But when the young ones came on, and began begrudging one another
this and that and working against one another, then we saw you would never make a nation."
I have been in big riots. I was in the Atlanta riots in 1891. We lost about forty men, and I don't know how many the
white folks lost, but they said it was about a hundred. I used to live there. I came herein 1892.
We had a riot there when the KKK was raising so much Gain, The first Ku Klux wore some kind of hat that went
over the man's heed and shoulders and had greet big red eyes in it. They broke open my house one night to whip
me.
I was working as a foreman in the shops. One night as I was going home, some men stoppet and said "Who are you.
I answered "H. B. Holloway. Then they said, "Well well be over to your house tonight to whip you."
I said," We growed up together and you could n't whip me then. How you 'spect to do it now. You might kill me,
but you can't beat me.
And one of them said, "Well we'll be over to see you at eleven thirty tonight, and we are going to beat you."
I went on home and told my wife what had happened. She was afraid.
This information from H. B. Holloway Age 89
1524_Valentina_St.,_Little_Rock,_Ark.___Former railroader_&_Drayman.
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Story and wanted me to leave and take her and the children with her.
But I said, "No, you just take the little children and go in the bedroom and stay there."."
She did. I had three sons that were grown up, between twenty and twenty-eight years old, and I had a Winchester, a
shotgun and a pistol. I gave the Winchester to the oldest, the shotgun to the next, and the pistol to the youngest. I
took my ax for myself. I stationed the boys at the far and of the room -- away from the door.
The oldest said, "Papa, let's kill them."
I said, "No, You just stand there and do nothing till I tell you. When they break in, I'll knock the first one in the
head with the ax. But don't you do nothin' till I tell you."
After a while, we heerd a noise outside, and I took my stand beside the door. Then they gave a rush, and battered
the door down. A Man with a gray hood on jumped inside. I hit him side the head with the flat of the ax, and he fell
down across the door.
Then the others rushed up, and the boys cut loose with all three of the guns, and such another uproar you never
heard. They high-tailed it down the street, and the boys took right after them, shooting at their legs. The Winchester
shot sixteen times, and the pistol shot six, and the boy with the shotgun was shooting and breaking down and
reloading and shooting again as fast as he could.
I went outside and whistled for the boys to come back. They come. They would always obey me. I told them to
carry the man I had hit out. He was still lying there. Through all the fuss and uproar, he had been lying there across
the doorway. carried him out, and threw him on the sidewalk. My eldest son said the man said, "Holloway, don't hit
me no more."
I didn't, but if I had known who he was then, I would have gone out and cut his throat. He was old Colonel
Troutman's son. There was just two hours difference in our birth. Me and him both nursed from the same breast. We
grew up together and were never separated until we were thirteen (beginning of the war). Many people thought we
were brothers. I had fought for him and he had fought for me. When he wasn't at my house, I was at his, and his
father partly raised me. That's the reason I don't trust white people.
We had a big dog that everyone was scared of. We always kept him chained up. I unchained the dog, and took the
boys and we went out in the woods. It was cold; so we made a fire under a tall sapling.
Near daylight, I said, "The dog sees something, but we can't see what it is." The eldest son said, "Pappy, if you get
astride the dog, and look the way he's looking, you can see what he sees."
This information given by H. B. Holloway
Place of residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Former railroader, drayman Pension now Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Story I got astride him and looked, and finally way off through the trees and the branches and leaves, I saw six men
riding through the woods on horseback. I took the guns sway from the boys and put the pistol and shotgun under the
leaves at my feet. I made the boys separate and hide in the brush at a good distance from me and from each other. I
made the dog lie down beside me. Then I waited.
When the men came near me and were about to pass on looking for me, I hailed them. I told them to stop right
where they ware or I'd drop them in their tracks. It was Colonel Troutman and five other of the old men from town
out hunting me.
Colonel Troutman said, "We just wanted to talk to you Holloway."
I said, "Stand right where your are and talk."
After some talk, I let them come up slowly to a short distance from me. The up shot of the whole thing was that they
wanted me to go back to town with them to "talk" over the matter. They allowed I hadn't done nothin' wrong. But
Colonel Troutman's man was hurt bad, and some of the young man in the mob had had their legs broke. And they
were all young men from the town, boys that knew me and were friendly to me in the daytime. Still they wanted me
to go to town in thier charge, and I knew I wouldn't have a chance if I did that. Finally I told Colonel Troutman, that
I was going home to see my wife
This information given by H. B. Holloway
Place of residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Former railroader and drayman Now pensioned Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Story that evening, and that if he wanted to talk to me, he could come over there and talk.
When they left, I sent the boys along home and told them to tell my wife. That night when I got home, Colonel
Troutman was in the house talking to my wife. I went in quietly. He said that they said I had forty Niggers hid in the
house that night. I told him that there was n't anybody there but me and my family, and that all the damage that was
dons I done myself. He said that well he didn't blame me; that even if it was his son, they broke in on me and I had a
right to defend my family, and that none of the old heads was going to do anything about it. He said I was a good
man and had never given anybody any trouble and that there wasn't any excuse for anybody comin' stirrin' up
trouble with me. And that was the end of it.
My wife was sick, down. couldn't do nothin'. Someone got to telling her about Cain Robertson. Cain Robertson was
a hoodoo doctor in Georgia. They there wasn't nothin' Cain could n't do. She says, "Go and see Cain and have him
come up here."
I says, "There aint no use to send for Cain. Cain aint coming up here because they say he is a "two-head" Nigger (
They called all them hoodoo men "two-head" Niggers; I don't know why they called them two-head)
This information given by H. B. Holloway
Place of Residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Former railroader and drayman Pensioned now Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
And you Know he knows the white folks will put him in jail if he comes to town.
But she says, "You go and get him."
So I went.
I left him at the house and when I came back in, he said, "I looked at your wife and she had one of them spells while
I was there. I'm afraid to tackle this thing because she has been poisoned and its been goin' on a long time. And if
she dies, they'll say I killed her and they already don't like me and lookin' for an excuse to do somethin' to me."
My wife overheard him and says, "You go on, you got to do somethin'."
So he made me go to town and get a pint of corn whiskey. When I brought it back, he drunk alhalf of it at one gulp,
and I started to knock him down. I'd thought he'd get drunk with my wife lying there sick.
Then he said, "I'll have to see your wife's stomack." Then he scratched it, and put three little horns on the place he
scratched. Then he took another drink of whiskey and waited about ten minutes. When he took them off her
stomack, they were full of blood. He put them in the basin in some water and sprinkled some powder on them, and
in about ten minutes more, he made me get them and they were full of clear water and there was a lot of little things
that looked like wiggle tails swimming around in it.
This information given by H. B. Holloway
Place of Residence 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Former railroader end drayman Pensioned now Age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
He told me when my wife got well to walk in a certain direction a certain distance and the woman that caused all the
trouble would come to my house ahd start a fuss with me.
I said, "Can't you put this same thing back on her."
He said, "Yes, but it would kill my hand." He meant that he had a curing hand and that if he made anybody sick or
killed them, all his power to cure would go from him.
I showed the stuff he took out of my wife's stomach to old Doc Matthews and he said, "You can get anything into a
person by putting it in them. He asked me how I found out about it, and how it was taken out, and who did it.
I told him all about it, and he said, "I'm going to see that that Nigger practices anywhere in this town he wants to
and nobody bothers him." And he did.
The young Niggers aint got as much sense as the old ones had, -- those that were born before the war. One thing,
they don't read enough. They don't know history. I can't understand them. Looks like to me they had a mighty good
chance; but it looks like the more they get the worse they are. Looks like to me their parents didn't teach them right
-- or somethin'. Young ladies -- I look at them every day of my life -- coarse, swearing, running with bootleggers,
and running the hoodlums down, smokING,
This information given by H. B. Holloway Place of Residence, 1524 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Occupation Former railroad er and drayman (pensioned now) age 89
Name of Interviewer S. S. Taylor
Story going half-naked, and so on. They don't care what they do or nothing.
My brother was in Collodiusville, Georgia, the last time I heard from him. That is in Monroe County, or Upton
County, -- I don't know what county it's in. I know he is there if he is living because he owns a home there.
William always lived in Macon but he is deed. Bud, -- I don't know where he is. Milton, Irving, and Zekiel, I don't
know whare they are. I used to keep up with them regular. But we ain't written to each other in a long time.
The last time I heard from Mahala and Laura, their husbands were bricklayers and they were living in Atlanta, I
think. They went some other place where there was plenty of work. I think it was to Cleveland, Ohio. There's
Josephine, Mandy, and little Mary -- five sisters and seven brothers.
Outside of William, Crawford, and Milton, I haven't seen none of them since fifty years. I have n't seen Zekiel since
the year of the surrender. I seen som"
