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Who is the oldest ex-slave in Wilkes County? This question was answered the other day when the quest ended on the sunny porch of a little cottage on Lexington Road in Washington-Wilkes, for there in a straight oldfashioned split-bottom chair sat "Aunt" Adeline Willis basking in the warn October sunshine. She is remarkable for her age -she doesn't know just exactly how old she is, from all she tells and what her "white folks" say she is around a hundred. Her general health is good, she spends her days in the open and tires only on the days she cannot be out in her place in the sun. She has the brightest eyes, her sight is so good she has never had to wear glasses; she gets around in the house and yard on her cane. Her memory is excellent, only a time or two did she slowly shaks her head and say apologetically - "Mistress, it's been so long er go, I reckon I done forgot".
From her long association with white people she uses very little negro dialect and always refers to her Mother as "Mother", never as Maor Mammy as most negroes do. This is very noticable.
Her mother was Marina Ragan, "cause she belonged to the Ragans," explained Aunt Adeline, "and she was born on the Ragan plantation right down on Little River in Greene County" (Georgia). When Marina's "young Mistress" married young Mr. Mose Wright of Oglethorpe County, she took Marina to her new home to be her own servant, and there is where Adeline was born. The place was known as the Wright Plantation and was a very large one.
Adeline doesn't recember her father, and strange to say she cannot recall how many brethers and sisters she had though she tried hard to name them all. She is sure, however, there were some older and some younger, "I reakon I must er come along about the middle", she said.
After a little while Aunt Adeline was living far back in the past and talked freely - with questions now and then to encourage her reminiscences, she told many interesting things about her life as a slave.
She told about the slaves living in the Quarters - log houses all in a long row near the "white folks' house", and how happy they were. She couldn't remember how many slaves were on the plantation, but was sure there were many: "Yas'm, my Marster had lots of niggers, jest how many, I don't know, but there sho' was a sight of us". They were given their allowance of "rations" every week and cooked their own meals in their cabins. They had good, plain, home-raised things to eat - "and we was glad to get it too. We didn't have no fancy fixings, jest plain food". Their clothes were made by negro sewing women out of cloth spun and wovan right there in the Quarters. All the little dresses were made sliks. "When they took a notion to give us striped dresses we sho' was dressed up. I never will forget long as I live, a hickory stripe- (that's what they called stripes in them days) - dress they made me, it had brass buttons at the wrist bands. I was so proud of that dress and felt so dressed up in it I jest strutted er round with it on", and she chuckled over the recollection of that wonderful dress she wore so long age.
When asked what was the very first thing she remembered, Aunt Adeline gave a rather surprising answer: "The first thing I recollect is my love for my Mother - I loved her so and would ory when I couldn't be with her, and as I growed up I kept on loving her jest that a-way even after I married and had children of my own."</mtext>
The first work she did was waiting in the house. Before she could read her Mistress taught her the letters on the newspapers and what they spelled so she could bring them the papers they wanted. Her mother worked in the fields: she drove steers and could do all kinds of farm work and was the best meat cutter on the plantation. She was a good spinner too, and was required to spin a broach of "wool spinning" every night. All the negro women had to spin, but Aunt Adeline said her mother was specially good in spinning wool and "that kind of spinning was powerful slow". Thinking a moment, she added: "And my mother was one of the best dyers anywhere 'round, and I was too. I did make the most colors by mixing up all kinds of bark and leaves. I recollect the prettiest sort of a lilac color I made with maple bark and pine bark, not the outside pine bark, but that little thin skin that grows right down next to the tree - it was pretty, that color was."
Aunt Adeline thinks they were more fortunate than any other little slaves she knew because their marster had a little store right there where he would give them candy every now and then - bright pretty sticks of candy. She remembers one time he gave them candy in little tim cups, and how proud of those cups they were. He never gave them money, but out of the store they could got what money bought so they were happy. But they had to have whippings, "yas'um, good er bad we got them whippings with a long cowhide kept jest fer that. They whipped us to make us grow better, I reckon".
Although they got whippings a-plenty they were never separated by sale. "No mam, my white folks never believed in selling their niggers", said Aunt Adeline, and related an incident proving this. "I recollect once my oldest brother does something Marster didn't like an' he got mighty mad with him an' said 'Gus, I'm goin' ter sell you, I ain't a-goin" to keep you no longer'. Mistress spoke up right quick and said: 'Mo you ain't again' to sell Gus, neither, he's nussed and looked after all our oldest chillun, and he's goin'
to stay right here'. And that was the last of that, Gus was never sold - he went to war with his young Marster when he went and died up there in the war cause he was sick, so Marster come back and said."
Aunt Adaline was surprised when asked if the Doctor ever was called in to see her or any of the slaves when they were sick back in slavery days - in fact she was a bit indignant as she answered: "No mam, I was born, growed up, married, had sixteen children and never had no Doctor with me 'til here since I got so old". She went on to say that her white folks looked after their negroes when they were sick.
They were given tonics and things to keep them well so sickness among them was rare. Mo "store-bought" medicines, but good old home-made remedies were used. For instance, at the first sniffle they were called in and given a drink of fat lightwood tea, made by pouring boiling water over finely split kindling - "that" explained Aunt Adeline, "was cause lightwood got turpentine in it". In the Springtime there was a mixture of anvil dust (gathered up from around the anvil in the blacksmith's shop) and mixed with syrup, and a teaspoon full given every morning or so to each little piccaninny as they were called up in the "white folks' yard". Sometimes instead of this mixture they were given a dose of garlic and whisky - all to keep them healthy and well.
There was great rejoicing over the birth of a negro baby and the white folks were called upon to give the little black stranger a name.
Adeline doesn't remember anything about the holidays and how they were spent, not even Christmas and Thanksgiving, but one thing she does remember clearly and that is: "All my white folks was Methodist folks, and they had fast days and no work was done while they was fastin' and prayin'. And we couldn't do no work on Sunday, no mam, everybody had to rest on that day and on preachin' days everybody went to church, white and black to the same church, us niggers set up in the gallery that was built in the white folks' church for us".
There wasn't any time for play because there was so much work to do on a big plantation, but they had good times together even if they did have so much to do.
Before Adeline was grown her "young Mistress" Miss Mary Wright, married Mr. William Turner from Wilkes County, so she came to the Turner plantation to live, and lived there until several years after the War. Adeline hadn't been in her new home long before Lewis Willis, a young negro from the adjoining plantation, started coming to see her. "Lewis come to see me any time 'cause his Marster, Mr. Willis, give him a pass so he wasn't seared to be out at night 'count of the Patter rollers. They didn't bother a nigger if he had a pass, they sho' did beat him."
When Adeline was fourteen years old she and Lewis married, or rather it was like this: "We didn't have no preacher when we married, my Marster and Mistess said they didn't care, and Lewis's Master and Mistress said they didn't care, so they all met up at my white folks' house and had us come in and told us they didn't mind our marryin'. My Marster said, "Now you and Lewis wants to marry and there ain't no objections so go on and jump over the broom stick together and you is married'. That was all there was to it and we was married. I lived on with my white folks and he lived on with his and kept comkin' to see me jest like he had done when he was a courtin'. He never brought me any presents 'cause he didn't have no money to buy them with, but he was good to me and that was what counted."
Superstition and signs still have a big place in the life of this woman even after a hundred long years. She has outlived or forgottn many she used to believe in, but still holds fast to those she remembers. If a rooster crows anywhere near your door somebody is coming "and you might as well look for 'em, 'cause that rooster done told you". When a person dies if there is a clock in the room it must be stopped the very minute of death or it will never be any more good - if left ticking it will be ruined. Every dark cloudy day brings death - "Somebody leaving this unfriendly world today". Then she is sure when she "feels sadness" and doesn't know why, it a sign somebody is dying 'way off somewhere and we don't know it". Yes, she certainly believes in all the signs she remembers even "to this good day", as she says.
When asked about the War Aunt Adeline said that times were much harder then: "Why we didn't have no salt - jest plain salt, and couldn't get none them days. We had to get up the dirt in the smokehouse where the meat had dripped and 'run it' like lye, to get salt to put on things - yes'm, times was sho' hard and our Marster was off in the War all four years and we had to do the best we could. We niggers wouldn't know nothing about it all if it hadn't a been for a little old black, sassy woman in the Quarters that was a talkin' all the time about 'freedom". She give our white folks lots of trouble - she was so sassy to them, but they didn't sell her and she was set free along with us. When they all come home from the War and Marster called us up and told us we was free, some rejoiced so they shouted, but some didn't they was sorry. Lewis come a runnin' over there an' wanted me and the chillun to go on over to his white folks' place with him, an' I wouldn't go - No man. I wouldn't leave my white folks. I told Lewis to go on and let me 'lone, I knowed my white folks and they was good to me, but I didn't know his white folks. So we kept living like we did in slavery, but he come to see me every day. After a few years he finally suaded me to go on over to the Willis place and live with him, and his white folks was powerful good to me. After a while, tho' we all went back and lived with my white folks and I worked on for them as long as I was able to work and always felt like I belonged to 'em, and you know, after all this long time, I feel like I am their's."
"Why I live so long, you asking? 'Cause I always been careful and took good care of myself, eat a plenty and stayed out in the good fresh open air and sunshine when I could -- and then I had a good husband that took care of me. This last reason for her long life was added as an after thought and since Lewis, her husband, has been dead these forty years maybe those first named causes were the real ones. Be that as it may, Aunt Adeline is a very remarkable old woman and is most interesting to talk with.
(Volma Bell., EXCEPTS EX-SLAVE INTERVIEW UNCLE WILLIS)
