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Susan Smith was the slave of Billy Carlisle of Taylor County, Ky. They lived near Campbellsville. She did not know her age or how old she was when the negroes were freed. It was several years after the Civil War when she came to Indiana. She made her home in Jeffersonville and worked in peoples' homes until she was unable to work. Then she was taken to the Clark County Poor Farm.
The old slave seemed embittered toward her former masters and regarded them in the light of a task master while recalling how hard she had to work. The utmost regard for truth was her outstanding virtue and she would tell nothing unless she knew it to be an absolute fact. That was why play parties and square dances were unknown to her. White people were her superiors but their presence seemed annoying.
As a slave and in her earlier years these were the tasks she performed: spin, thread looms, weave cloth, sheer sheep, and take the wool to the carding machine and raise and pick cotton.
The negroes attended the same church the white people did in the slave days but there were no schools for them.
How food was stored for the winter interested her. Some food was canned in tin cans and sealed with a canning wax. Preserves were made of the fruit. Vegetables and apples were buried. Some fruit and vegetables were dried.
With other tasks it was Susan Smith's duty to mold candles and go to mill.
Smith, Sylvester 14th and Dean Streets Vigo County, Indiana (Charles Willen)
