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I was born June the eighth, but I do not remember the year. I know I was about seven or eight years old during the Civil War. My mother and father were both slaves, but belonged to different owners. My mother was Lucy Askin and my father's name was Washington Halbert. That was the sir names of their owners. I did not carry my father's name because I belonged to the Askin white folks. At that time it was the law or rule for slaves to bear the owner's name regardless of marriage between slaves.
I can well remember the soldiers of the Civil War, passing our home, with their bayonets and guns. I was about eight years old as near as I can remember.
Our home was in Crawford County, near Steelville, Missouri. There was no real fighting in that part of the country. Most of the soldiers were from General Price's Regiment. My father's marster had about one hundred slaves. They all lived in little cabins, near him, almost like a little village. He hired out most of his slaves to white folks that had no slaves and needed work done.
Our white folks, the Askins, had my mother, two sisters and myself and two brothers as slaves. They were very aristocratic, they had a large family, of six sons and six daughters. I was just a little girl but I can remember how they kept me busy waiting on them. Carrying water from the spring, hunting eggs and a lot of other little things.
Mother did most of the cooking and washing and ironing. In those days they did the washing with battlin' sticks and boards. They layed the clothes on this board and battled them with battlin sticks. We had little "piggins" to carry the water, a little thing, made of ceder, with little handles. Much smaller than the regular water buckets. It could be carried anywhere, easily. They were pretty little things, with bright brass bindings, and they kept them brightly polished, too.
We boiled our clothes in big iron kettles, over a fire in the yard. We made our own lye and soap. The ash-hopper was made of boards, a sort of trough that was set slant-wise over a big iron kettle. The wood ashes from the fire place were dumped in this hopper. Hot water was poured over the ashes and they drained down into the kettle. It dripped slowly. When we thought the lye was strong enough, we got a turkey feather, (a chicken feather won't do, 'cause it would eat up too quick) and if the lye from the hopper was strong enough it would eat up the turkey feather. Then a fire was started under the kettle.
Into this big kettle of boiling ash-lye, we stirred in "cracklin'. This was the fried out fats left over from hog killin'. Old meat rinds, old meats that had turned strong, any kind of fat meat that was not used to eat, was thrown into this hot boiling lye. When the meat did not melt anymore we know that there was enough fat in the lye to make soap.
This was boiled down until it got "ropey". We tested it by dripping some of it in cold water. If it floated on top, it wasn't done. If it sunk to the bottom, we pulled the fire from under it and let it get cold. That was called hard soap. Next day, it was cut into chunks, placed on boards and put in the smoke house or attic to dry. If a body wanted soft soap, they just didn't let it "cook" so long. Soft soap was jelly like and looked like molasses. Nobody had any other soap but home made soap, to wash, scrub or use on their bodies. Soft soap was a little handier to use to boil the clothes with. Some folks made as much as a barrel and a half, owing to the old grease they had.
The ironing was done with hand wrought flat irons. They were kept hot by setting them up before the fireplace and heaping nice clean hot coals to them.
Dresses in those days were tight fitting waists and full skirts. The dresses and petticoats had yards of lace and tucks. There were no sewing machines. All the women learned to sew by hand. I never learned to sew very young because I had to nurse the children, so the older ones could be free to sew. I would take them off to themselves, wash and dress them and rock them to sleep, or play with them.
We had our own wool. Raised our own sheep, carded and spun, wove and knit. The yarn was dyed all sorts of pretty colors, red, black, yellow, blue, brown, and purple.
Indigo made blues and purples. Just according to how long or how strong the dye was used. The indigo was bought at the drugstore. 01' Doc Gibson had the drugstore. I remember he had a "withered hand". He had the prettiest colored bottles, red and blue with black and gold letters to keep his medicines in.
For brown dye, we used walnut hulls. If we wanted black dye, we used the ripe black hulls and for all shades of brown we used young green hulls. We boiled them good, then strained it. The yarn was laid in the cold juice of the walnut, until it "took" on the shade we wanted. Then it was hung to dry without squeezing.
Elder and Poke berries made red dyes. We would gather them ripe and squeeze the juice. Yellow dye was made of some kind of "Yellow Root" - I don't remember the real name of the plant.
Our floors were kept scrubbed white as could be with sand. No carpets or other floor coverin's in those days.
I remember that we had big wooden trays, hewed out of cedar, about one and a half feet across, to knead light bread or mix salads or other foods. Our wash tubs were handmade, hewed out of cedar and other woods. They looked like half barrels.
We had a big skillet with a deep lid on it. We sat this before the fire place and heaped a few hot coals under it and more on top of it. This was used to bake bread or meat. I remember how nice and brown and good the bread was.
We had plenty to eat, but we did not have good times. We could not go off the place, without asking, we better not or we would get "whupped" to pieces. My mother was often whupped before she was grown. I was whupped good and plenty myself.
My father was a soldier, I do not remember the regiment he was in, but I do remember that he took sick and they sent him home on a furlough. He coughed so bad and died in about three months after he was home.
After that my mother did the best she could. The war ended, everybody was mad or suspicious of each other and it was hard to find places to live. My mother stayed on with her white folks. We made out the best we could to make a living. Then they found me a place to stay with a family in Steelville, taking care of the children, scrubbin floors, and scouring knives and forks. I was only a little girl and got fifty cents a week, with my board.
On the fourth day of August, 1874, I was married to George Jackson Simpson, who was also living in Steelville. We were married by a Methodist minister of Rolla, a white man by name of I.J.K. Lumbach performing the ceremony.
My husband followed the carpenter trade all his life. We had fourteen children, but three in infancy and two grown children died.
We still live in Rolla, and will say that there are sure wonderful changes in the world since we were young.
Hiram Sloan Slaves Cape Girardeau, Missouri (Western Historical Manuscripts Collection University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri)
