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1 Ancestry. Negro
2 Place and date of birth. Morgan Co., Missouri, 1865.
3 Family. 1 sister
04. Places lived in, with dates. Taken to Tipton, Mo., when 6 weeks old. Lived there until fourteen and then went to Warrenburg, Mo., where she worked in private family and went to school. 1879-1890-Warrenburg, Mo.
11890-1934-Kansas City, Mo. 1934-1938-Lincoln, Nebraska
4 Education, with dates
5 Occupations and accomplishments, with dates. Wrote life insurance, house-wife
6 Special skills and interests. Embroidering
7 Community and religious activities. Methodist
8 Description of informant. Frail white-haired mulatto. Snugly enconsed in a heavy knitted shawl.
9 Other points gained in interview. Mentally alert, but nearly blind. Very pleasant disposition.
NAME OF WORKER Albert Burks ADDRESS 239 South 20th DATE October 8, 1983 SUBJECT AmericanFolklore NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT Mrs. Gussie Shelby, 824 C Street Lincoln, Nebraska
I was born in Morgan county, Missouri in the year of 1865. I would have to look in the Bible to get the exact date.
My family moved to Tipton, Missouri when I was six weeks old and we lived there for a number of years.My mother used to tell me that when we first came to Tipton in 1865, the bushwhackers would come into the townand run all the Negro men out, and they would have to go in hiding. The bushwhackers were an organization like
the Ku-Klux-Klan. When the Union soldiers came in Tipton, the bushwhackers never bothered the negroesanymore.There were only about seventy-five of us colored folks in Tipton and we were like one big family. Both the Baptist
and Methodists attended the same church and we had what they call a traveling preacher that would probably hold asermon on every third Sunday.
Other Sundays if we wanted to, we would attend the white churches.After the exodus a good many more negroes came in and around Warrenburg to farm. Our church attendanceincreased and we had our own church and regular preacher, and the Baptists had theirs. We still was pretty closetogether and both the Baptist and Methodist would have their church carnivals and festivals together.
One of our popular plays was "Queen Esther the Beautiful."
"King Haiman was a wicked king in biblical history. If anyone did anything to displease him, he had them put todeath.A band of Jews and Syrians displeased him in some way and he condemned them to death.Queen Esther hearing of this begged for their lives but the king would not relent. She then went into confinement
and prayed and fasted for three days. The king, hearing of this, finally relented and gave the prisoners their
freedom."My favorite verse in the Bible is Psalms, 91:2 verses. I say it every night before I go to bed and every morning whenI wake up. My favorite hymn is:
"Oh for a faith that will not shrink,Beneath the chastening rod,That will not murmur nor complain,But in the hour of grief and pain,Will lean upon its God,Its faith that keeps the narrow path,
Till life's last hours are fled,And in the pure and heavenly ray,In illness and the dying bed,Lord give me such a faith as this,And then what er'e may come,I taste and see the heavenly blissOf thy eternal sun."My favorite sermons are "Dry Bones in the Graveyard," and, "And They played on the Harp of a Thousand Strings,"
and the "Spirit of Men were Made Perfect."Proverbs"Evil deeds are like perfume difficult to hide.""Caution may prevent the advent of misfortune.""Go here, go there, finish nothing.""Not all the people who weep over your corpse are your friends."NAME OF WORKER Albert Burks ADDRESS 239 So. 20th DATE January 12, 1939 SUBJECT American
