She was sold--my mother's mother. But I don't
know to whom.
"My father was a preacher. He could word any hymn. How could he do it, I
don't know. On his Sunday, when the circuit rider wasn't there, he would
have me read the Bible to him and then he could get up and tell it to
the people. I don't know how he managed it. He didn't know how to read.
But he had a wonderful memory. He always had his exhorting license
renewed and he exhorted the people both Methodists and Baptists. After
freedom, when I went to school I knew and always helped him.
"My father voted on the election days all the time. Be was a Republican,
and he rallied to them all the time. Before the war, my father farmed.
He commenced in the early fall hauling the cotton from Abbeville, South
Carolina to Augusta, Georgia. That was his business--teamster, hauling
cotton. He never did talk like his owners were so mean to him. Of
course, they weren't mean. When her master died and the property had to
be sold, his master bought her and her babies.
"My father met my mother before the war started. Colored people were
scarce in the locality where she lived. These white people saw my father
and liked him. And they encouraged her to marry him. She was only
seventeen. My father was much older. He remembered the dark day in May
and when the stars fell.
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