“My mother’s old master was Tom Barnett, so she said.  No, not ’so she said’ because I have seed him.  He give her her age and all at that time.  I have it in my Bible.  He said that she was twelve years old the Christmas before the surrender.  The surrender was in May, wasn’t it?

“My mother’s name was Susan Bearden.  She married Ben Bearden.  She worked in Tom Barnett’s house.  She milked and churned and ’tended to the children and all such as that.  He never allowed her to go to the field.  Neither her mother, my grandmother.  She was the cook.  My mother’s name before she married was Susan Barnett.

“An old colored lady that they had there seed after the colored children.  She looked after my mother too.  She was so old she couldn’t do nothin’ so they had her to look after the children.  My grandmother was kept busy because she had the white folks to cook for and she had all the colored folks to cook for too.

“There is an old lady down on Spring Street that can give you a lot of information about slavery times.

“A boy was telling her that somebody was going ’round asking questions about slavery and she said she wished he would come and see her.

“My mother never had any chance to go to school before freedom and she never had any chance to go afterwards because she didn’t have any money.  When they turned them loose the white folks didn’t give ’em anything, so they had to work.  They didn’t allow them to pick up a piece of paper in slave time for fear they would learn.

“My mother remembered the pateroles.  She said they used to catch and whip the colored men and women when they would get out.

“My mother’s old master was the one that told mama she was free.  He told her she was free as he was.  After they learned that they were free, they stayed on till Christmas.

“After Christmas, they went to another plantation.  My gran’pa, he come and got them all to come.  My gran’pa’s name was Harvey Barnett.  His old master’s son had married and he had been staying with him.  That made him be on another place.  There was a good many of the children in my grandmother’s family.  Mama had a sister named Lucy, one named Lethe, one named Caroline, one named Annie, and one named Jane.  She had two boys—­one named Jack, and one named Barnett.  She had another sister named—­I don’t remember her name.

“After freedom, we sharecropped for a number of years up until my father died.  He died about twenty-four years ago.

“After that mama washed and ironed for about ten or twelve years.  Then she got too old to work and we took care of her.  My mother died last March on the ninth day.  She always had good health for an old lady.  Never got so she couldn’t get up and do her light work such as dress herself, cooking, sweeping, and so on.  She would even do her own washing and ironing if we would let her.  She would hide from us and pick cotton till we stopped her.