As Adeline Rose, the subject of this sketch was married to Mr. Steward, after she was given her freedom at the close of the Civil War.  At this time she was living with her parents who stayed with Mr. Rose for about five years after the war.  To the Steward family was born one son, Johnny.  Mr. Steward died early in life, and his widow married a second time, this time [HW:  to] one George Lennox whose name she now bears.

Johnny married young and died young, leaving her alone in the world with the exception of her daughter-in-law.  After her second husband’s death, she remained near Middle, Tennessee, until 1924, when she removed to Elkhart to spend the remainder of her life living with her daughter-in-law, who had remarried and is now living at 1400 South Sixth Street, Elkhart, Indiana.

In the neighborhood she is known only as “Granny.”  While I was having this interview, a colored lady passed and this conversation followed: 

“Good morning Granny, how are you this morning?”

“Only tolerable, thank you,” replied Granny.

The health of Mrs. Lennox has been failing for the past three years but she gets around quite well for a lady who will be eight-eight years old the twenty-fifth day of this October.  She gets an old age pension of about thirteen dollars per month.

A peculiar thing about Mrs. Lennox’s life is that she says that she never knew that she was a slave until she was set free.  Her mistress then told her that she was free and could go back to her father’s home which she did rather reluctantly.

Mrs. Lennox smokes, enjoys corn bread and boiled potatoes as food, but does not enjoy automobiles as “they are too bumpy and they gather too much air,” she says.  “I do not eat sweets,” she remarks “my one ambition in life is to live so that I may claim Heaven as my home when I die.”

There is a newspaper picture in the office along with an article published by the Elkhart Truth.  This is being sent to Indianapolis today.

Submitted by: 
Estella R. Dodson
District #11
Monroe County
Bloomington, Ind. 
October 4, 1937

Interview with Thomas Lewis, colored
North Summit Street, Bloomington, Ind.

I was born in Spencer County, Kentucky, in 1857.  I was born a slave.  There was slavery all around on all the adjoining places.  I was seven years old when I was set free.  My father was killed in the Northern army.  My mother, step-father and my mother’s four living children came to Indiana when I was twelve years old.  My grandfather was set free and given a little place of about sixteen acres.  A gang of white men went to my grandmother’s place and ordered the colored people out to work.  The colored people had worked before for white men, on shares.  When the wheat was all in and the corn laid by, the white farmers would tell the colored people to get out, and would give them nothing.