When the refugees arrived in Evansville they were befriended by free negroes of the area.  Harriott obtained a position as maid with the Parvine family, “Miss Hallie and Miss Genevieve Parvine were real good folks,” declares the aged negro Adah when repeating her story.  After working for the Misses Parvine for about two years, the negro mother had saved enough money to place her child in “pay school” there she learned rapidly.

Adah McClain was married to Thomas Suggs January 18, 1872.  Thomas was a slave of Bill McClain and it is believed he adopted the name Suggs because a Mr. Suggs had befriended him in time of trouble.  Of this fact neither the wife nor daughter have positive proof.  The father has departed this life but Adah Suggs lives on with her memories.

Varied experiences have attended her way.  Wifehood and devotion; motherhood and care she has known for she has given fifteen children to the world.  Among them were one set of twins, daughters and triplets, two sons and a daughter.  She is a beloved mother to those of her children who remain near her and says she is happy in her belief in God and Christ and hopes for a glorious hereafter where she can serve the Lord Jesus Christ and praise him eternally.

What greater hope can be given to the mortal than the hope cherished by Adah Isabelle Suggs?

Folklore
District #5
Vanderburgh County
Lauana Creel

“A tradition from pre-Civil war days”
Katie Sutton, aged ex-slave
Oak street, Evansville, Ind.

“White folks ’jes naturally different from darkies,” said Aunt Katie Sutton, ex-slave, as she tightened her bonnet strings under her wrinkled chin.

“We’s different in color, in talk and in ligion and beliefs.  We’s different in every way and can never be spected to think oe [TR:  or?] to live alike.”

“When I was a little gal I lived with my mother in an old log cabin.  My mammy was good to me but she had to spend so much of her time at humoring the white babies and taking care of them that she hardly ever got to even sing her own babies to sleep.”

“Ole Missus and Young Missus told the little slave children that the stork brought the white babies to their mothers but that the slave children were all hatched out from buzzards eggs and we believed it was true.”

“Yes, Maam, I believes in evil spirits and that there are many folks that can put spells on you, and if’n you dont believe it you had better be careful for there are folks right here in this town that have the power to bewitch you and then you will never be happy again.”

Aunt Katie declared that the seventh son of a seventh son, or the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter possesses the power to heal diseases and that a child born after the death of its father possesses a strange and unknown power.

While Aunt Katie was talking, a neighbor came in to borrow a shovel from her.