“They send a girl to help me around the house, too.  She’s frum the housekeepin’ department.  She’s very nice to me.  Yes, she sho’ly is a sweet girl, and her foreman is sweet too.  She comes in now ’n then to see me and see how the girl is gittin’ along.  She washes, too.  Ah’s been on relief a long time.  Now when Ah first got on it wuz when they first started givin’ me.  They give me plenty of anything Ah asked fur and my visitor wuz Mrs. Tompkins.  She wuz so good to me.  Well they stopped that and then the DPW (Department of Public Welfare) took care of me.  When they first started Ah got more than I do now and they’ve cut me down ’till Ah gits only a mighty little.

“Yes, Ah wuz talkin’ about my husband when you wuz here t’other day.  He wuz killed on the railroad.  After he moved here he bought this home.  Ah’se lived here twenty years.  Jim wuz comin’ in the railroad yard one day and stepped off the little engine they used for the workers rat in the path of the L. & M. train.  He wuz cut up and crushed to pieces.  He didn’t have a sign of a head.  They used a rake to git up the pieces they did git.  A man brought a few pieces out here in a bundle and Ah wouldn’t even look at them.  Ah got a little money frum the railroad but the lawyer got most of it.  He brought me a few dollars out and tole me not to discuss it with anyone nor tell how much Ah got.  Ah tried to git some of the men that worked with him to tell me just how it all happened, but they wouldn’t talk, and it wuz scand’lous how them niggers held their peace and wouldn’t tell me anything.  The boss man came out later but he didn’t seem intrusted in it at all, so Ah got little or nothing fur his death.  The lawyer got it fur hisse’f.

“All my chilluns died ’cept my son and he is ole and sick and can’t do nothin’ fur me or hisse’f.  He gets relief too, 75c every two weeks.  He goes ’round and people gives him a little t’eat.  He has a hard time tryin’ to git ’long.

“Ah had a double bed in t’other room and let a woman have it so she could git some of the delegates to the Baptist World Alliance and she wuz goin’ to pay me fur lettin’ her use the bed, but she didn’t git anybody ’cept two.  They come there on Friday and left the next day.  She wuz tole that they didn’t act right ’bout the delegates and lots of people went to the expense to prepare fur them and didn’t git a one.  Ah wuz sorry, for Ah intended to use what she paid me fur my water bill.  Ah owes $3.80 and had to give my deeds to my house to a lady to pay the water bill fur me and it worries me ’cause Ah ain’t got no money to pay it, fur this is all Ah got and Ah hates to loose my house.  Ah wisht it wuz some way to pay it.  Ah ain’t been able to do fur mahse’f in many years now, and has to depend on what others gives me.