EX-SLAVE

ADDIE VINSON, Age 86
653 Dearing Street
Athens, Georgia

Written By:
Mrs. Sadie B. Hornsby
Athens, Georgia

Edited By:
Mrs. Sarah H. Hall
Athens, Georgia

and
John N. Booth
WPA Residency No. 6 & 7

August 23, 1938

Perched on an embankment high above the street level is the four-room
frame cottage where Addie Vinson lives with her daughter. The visitor
scrambled up the steep incline to the vine covered porch, and a rap on
the front door brought prompt response. "Who dat?" asked a very black
woman, who suddenly appeared in the hall. "What you want?... Yassum,
dis here's Addie, but dey calls me Mammy, 'cause I'se so old. I s'pects
I'se most nigh a hunnert and eight years old."

The old Negress is very short and stout. Her dark blue calico dress was
striped with lines of tiny polka dots, and had been lengthened by a band
of light blue outing flannel with a darker blue stripe, let in just
below the waist line. Her high-topped black shoes were worn over grey
cotton hose, and the stocking cap that partially concealed her white
hair was crowned by a panama hat that flopped down on all sides except
where the brim was fastened up across the front with two conspicuous
"safety-first" pins. Addie's eyesight is poor, and she claims it was
"plum ruint by de St. Vitus's dance," from which she has suffered for
many years. She readily agreed to tell of her early life, and her eyes
brightened as she began: "Lawsy, Missy! Is dat what you come 'ere for?
Oh, dem good old days! I was thinkin' 'bout Old Miss jus' t'other day.

"I was borned down in Oconee County on Marse Ike Vinson's place. Old
Miss was Marse Ike's mother. My Mammy and Pappy was Peter and 'Nerva
Vinson and dey was both field hands. Marse Ike buyed my Pappy from Marse
Sam Brightwell. Me and Bill, Willis, Maze, Harrison, Easter, and Sue was
all de chillun my Mammy and Pappy had. Dere warn't but four of us big
enough to wuk when Marse Ike married Miss Ann Hayes and dey tuk Mammy
wid 'em to dey new home in town. I stayed dar on de plantation and done
lots of little jobs lak waitin' on table; totin' Old Miss' breakfast to
her in her room evvy mornin', and I holped 'tend to de grainery. Dey
says now dat folkses is livin' in dat old grainery house.

"Dat was a be-yootiful place, wid woods, cricks, and fields spread out
most as fur as you could see. De slave quarters would'a reached from
here to Milledge Avenue. Us lived in a one-room log cabin what had