The master paid them $200 a month to work for him and that wasn't so
much if you stop to figure there was two grown folks and thirteen
children who could do plenty of work around the place.

But that money paid for an 80-acre farm my folks bought not far from
the old plantation and they moved onto it three year after the freedom
come.

I think Lincoln was a mighty good man, and I think Roosevelt is trying
to carry some of the good ideas Lincoln had. Lincoln would have done a
heap more if he had lived.

The young negroes who are living now are selfish and shiftless.
They're not worth two cents and don't have the respect for other folks
to get along right. That's what I think.

I been married three times, but no children did I have. The first man
was Frank Morris, the next was Jim White, and the last was John Logan.
All gone. Dead.

From Mississippi I come to Idabel, Oklahoma, in 1909, two year after
statehood. I moved to Muskogee in 1910, staying there while the times
was good and coming to Tulsa some years ago.

I'm pretty old and can't work hard anymore, but I manage to get along.
I'm glad to be free and I don't believe I could stand them slavery
days now at all.

I'm my own boss, get up when I want, go to bed the same way. Nobody to
say this or that about what I do.

Yes, I'm glad to be free!

Oklahoma Writers' Project
Ex-Slaves
[Date stamp: AUG 16 1937]

KIZIAH LOVE
Age 93
Colbert, Okla.

Lawd help us, I sho' remembers all about slavery times for I was a
grown woman, married and had one baby when de War done broke out. That
was a sorry time for some poor black folks but I guess Master Frank
Colbert's niggers was about as well off as the best of 'em. I can
recollect things that happened way back better than I can things that
happen now. Funny ain't it?

Frank Colbert, a full blood Choctaw Indian, was my owner. He owned my
mother but I don't remember much about my father. He died when I was a
little youngun. My Mistress' name was Julie Colbert. She and Master
Frank was de best folks that ever lived. All the niggers loved Master
Frank and knowed jest what he wanted done and they tried their best to
do it, too.

I married Isom Love, a slave of Sam Love, another full-blood Indian
that lived on a jining farm. We lived on Master Frank's farm and Isom
went back and forth to work fer his master and I worked ever day fer
mine. I don't 'spect we could of done that way iffen we hadn't of had
India