ur years. When I was 'bout twenty year
old I married a girl from West Virginia but she didn't live but jes
'bout a year. I stayed down there for a year or so and then I met
Mamie. We came here and both of us went to work, we work at the same
place. We bought this little piece of ground 'bout forty-two years ago.
We gave $125 for it. We had to buy the lumber to build the house a
little at a time but finally we got the house done. Its been a good home
for us and the children. We have two daughters and one adopted son. Both
of the girls are good cooks. One of them lives in New Jersey and cooks
in a big hotel. She and her husband come to see us about once a year.
The other one is in Philadelphia. They both have plenty. But the adopted
boy, he was part white. We took him when he was a small and did the best
we could by him. He never did like to 'sociate with colored people. I
remember one time when he was a small child I took him to town and the
conductor made me put him in the front of the street car cause he
thought I was just caring for him and that he was a white boy. Well, we
sent him to school until he finished. Then he joined the navy. I ain't
seem him in several years. The last letter I got from him he say he
ain't spoke to a colored girl since he has been there. This made me mad
so I took his insurance policy and cashed it. I didn't want nothin' to
do with him, if he deny his own color.

Very few of the Negroes ever get anywhere; they never have no education.
I knew one Negro who got to be a policeman in Salisbury once and he was
a good one too. When my next birthday comes in December I will be
eighty-eight years old. That is if the Lord lets me live and I shore
hope He does.

N. C. District: No. 3 [320279]
Worker: Travis Jordan
Subject: Mary Wallace Bowe
Ex-slave 81 Years
Durham County Home
Durham, N. C.

[HW: Lovely story about Abraham Lincoln]

[TR: This interview was heavily corrected by hand. i.e. wuz to was, er
to a, etc. Changes made without comment.]

MARY WALLACE BOWE
Ex-slave 81 years

My name is Mary Wallace Bowe. I was nine years ole at de surrender.

My mammy an' pappy, Susan an' Lillman Graves, first belonged to Marse
Fountain an' Mis' Fanny Tu'berville, but Marse Fountain sold me, my
mammy an' my brother George to Mis' Fanny's sister, Mis' Virginia
Graves. Mis' Virginia's husban' was Marse Doctor Gra