and continues to enjoy life. She believes in serving God and living a
clean honest life. She has just one desire, and that is to enter the
Kingdom of Heaven someday.

[TR: date stamp MAY 8 1937]

Life Story as Told by Aunt Easter Jackson
Ex-Slave

It was during the height of slavery days that Frances Wilkerson and one
child came to make their home in Troup County, having been bought by Mr.
Tom Dix from a Mr. Snow, of Virginia. Frances, being an unusually
intelligent slave, able to weave, spin, and do all kinds of sewing, cost
Mr. Dix $1500.00. She received excellent care, never once being allowed
to do any field work, and was kept at the "Big House" to do the sewing
for the household.

Frances' husband, Silas Wilkerson, was bought by the Wilkerson Family,
who were neighbors.

It was here on the Dix plantation, located about one mile from what is
now the Court Square, that another child, Easter, was born, a few years
before the Civil War. It is with a smile of tenderness that she
described her life on the old plantation.

"Yes, chile, I can see Mistus now a-ridin' up on her grey horse, "Pat",
wid er basket on her arm plum full of biscuit! Yes, chile, white
biscuits! and ain't no short cake ever been made what could hold a light
to dem biscuits. Mistus would say, 'Where's dem chillun, Mammy?'

"Lawdy, you never seed so many little niggers pop up in all yo'
life--just 'peared lak de come right out o' de groun'. Sometimes dere
'ud be so many chillun, she'd have to break de biscuits to make 'em go
'roun' and sometimes when she's have an extry big basket, she'd say,
'Bring on de milk, and less feed dese chullun.' A big bucket o' milk
would be brung and po'd in little troughs and de'd lay down on dey
little stommacks, and eat jest lak pigs! But de wuz jest as slick and
fat as yer please--lots fatter an us is now! And clean too. Old Mustus
would say, 'Mammy, you scrub dese chillun and use dat "Jim-Crow."' Lawd,
chile! I done fergot you doan know what a "Jim-Crow" wus--dat's a little
fine com' what'll jest natchully take the skin plum off yo' haid 'long
wid de dirt.

"Dem was good old days, plenty ter eat and a cabin o' sticks and dirt to
call yo' own. Had good times too, 'specially on de 4th of July and
Christmas, when old Marster Tom allus let de niggers have pigs to kill
for de feas'; why chile, you should er seen de pot we cooked dem pigs
in, it wus so big an' heavy, it took two to put the i'on led