; nobody could have
lessons. But we went to Church to the Publican Baptist Church. Yes, mam,
I'se sho' dat wuz the name--the Publican Baptist Church--ain't I been
there all my life 'till I been grown and married? We uster go mornin'
and evenin', and the white people sat on one side and the slaves on the
other."

Margaret said her mother was a seamstress and also a cook. Three other
seamstresses worked on the plantation. There was a spinning wheel and a
loom, and all the cotton cloth for clothing was woven and then made into
clothes for all the slaves. There were three shoe makers on the place
who made shoes for the slaves, and did all the saddle and harness
repair.

Margaret was asked who attended the slaves when they were sick.

"Marse Cooke's son was a doctor", she replied, and he 'tended anybody
who was bad sick. Granny Phoebe was the midwife at our plantashun and
she birthed all the babies. She was old when I was a little gal, and she
lived to be 105. Marse Cooke never let any of his slaves do heavy work
'till dey wuz 18 years old." Margaret's father went to the war with
"Marse Cooke" as his body servant, and her mother went also, to cook for
him!

"To tell you the truth, man," said the old woman, "I 'member more 'bout
that war back yonder than I member 'bout the war we had a few years
ago."

Minnie Green

Interviewed

Alberta Minor
Re-search Worker

Minnie is not an ex-slave, for she was "jes walkin'" when the war was
over. Her parents were given their freedom in May but stayed on with
Judge Green until fall, after the wheat cutting. The family moved to a
two story house "out Meriwether Road" but didn't get along so well.
Minnie was hungry lots and came to town to get scraps of food. When she
was a "good big girl" she came to town one day with her hair full of
cukle-burrs, dressed in her mother's basque looking for food, when she
saw a man standing in front of a store eating an orange. She wanted that
peeling. No one kept their cows and pigs up and when the man threw the
peeling on the ground a sow grabbed it. Minnie chased the pig right down
Hill Street, was hollering and making plenty of noise, when a lady,
"Mis' Mary Beeks", came out and asked her "what's the matter?" "Right
then and there I hired myself out to Miss Mary, and she raised me."
Minnie played with white children, went to the "white folks" Church, and
did not "associate with niggers" until she was grown. Every summer they