n in the home, and my mother always claimed
that I learned quite rapidly. As soon as I was old enough she also made
me take lessons in sewing. Sewing made no appeal to me, however, but
cooking did, and whenever possible I would steal away to my
grandmother's to cook with her. Most of the time I was only permitted to
wash dishes, but after a while I was permitted to help with her
cooking. Soon I was able to make cakes for my father's store. He was
always very proud that his "little" daughter was able to replenish his
stock when it was exhausted.

At eight years of age I was sent to Meridian, Miss., to stay with an
older sister and attend school. The advantages there were far superior
to those provided for me at my home. After remaining two years at
Meridian I went to Memphis, again in search of better school facilities.
I have said that even at my age I had a fondness for cooking. At Memphis
I had my first cooking lesson, this lesson being given along with the
eighth grade work of the public school. I was delighted, but my aunt
refused to allow me to practise in the home, however, and so all the
practise I got was at school.

While in Memphis, a Tuskegee Institute graduate came there to teach in
the colored public schools. Though we had lived in Alabama, we had not,
until that time, heard of the Tuskegee Institute. The loyalty of that
graduate to the school, the stories of the opportunities provided, and
all, delighted my mother, my aunt, and myself, and it was decided that I
should be sent there.

I entered the Tuskegee Institute in December, 1894, and was assigned,
after examination, to the Junior class, the first class of the normal
department. I remained at Tuskegee during the following summer and
worked in the students' dining-room as a waitress. The next year I was
compelled to enter the night-school so as to help lighten my mother's
burden. I knew nothing of the science of foods; nothing at all, at that
time, of anything that indicated that cooking is a real science. None
but girls of the Senior class were then permitted to take cooking
lessons, but I was often able to provide some excuse for visiting the
very small and incompletely furnished room used for that purpose. I
picked up much useful information in that way.

When I reached the A Middle class, next to the Senior class, the young
women of that class were permitted to take cooking lessons.

Now I was to learn cooking. I had long desired the opportunit