her life and she said she didn't want her children to have to work as
hard as she had, and I promised her on her death bed, that I would
educate our girls. So I worked and sent the girls to school. My two
girls both graduated from Ottawa university, the oldest one being the
first colored girl to ever graduate from that school. After graduation
she went to teach school in Oklahoma, but only got twenty-five dollars a
month, and I had to work and send her money to pay her expenses. The
younger girl also graduated and went to teach school, but she did not
teach school long, until she married a well-to-do farmer in Oklahoma.
The older girl got her wages raised until she got one hundred and
twenty-five dollars per month. I have worked at farm work and tree
husbandry all my life. My oldest daughter bought me my first suit of
clothes I ever had."


"I have been living alone about twenty-five years. I don't know hew old
I was, but my oldest daughter had written my mother before she died, and
got our family record, which my mother kept in her old Bible. Each year
she writes me and tells me on my birthday how old I am."




THE AMERICAN GUIDE
TOPEKA, KANSAS

EX SLAVE STORY
HUTCHINSON, KANSAS
INTERVIEWER: E. Jean Foote