"I was in Hempstead County on Harmon Bishop's plantation. It was Miss
Polly, Harmon's wife, that told me I was free, and give me my age.

"I know freedom come before 1865, because my brothers would tell me to
come home from Nashville where I would be sent to do nursing by my old
mistress and master too to nurse for my young mistress.

"When my old master's property was divided, I don't know why--he wasn't
dead nor nothin'--I fell to Miss Evelyn, but I stayed in Nashville
working for Miss Jennie Nelson, one of Harmon's daughters. Miss Jennie
was my young mistress. My brothers were already free. I don't know how
Miss Polly came to tell me I was free. But my brothers would see me and
tell me to run away and come on home and they would protect me, but I
was afraid to try it. Finally Miss Polly found that she couldn't keep me
any longer and she come and told me I was free. But I thought that she
was fooling me and just wanted to sell me to the speculators.


Family

"My mother was the mother of twenty children and I am the mother of
eighteen. My youngest is forty-five. I don't know whether any of my
mother's children is living now or not. I left them that didn't join the
militia in Hempstead County fifty-seven years ago. Them that joined the
militia went off. I don't know nothin' about them. I have two girls
living that I know about. I had two boys went to France and I never
heard nothin' 'bout what happened to them. Nothing--not a word. Red
Cross has hunted 'em. Police Mitchell hunted 'em--police Mitchell in
Little Rock. But I ain't heard nothin' 'bout 'em.