Athens, Georgia

and
John N. Booth
WPA Residency No. 6 & 7

August 23, 1938


Perched on an embankment high above the street level is the four-room
frame cottage where Addie Vinson lives with her daughter. The visitor
scrambled up the steep incline to the vine covered porch, and a rap on
the front door brought prompt response. "Who dat?" asked a very black
woman, who suddenly appeared in the hall. "What you want?... Yassum,
dis here's Addie, but dey calls me Mammy, 'cause I'se so old. I s'pects
I'se most nigh a hunnert and eight years old."

The old Negress is very short and stout. Her dark blue calico dress was
striped with lines of tiny polka dots, and had been lengthened by a band
of light blue outing flannel with a darker blue stripe, let in just
below the waist line. Her high-topped black shoes were worn over grey
cotton hose, and the stocking cap that partially concealed her white
hair was crowned by a panama hat that flopped down on all sides except
where the brim was fastened up across the front with two conspicuous
"safety-first" pins. Addie's eyesight is poor, and she claims it was
"plum ruint by de St. Vitus's dance," from which she has suffered for
many years. She readily agreed to tell of her early life, and her eyes
brightened as she began: "Lawsy, Missy! Is dat what you come 'ere for?
Oh, dem good old days! I was thinkin' 'bout Old Miss jus' t'other day.