“I had a baby child nearly the same age of hers, and I nursed them both at my own breast. That has been sixty odd years ago, but I grieve for her till yet, for she was good to me. I’m trying to be ready to meet her. Mr. Billie Gaines does not forget me; he comes to see me, and sends me a present now and then, and so does Mr. Frazier Northington.
“I was the mother of fourteen children by my first husband, Wiley Gaines, and there is something in my family that very few people live to see, the fifth generation. My oldest daughter, Annie, married Henry Fort, Sister Margaret Fort’s son; their oldest daughter, Margaret, married Gabe Washington, and their daughter, Amanda, has grand-children. While I was talking about my white folks, I forgot to tell you they were kin to the ‘big folks,’ the Bakers, the Dortch’s, and Governor Blount. These three families lived out on Parson’s Creek, and Major Baker gave the land on his place for that great camp ground, called Baker’s Camp Ground. Lor, the good old times the people used to have at the Baker’s camp meetings. You could hear them shouting for miles! The little church wasn’t much larger than a family room, but they had tents all along the creek bottom near the big Baker spring, and held the meetings two or three weeks at a time. Brother Horace Carr enjoyed these camp meetings; I’ve heard him tell of some of the big sermons old Dr. Hanner, Dr. West, and others used to preach there, but somehow he was partial to Red River Church, above all the rest. It was through his influence that I, and a host of others joined Red River, and then when we were freed, and the Lord blessed us with a church of our own, we followed him to Mount Zion.
“If everybody that Brother Horace influenced to be Christians here on earth are with him in heaven today, he has a glorious throng around him. I will never forget the last time I saw him. I heard he was sick, and I went over and carried him a lunch basket of nice things to eat. The weather was warm, and he was able to bring his chair out and sit in his yard. He had dropsy and did not live very long after that. He talked of heaven most of the time; he would clap his hands and say:
‘I’m nearing my Father’s house,
Where many mansions be,
Nearer the great white throne,
My people are waiting for me.’
“I used to go to Brother Horace’s prayer meetings that he held around at night in homes that permitted him, and one night he called on me to pray in public. I was confused, and did not say but a few words, but he told me that a few from the heart were worth ten thousand from the tongue. When I told him good bye, the last visit I made him, he held my hand a long time, and pointed toward heaven and said, ‘In the name of our Lord, we must set up our banner. Set it high, and never look down.’”
After the first talk with Aunt Eliza, I made a second visit, the same week, for the purpose of taking her picture, but after reaching her home a rain storm came on suddenly, and we could not get the sunlight necessary to picture making. She had been advised by telephone that we would be there, and was nicely dressed for the occasion. Strange to say, she was eighty-two years old, and had never had a picture taken.