9. Description of informant—
10. Other points gained in interview—His father was a slave and he tells lots of slavery.
[HW: Master Educates Slave]
Text of Interview (Unedited)
"I was born in 1862, September first. I got that off the Bible. My father, he belonged to a doctor and the doctor, he was a kind of a wait man to him. And the doctor learnt him how to read and write. Right after the War, he was a teacher. He was ready to be a teacher before most other people because he learnt to read and write in slavery. There were so many folks that came to see the doctor and wanted to leave numbers and addresses that he had to have some one to 'tend to that and he taught my father to read and write so that he could do it.
"I was born in Tennessee, in Haywood County. My father was born in North Carolina, so they tell me. He was brought to Tennessee. He was a slave and my mother was a slave. His name was Washington Curry and my mother's name was Eliza Douglass before she married. Her master was named John Douglass and my father's master was named T.A. Curry, Tom Curry some folks called him.
"I don't know just how many slaves Tom Curry owned. Lemme see. There was my daddy, his four brothers, his five sisters. My father's father had ten children, and my father had the same number—five boys and six girls. Ten of us lived for forty years. My mother had ten living children when she died in 1921. Since '21, three girls died. My father died in 1892.
"My father's master had around a hundred slaves. Douglass was a richer man than my father's master. I suspect he had two hundred slaves. He was my mother's father as well as her master. I know him. He used to come to our house and he would give mama anything she wanted. He liked her. She was his daughter.
"My father's father—I can't remember what his name was. I know his mother was Candace. I never did see his father but I saw my grandma. He was dead before I was born. My mother's mother was named Malinda Evans. Only one thing I remember that was remarkable about her. Her husband was a free man named Mike Evans. He come from up North and married her in slave time and he bought her. He was a fine carpenter. They used to hire him out to build houses. He was a contractor in slave time. I remember him well.
"After the War, he used to have white men getting training for the carpenter's training under him. He was Grandma Evans' husband. He wasn't my father's father. My father was born before Grandma Evans was freed. All the rest of them were born afterward. They sold her to him but the children all belonged to the Douglasses. He probably paid for her on time and they kept the children that was born.
"The doctor was good to my father. Way after freedom, he was our family doctor. He was at my father's bedside when father died. He's dead now.