FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer—S. S. Taylor
Person interviewed—H. B. Holloway (Dad or Pappy)
Story:
Birth, Parentage
“I never lived in the country. I lived in town. But sometimes my father would go into the country to hunt and I would go with him.
“I was born in Austin County, Fort Valley, Georgia, 105 miles below Atlanta one way, and by Macon it would be 140. I was thirteen years old when the war began and seventeen when it ended. I was born the fifteenth day of February, 1848.
“My mother was a nurse and midwife. My father was a finished mechanic. I never had to do any work until after the Civil War, but I was just crazy about railroading and went to railroading early. I railroaded all my life. I did some draying too and a lot of concreting too.
“I was born free. There weren’t so many free Niggers in Georgia. None that I knew owned any slaves. I never heered of any owning any slaves. My mother was a full blooded Cherokee woman, and my father was a dark Spaniard.” (“Dad” or “Pappy” Holloway is a fine looking old white man and shows evidence of White and Indian blood; however, Negro blood shows.)
“I am the only one out of twelve children that can’t talk my mother’s language and don’t know my father’s. I remember the Indian war whoop, and the war dance—used to do that myself. When they run the Indians out of Georgia into Florida, my mother never did go. She was one hundred seven years old when she died.”
Marriage, Breeding, Weddings, Separations
“You know, there weren’t no marriages like now with Niggers—just like if you and your wife owned a man and I owned a woman, if your man wanted to marry, he got consent from you and my woman would get consent from me. And then they would marry, and I either got to buy your slave or you got to buy mine. Sometimes the white folks wouldn’t want you to marry.