"After she was Jayhawked and brought down South, they sold her to John Kelly, a man in Arkansas somewhere. She belonged to John Kelly and his wife when freedom came. John Kelly and his wife kept her working for them without pay for two years after she was free. They didn't pay her anything at all. They hardly gave her anything to eat and wear. They didn't tell her she was free. She saw colored people going and coming in a way they wasn't used to, and then she heard her Mistress' youngest daughter tell her mother, 'You ought to pay Hannah something now because you know she is free as we are. And you ought to give her something to eat and wear.' The mother said, 'You know I can't do that hard work; I'm not used to it.' After hearing this my mother talked to the colored people that would pass by and she learned for shor enough she was free.
"There was a colored man there that they were keeping too. One Sunday, they were taking him to church and leaving my mother behind. She said to them, 'Well, I will be gone when you come back, so you better leave Bill here this morning.' Her old mistress said to her, 'Yes; and we'll come after you and whip you every step of the way back.' But she went while they were at church and they did not catch her either.
"The Saturday before that she made me a dress out of the tail of an old bonnet and a big red handkerchief. Made waist, sleeves and all out of that old bonnet and handkerchief. She left right after they left for church, and she dressed me up in my new dress. She put the dress on me and went down the road. She didn't know which way to go. She didn't know the way nor which direction to take. She walked and she walked and she walked. Then she would step aside and listen and ask the way.
"It was near night when she found a place to stay. The people out in the yard saw her pass and called to her. It was the youngest daughter of Mrs. Kelly, the one she had overheard telling her mother she ought to set her free and pay her. She stayed with John Kelly's daughter two or three days. I don't know what her name was, only she was a Kelly. Then she got out among the colored people and got to working and got some clothes for herself and me. From then on, she worked and taken care of me.
"From there she went to Pocahontas and worked and stayed there till I was about fifteen years old. Meanwhile, she married in Pocahontas. Then she moved to Newport. When I was fifteen, I married in Newport. My mother supported herself by cooking and washing. Then she got a chance to work on a small boat cooking and doing the boat washing, and there would be weeks that some of the deck hands would have to help her because they would have such a crowd of raftsmen. Sometimes there would be twenty or thirty of them raftsmen—men who would cut the logs and raft them to go and bring them down the river. Then the deck hands would have to help her. I too would have to wash the dishes and help out.
"I went to school in Pocahontas and met my future husband (Travis). I brought many a waiter to serve when they had a crowd. I took Travis to the boat and he was hired to wait on the men. When they had just the crew—Captain, Clerk, Pilot, Engineer, Mate, and it seems there was another one—I waited on the table myself. I help peel the potatoes and turn the meat. When we had that big run, then Mr. Travis and some of the others would come down and help me. The boat carried freight, cotton, and nearly anything might neer that was shipped down to town. Pocahontas was a big shipping place.
"My mother said they used to jump over the broom stick and count that married. The only amusement my mother had was work. I don't know if she knowed there was such a thing as Christmas.
"Mother's little house was a log cabin like all the other slaves had.
"They didn't give her anything much to eat. They was farmers. They raised their own cattle and hogs. The niggers did the same—that is, the niggers raised everything and got a little to eat. They had one nigger man that was around the house and others for the field. They didn't allow the slaves to raise anything for themselves and they didn't give them much.
"The slaves made their own clothes and their own cloth. They would not let the slaves have anything much. To keep them from being stark naked, they'd give them a piece to wear.