"Sometimes missis would say it looked like I wanted to get away and she'd say, 'Why, Hannah, you don't suffer for a thing. You stay right here at the house with me and you have plenty to eat.'
"I was the oldest one in my mammy's family.
"I just went to school a week and mammy said they needed me at the house.
"Then my daddy put me in the field to plow. Old missis come out one day and say, 'Bill, how come you got Hannah plowin'? I don't like to see her in the field.' He'd say, 'Well, I want to learn her to work. I ain't gwine be here always and I want her to know how to work.'
"They had me throwin' the shickles (shuttles) in slavery times. I used to handle the cyards (cards) too. Then I used to help clean up the milk dairy. I'd be so tired I wouldn't know what to do. Old missis would say, 'Well, Hannah, that's your job.'
"We used to have plenty to eat, pies and cakes and custards. More than we got now.
"I own this place if I can keep payin' the taxes.
"Old missis used to say, 'You gwine think about what I'm tellin' you after I'm dead and gone.'
"Young folks call us old church folks 'old ism folks,' 'old fogies.' They say, 'You was born in slavery times, you don't know nothin.' You can't tell 'em nothin'.
"I follows my mind. You ain't gwine go wrong if you does what your mind tells you."