Northerners came South "in swarms" and opened schools for the ex-slaves, but Acie was not fortunate enough to get very far in his "blue back Webster." There was too much work to be done and his father trying to buy the land. Nor did he take an interest in the political meetings held in the neighborhood. His parents shared with him the common belief that such things were not to be shared by the humble. Some believed that "too much book learning made the brain weak."
Acie met and married Keziah Wright, who was the daughter of a woman his mother had known in slavery. Strangely enough they had never met as children. With his wife he remained in Jefferson County, where nine of their thirteen children were born.
With his family he moved to Jacksonville and had been living here "a right good while" when the fire occurred in 1903. He was employed as a city laborer and helped to build street car lines and pave streets. He also helped with the installation of electric wiring in many parts of the city. He was injured while working for the City of Jacksonville, but claims that he was never in any manner remunerated for this injury.
Acie worked hard and accumulated land in the Moncrief section and lives within a few feet of the spot where his house burned many years ago. He was very sad as he pointed out this spot to his visitor. A few scraggly hedges and an apple tree, a charred bit of fence, a chimney foundation are the only markers of the home he built after years of a hard struggle to have a home. His land is all gone except the scant five acres upon which he lives, and this is only an expanse of broom straw. He is no longer able to cultivate the land, not even having a kitchen garden.
Kaziah, the wife, died several years ago; likewise all the children, except two. One of these, a girl, is "somewhere up Nawth". The son has visited him twice in five years and seems never to have anything to give the old man, who expresses himself as desiring much to "quit die unfriendly world" since he has nothing to live for except a lot of dead memories.
"All done left me now. Everything I got done gone—all 'cept Keziah. She comes and visits me and we talk and walk over there where we uster and set on the porch. She low she gwine steal ole Acie some of dese days in the near future, and I'll be mighty glad to go ever yonder where all I got is at."
REFERENCE
1. Personal interview with Acie Thomas, Moncrief Road Jacksonville, Florida