1. Personal interview with Charles Coates—2015 Windle Street, Jacksonville, Florida
FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT
American Guide, (Negro Writers' Unit)
Viola B. Muse, Field Worker
Jacksonville, Florida
December 16, 1936
IRENE COATES
Immediately after slavery in the United States, the southern white people found themselves without servants. Women who were accustomed to having a nurse, maid, cook and laundress found themselves without sufficient money to pay wages to all these. There was a great amount of work to be done and the great problem confronting married women who had not been taught to work and who thought it beneath their standing to soil their hands, found it very difficult.
There were on the other hand many Negro women who needed work and young girls who needed guidance and training.
The home and guidance of the aristocratic white people offered the best opportunity for the dependent un-schooled freed women; and it was in this kind of home that the ex-slave child of this story was reared.
Irene Coates of 2015 Windle Street, Jacksonville, Florida, was born in Georgia about 1859. She was close to six years of age when freedom was declared.
She was one among the many Negro children who had the advantage of living under the direct supervision of kind whites and receiving the care which could only be excelled by an educated mother.
Jimmie and Lou Bedell were the names of the man and wife who saw the need of having a Negro girl come into their home as one in the family and at the same time be assured of a good and efficient servant in years to come.