A luxuriant Virginia creeper shaded the front porch of Mary's five-room frame house, where a rap on the front door brought the response: "Here I am, honey! Come right on through the house to the back porch." The aged mulatto woman was hanging out clothes on a line suspended between two peach trees. To the inquiry for Mary, she answered: "Yes, Honey, this is Mary. They say I am old, childish, and hellish; anyway, this is Mary."
"Dear, let's go in my parlor," she suggested in a cultured voice. "I wouldn't dare go out on the front porch wearing this dirty dress. It simply isn't my way of living." Mary is about five feet tall and wears her straight, snowy-white hair in a neat knot low on the back of her head. The sparkle in her bright brown eyes bespeaks a more youthful spirit than her wrinkled and almost white face would indicate. She was wearing a soiled print dress, brown cotton hose, and high-topped black shoes. In remarkably good English for one of her race she told that her daughter's family lives with her, "so that I won't be right by myself." Then she began her story:
"Honey, what is it you want me to tell you. Where was I born? Oh, my child! I was born right here in dear old hilly Athens. Yes, that's where I was born. Polly Crawford was my mother, and she belonged to Major William H. Crawford before he gave her to his son, Marse John Crawford. Now about my father, that is the dream. He died when I was just a little child. They said he was Sandy Thomas and that he was owned by Marster Obadiah Thomas, who lived in Oglethorpe County. All I can remember about my grandparents is this: When I found my grandma, Hannah Crawford, she was living on Major Crawford's plantation, where Crawford, Georgia, is now. Grandma was a little, bitty woman; so little that she wore a number one shoe. She was brought here from Virginia to be a field hand, but she was smart as a whip, and lived to be 118 years old. I used to tell my mother that I wished I was named Hannah for her, and so Mother called me Mary Hannah.
"I can't bring my grandfather to mind very clearly. I do remember that my mother took me to Penfield to see him, and told me if I wasn't a good little girl he would surely whip me. They called him 'Uncle Campfire', because he had such a fiery temper. For a living, after he got to be an old man, he made cheers (chairs), but for the life of me I don't know who he belonged to, because Major Crawford sold him before I was born.
"There were five of us children: Nat, Solomon, Susannah, Sarah, and myself. Marse John gave Solomon to his daughter, Miss Fannie, when she married Marse William H. Gerdine. Susannah belonged to Miss Rosa Golden, and Sarah and I belonged to the other Miss Fannie. She was Marse John's sister. Nat was Marse John's house boy, and our mother was his cook. We children just played around the yard until we were large enough to work.
"Yes, my dear, I was born in Marse John's back yard. He lived in a two-story frame house on Dougherty Street, back of Scudder's School. The two slave houses and the kitchen were set off from the house a little piece out in the yard. It was the style then to have the kitchen built separate from the dwelling house.
"Lord bless your life, Honey! We didn't live in log cabins, as you call them. There were two slave houses. The one Aggie lived in was two-story, the other one had just one story and they were both weatherboarded like Marse John's own house. The grown folks slept on beds made with tall oak posts. There were no metal springs then and the beds were corded instead. The straw-stuffed mattress ticks were made with plain and striped material, and pillows were filled with cotton. We children slept on trundle beds, which were pushed up under the big beds in the daytime, and pulled out for us to sleep on at night.
"No Ma'm, there was never any money given to me in slavery time. Remember, Dear, when the yankees came through here, I was only ten years old. Misses Fannie and Ann Crawford were Major Crawford's daughters, and they kept house for Marse John. That morning in May I was wearing a sleeveless apron, and they (Miss Fannie and Miss Ann) put a bag of gold and silver, and some old greenback Confederate money in my apron and told me to hold on to it. Miss Fannie and Miss Ann, both of them, patted me on the head and said: 'Now, be a good little girl and don't move.' On came the Blue Coats: they went all over the house searching everything with their guns and swords shining and flashing. I was so scared the sweat was running down my face in streams. Bless your life! When they came to the bedroom where I was standing by a bed, holding that money inside my apron, they didn't even glance at me the second time. Little did they think that little slave girl had the money they were hunting for. After the yankees were gone, I gave it all back to Miss Fannie, and she didn't give me the first penny. If any of the money was given to my mother she didn't tell me about it.
"I am going to tell you the truth about what we had to eat, so listen now. It was egg bread, biscuits, peas, potatoes—they they were called 'taters then—artichoke pickles, tea cakes, pies, and good old healthy lye hominy. There was plenty of meat served, but I was not allowed to eat that, as I was never a very strong child. I was a fool about stale bread, such as biscuit, cornbread, and light bread. Mother was a fine cook and her battercakes would just melt in your mouth. Of course, you know we had no stoves in those days and the cooking was done in open fireplaces, in ovens and pots. Oh yes! We had a garden. There was only one on the place and enough was raised in it to feed all of the people living there.
"I don't remember eating 'possums, rabbits, squirrels and fish until I went to Jackson, Mississippi, with Miss Rosa. There were plenty of those meats in Mississippi and I was then getting old enough and healthy enough to be allowed to eat them."