"Since freedom, I have lived in Mississippi and other places, but most of my life has been spent right in and around Columbus. I have had one husband and no children. I became a widow about 35 years ago, and I have since remained one because I find that I can serve God better when I am not bothered with a Negro man."
Mary Gladdy claims to have never attended school or been privately taught in her life. And she can't write or even form the letters of the alphabet, but she gave her interviewer a very convincing demonstration of her ability to read. When asked how she mastered the art of reading, she replied: "The Lord revealed it to me."
For more than thirty years, the Lord has been revealing his work, and many other things, to Mary Gladdy. For more than twenty years, she has been experiencing "visitations of the spirit". These do not occur with any degree of regularity, but they do always occur in "the dead hours of the night" after she has retired, and impel her to rise and write in an unknown hand. These strange writings of her's now cover eight pages of letter paper and bear a marked resemblance to crude shorthand notes. Off-hand, she can "cipher" (interpret or translate) about half of these strange writings; the other half, however, she can make neither heads nor tails of except when the spirit is upon her. When the spirit eases off, she again becomes totally ignorant of the significance of that mysterious half of her spirit-directed writings.
"Aunt" Mary appears to be very well posted on a number of subjects. She is unusually familiar with the Bible, and quotes scripture freely and correctly. She also uses beautiful language, totally void of slang and Negro jargon, "big" words and labored expressions.
She is a seventh Day Adventist; is not a psychic, but is a rather mysterious personage. She lives alone, and ekes out a living by taking in washing. She is of the opinion that "we are now living in the last days"; that, as she interprets the "signs", the "end of time" is drawing close. Her conversion to Christianity was the result of a hair-raising experience with a ghost—about forty years ago, and she has never—from that day to this—fallen from grace for as "long as a minute".
To know "Aunt" Mary is to be impressed with her utter sincerity and, to like her. She is very proud of one of her grandmothers, Edie Dennis, who lived to be 110 years old, and concerning whom a reprint from the Atlanta Constitution of November 10, 1900, is appended. Her story of Chuck, and the words of two spirituals and one slave canticle which "Aunt" Mary sang for her interviewer, are also appended.
AUNT EDIE DENNIS HAS
REACHED GOOD OLD AGE
—SPECIAL—
(FROM ATLANTA CONSTITUTION,
NOVEMBER 10, 1900.)
Quite a remarkable case of longevity is had in the person of Edie Dennis, a colored woman of Columbus, who has reached the unusual age of 109 years of age and is still in a state of fair health.