The brutal reality of finding the glories of the plantation forever vanished must have been a severe blow for the old man. Several times on the way back he wiped tears from his eyes. Once again at his cabin in the cottonfield, his vitality reasserted itself, and he greeted his curious dusky neighbors with the proud statement.
"Dey tuk me when I was bred and born! I ain't ax no better time!"
Willis' farewell words were:
"Goo'bye! I hopes you all gits to Paradise!"
[HW: Dist 1-2
Ex-Slave #116]
EX-SLAVE INTERVIEW
CORNELIA WINFIELD, Age 82
Richmond County
1341 Ninth Street
Augusta, Georgia
BY: (Mrs.) Margaret Johnson—Editor
Federal Writers' Project
Augusta, Georgia
[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937]
Cornelia Winfield, 1341 Ninth Street, was born in Crawford, Oglethorpe County, Georgia March 10, 1855. Her father, being the same age as her master, was given to him as a little boy. They grew up together, playing games, and becoming devoted to each other. When her master was married her father went to his home with him and became the overseer of all the slaves on the plantation. "My father and mother wuz house servants. My marster served my father's plate from his own table and sent it to him, every meal. He had charge of the work shop, and when marster was away he always stayed at the Big House, to take care of my Missis and the children. My mother was a seamstress and had three younger seamsters under her, that she taught to sew. We made the clothes for all the house servants and fiel' hans. My mother made some of the clothes for my marster and missis. My mother was a midwife too, and useter go to all the birthings on our place. She had a bag she always carried and when she went to other plantations she had a horse and buggy to go in.
"All the slaves on our place wuz treated well. I never heard of any of 'em bein' whipped. I was ten years old when freedom come, and I always knowed I wuz to belong to one of marster's daughters. After freedom my father and mother worked on just the same for marster. When my father died, marster's fam'ly wanted him buried in the fam'ly lot but I wanted him to lie by my mother."