Emmaline Cope was born at McMinnville, Tenn., on August 20, 1848, and is now 89 years of age.
Emmaline's slave father was King Myers and her slave mother was Caroline Myers. They were both owned by one Tim Myers a wealthy and prominent planter of McMinnville.
After peace was declared at the expiration of the Civil War, Emmaline Cope was taken to Lowell, Kansas, and there afterwards, was married to John Cope. Thirty five years ago John Cope died in Kansas and Emmaline Cope then moved to Joplin with one girl child. They have lived in Joplin continuously since then.
When interviewed Mrs. Cope, slowly recovering from a paralytic stroke, seemed unable to give any details of the Civil War activities.
[Peter Corn]
Interview with Peter Corn,
Herculaneum, Missouri.
Peter Tells How Slavery Began
"I'se 83 years old and was born in Ste. Genevieve County and my old slave-time place was in New Tennessee about 14 miles west of de town of Ste. Genevieve. My master had only my mother, my mother's brother, and an old lady by de name of Malinda. My mother had six children but only four of us lived to be grown. Father was owned by a Mr. Aubushon right dere at Coffman. Mother come from way south in Kentucky and she was owned by a Master Calvin dere and when him and de mistress died de slaves had to be divided up among de children. Den my mother's mistress left Louisville and brought her here to Missouri. When mother come to Missouri she was only 9 years old.
"My old mistress, I can't say a hard word about her. Before I was borned she was left a widow and she treated us almost like white folks. She took care of us and raised us up. Mother died after she had six children and we was left in de care of dis old mistress. The Catholic people treated us like as if we was free. My mother and father was married by de priest and it was lawful. But dese other ones was married by de master hisself. When dey married de master could pick up any old kind of paper and call it lawfully married. An almanac or anything would do. But what was it? The colored people didn't know A from B and wasn't allowed to learn to read. If my master or mistress would see me readin' a paper dey would come up and say, 'What you know about reading a paper? Throw dat down.' Dis was done to keep us from learnin' to read anything.
"After we got free what did we do to get lawfully married to our slave-time wife? Understand good now. Den de squire came around and we had to get married all over again under de new constitution. It would cost $5. When de master first married us he would say in de ceremony something like dis:
"'Now, by God, if you ain't treatin' her right, by God, I'll take you up and whip you.' The girl's mistress would chastise her de same way. I would choose who I wanted to marry but I had to talk to my master about it. Den him and de owner of de girl I wanted would get together and talk it over.