Aunt Sally had been informed that the reporter was intending to call on her the following day and she was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the visitor. The reporter was greatly impressed by the arrangement and cleanliness of Aunt Sally's modest home. Aunt Sally was immaculately dressed in a stiffly starched print dress and a fresh white apron. Her white hair was combed straight back off her forehead and held back with side combs. She was in a very excited talkative mood, and talked freely, and laughed heartily when the reporter explained the purpose of the interview and asked the privilege of taking her picture. Actual interview follows:

"My name is Sarah Frances Shaw Graves or Aunt Sally as everybody calls me. I am eighty-seven (87) years old and I was born March 23, 1850 in Kentucky somewhere near Louisville. I was brought to Missouri when I was six months old with my Mamma who was a slave owned by a man named Shaw who had allotted her to a man named Jimmie Graves who came to Missouri to live with his daughter. Emily Graves Crowdes. I always lived with Emily Crowdes. We left my Papa in Kentucky as he belonged to another man. My Papa never knew where my Mamma and me went and my Mama and me never knew where my Papa went. They never wanted Mama to know where my Papa was because they knew Mama would never marry as long as she knew where he was. Our Master wanted Mama to marry again and raise more children for slaves but Mama said she would never marry a man and have children so she married my step-father, Trattle Barber, because she knew he had a disease and could not be a father. He was sick and not able to work so me and Mama had to work hard. We lived in a kitchen, a room in a log house joined on to the Masters house. All I knew about that part was what they told me. The Crowdes family who we came here with, settled near Possum Walk which is near the place that is now called Burlington Jct., Missouri. We were freed in 1863 but we heard so much about slavery coming back that we stayed with the Crowdes' two years longer or until 1865 when we was sure that we was freed. When we was freed we took the same name as our Masters. We then lived about two miles north of them and worked for some of the neighbors who was poor and had children and we lived on Lowell Livengood's grandfather's place for about two years. Mamma had fifty (50¢) cents coming to her and that is all the money we had. My Mama did a washing for that money for a lady and the Mistress told her that when the lady called for her washing that the fifty cents belonged to us. This was after we was freed. I went to school near Burlington Jct., Missouri and my teacher's name was Rachel Libbey. I went to school two winters a little while, I never went a full term any time. I had to work and when the busiest time was over I would go to school when I didn't work. I knew my husband all my life. He was owned by this man Jimmie Graves who Mama was alotted to, but was brought here by the man he was alloted to, named Nicholas. My husband's full name was Joe H. Graves. We had one child, a boy, whose name is Arza Alexander Graves. I have lived on this place I am on now every since I was married, that was the same year Burlington Jct., Missouri, started. We first bought forty (40) acres and paid twenty ($20.00) dollars for that, then about two years later we bought the back eighty (80) acres and I think we paid fifteen ($15.00) dollars for that. I worked in the fields and helped pay for this land. I belong to the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Maryville, Missouri.

"When I was growing up and wanted a nice wool dress we would shear the sheep, wash the wool, card it, spin it, and weave it. If we wanted it striped we used two threads, we would color one by using herbs and barks. We sometimes had it carded at a mill and sometimes we carded it ourselves but when we did it the threads were short which caused us to have to tie the thread often making more knots in the dress. In planting corn in them days they broke up the ground, one layed off the rows, one would go along and drop the corn or grain and if they wanted to plant beans in with the corn one would go along and drop the seed. They covered it over with a hoe and they cut the stalks with the hoe and stacked up the stalks. The way they raised the corn after it came up they took one horse and went on each side of a row and in the middle of every row to plow the corn. It took three rounds on every row to get it plowed. They used oxen sometimes to plow and nearly always used oxen to plow up the ground. They cut the grain with the cradle and bound it with their hands and shocked it up. They thrashed the grain with a hickory stick by beating it out. Many times I have carried three big buckets of water from one place to another, one in each hand and one balanced on my head. My Master was not as bad as some Masters was to their slaves. One time when I had over worked my Master said, "You have not had a currying down for a long time, come over here," and he whipped me with a cat-o'-nine-tails. This cat was made of nine small pieces of leather fastened on to the end of the whip. Lots of times when they hit with the cat it left nine stripes of blood. Mama's Master whipped his slaves for past-time. I have got many whippings for being blamed for doing things the Master's children did and I was blamed for it. One time when a couple was married, me and other members of the family were walking down the road and I was very careful not to kick up any dirt and to be very nice to the couple but when we got home one of the Master's daughters told that I was mean and that I kicked up dirt so that dust would get on the lady's dress and I got the worst whipping I ever got in my life by the Mistress and I still have the marks on my body, and when the Master came I was carrying the vitales from the kitchen to the dining room which was the living and bed room and when I went in I took the bread and when I came back he was standing in the door and he told me what they told him about me and I said I did not do it and if "Puss" said I did she is a "Damned lying devil" and he dropped the switch and went and talked to his daughter and gave her a whipping for telling the untruth. That was the only time I ever swore. In a few days the bride came over visiting and told them they had the sweetest little colored girl she was so lovely and kind. We were never allowed to be idle, always doing something and my work often was choring around to say I was doing something. I have gathered the wool off the fences where it had been caught off the sheep and washed it and used it to make mittens. I never was sold and my Mama was sold only once but she was hired out many times. We slept on what they called a bed, a tick filled with straw on the bed. My Mama's Master had a child near my age and my Mama always left me at the house with the Mistress and I nursed the Mistress, Mrs. Crowdes, as well as her own child until one day the curtain, which was used as a partition around a bed on which I lay near, caught on fire and then my Mama always took me to the field with her and would lay me on a pallet near the fence while she plowed the corn or worked in the field. Stepfather and Mama often tended to their own tobacco and grain in the moonlight which they could sell and have the money. One thing we could go to church which was held in the school house. Sometimes they would let me go out and play with the other children after the noon dishes were washed and there wasn't anything else to do then. I often sewed strips of cloth together to make carpet rags, there was always something to do. Mama worked in the field and in the house too. They nearly always kept a girl in the house. We did not have many mills and sometimes we could not get to the mill and we would punch holes in a piece of tin and rub the ear of corn across it to grate it for our use. Many times Mama would work in the field all day and in the evening she would grate enough corn for the family use the next day. The Masters had stores and you had to go to that store and get your needs and when the month was up you had nothing as it took all you earned to pay your bill."

[Emily Camster Green]

Interview with Emily Camster Green,

Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

"My mammy wuz Celie Camster en my daddy wuz Jack McGuire. We lived out in Bollinger County an' belonged to Massa George Camster. De white folks had a big house, made o' logs, wid chinkins in 'tween en 'nen dobbed over. Us cullud folks had little cabins an' we had good livin' dar. Ole Massa an' Missus Patsy wuz mighty good to us. Eatin's? Lawd we had everthin'—not de mess we has to make out wid now.

"I fell to young Missie Janie an' wuz her maid an' when Missie Janie married Mista Bradley I went with 'em down to Cha'leston in Mississippi County.

"Missie Janie an' her Mista Bradley rode in a buggy an' I sits behind. I 'member de fust time I seed de big ribber. Dar wuz a boat on it. I ain't nebber seed a boat befo' an' I says, 'Oh! Miss Janie dat house gonna sink.' She laf at me an' say dat a boat. Pore Miss Janie—dat Mista Bradley made her believe he had a big plantation an lots o' money an when we gits dar he warn't nuthin' but a overseer on de Joe Moore place. Pore Missie Janie! she wuz so purty an' she had lotsa beaux—she coulda' married rich but she jes tuk de wrong one.

"We had good times fore we lef' de ole place, fore Ole Massa died. We usta git together in de ebenin's. Dey'd say 'I's gon'a step over to de udder cabin'—en word ud git aroun' an 'for' you knowd it dey'd be a crowd. We allus said 'jest step over' no matter how far it wuz. Den some er de women ud put in a quilt an' some ud git to cookin' an' bakin. Mmm! de lassus cakes we used to have! An' den wen de quilt wuz finished an de eatin done dey'd clean out de room an dance. Dem sho wuz good times. But I 'members de las' dance we had. Ole Massa wuz sick. We's habbin' de dance an' Aunt Mary wuz dar. She wuz a spiritualis' woman—you knows whut a spiritualis is, don' you? Well, everybody wuz dancin' an' habbin' a good time—Aunt Mary say, 'Hush! I's gonna ask is Ole Massa gonna git well.' Den she say—'If Ole Massa gonna die, rap three times.' Den in a minnit comes a loud blam! blam! blam! right across de house. Den we all cry an' go home 'cause we knows Ole Massa's gonna die!

"'Bout dat time my daddy die too an my mammy marry Levi Wilson. He belong to Nelson Ellis an' when Ole Massa Ellis's daughter married Beverly Parrot dey went to Texas an' tuk my step-daddy along. 'Cose he never 'spected to see my mammy again an' he married a young woman down dar. Atter de war, dey comes back up dar an' he seed my mammy but she says, 'Go way. I libbed wid you sebben year an' nebber had no chillun by you. Now you got a young woman an' she got chillun. You stay with her. I won't bother you none.'