"When we was at Liberty de first soldiers we seen was General Price's men and later we seen lots of Union soldiers.
"De day dat de slaves was freed Mr. Dawson told me dat I was as free as he was and dat he brought me here and he would take me back if I wanted to go. I said, 'If I still have a mother and father I wants to go to dem.'
"When we got back to Paris my mistress Georgia Ann said, 'Oh, that black good-for-nothing lazy gal, I should have left her at Liberty, but Mr. Dawson would bring her.' I didn't like her 'cause she wasn't very good to me and now I don't want to meet my mistress in either hell or heaven.
"I was about eleven years old den. We moved from dere to Palmyra. My father split rails and built fences (they didn't have wire fence in those days), and shucked corn and worked on farms or whatever kind of job he could get to do. My father didn't get no land nor money like some of de folks did. Most of de white folks was good to de slaves and didn't whip dem unless dey was sure 'nough bad.
"My father come from Virginia and my mother from Kentucky when dey was little. Dey never seen dere parents no more. Dey watched for a long time among de colored people and asked who dey was when dey thought some body looked like dere parents, but never could find dem. Dey was so small when dey left, dey didn't even remember dere names.
"I have been working for de Col. Dan Dulany and de Mahan families here in Hannibal for three generations, more'n sixty years. I'm not working nowhere now since Mr. Mahan died about two years ago.
"I am saving my money, what little I has, but de younger folks now days don't save anything. Dey just want a good time. I tell dem to save for a rainy day even if it's only an umbrella, because it will rain some day."
Margaret Nickens is called "Mag" by her friends. She is about eighty-five years old and lives alone in a home that she owns. She reared and educated one daughter who taught school over a period of forty years in the Negro public school in Hannibal. The daughter died eight years ago.
[Eliza Overton]
Eliza Overton, age 88.
Interviews with Maggie Kennedy,
John Franks, and Emma Body,
Farmington, Missouri.