Project #-1655
Mrs. Genevieve W. Chandler
Murrells Inlet, S.C.
Georgetown County
FOLKLORE
AUNT MARIAH HEYWOOD
Aunt Mariah Heywood, born in 1855, was 'Allston labor' on Waccamaw Neck. Given as a bridal present to 'Miss Susan Alston by her father, Mr. Duncan Alston of Midway Plantation Waccamaw, Aunt Mariah has for the last fifty years lived much in the past when 'I wuz raise on the cream of the earth' and her head is just a little higher and her backbone just a little stiffer than that of the average colored person because of pride—family pride—in her people—her white people. And as one can readily see from her testimony, her chief cause for her pardonable snobbery seems to be that her Massa was the last man to surrender and "swear gainst his swear."
Her sons, one of whom is a preacher in the Methodist Conference and 'one a zorter—a locust' and her youngest son John (who got all the credrick) have built her a comfortable house (painted a bilious yaller) which she keeps clean and sweet with flowers in the front yard—two treasured plants having been sent by her brother (born after mancipations) clean from Pittsburgh.
The fact that she was raised by aristocrats shows plainly in her dealing with both races and she is a leader in church activities and her opinion valued when a vote is taken about school matters.
Being the oldest 'communion steward' she is affectionately spoken of as 'THE MOTHER OF HEAVEN'S GATE'—the Methodist church founded in Murrells Inlet community by colored leaders shortly after Mancipation.
"Aunt Mariah, you home?"
"Missus, what you brought me?"
"——————
"I too thank you."