She was married three times and her mother had 12 children, but she has never had any.

Her young life was spent in playing with the children of the white overseer. They used to jump rope most of the time. Whenever the overseer left home to spend the night anywhere, his wife would send for her to spend the night with the family. The overseer was "poor white trash". She had plenty to eat in slavery days. Her father and mother had their own garden, and she did her share of eating the vegetables out of the garden. She remembered seeing plenty of wild turkeys as a child, but as for hogs and cattle, she did not remember them running wild. She had heard of conjuring, but she did not know how it was done—never saw anybody who had been conjured—yet she had seen ghosts two or three times. One night she saw a light waving up against a piece of furniture, then come towards her, then flicker about the room, but she wasn't able to see anybody holding the light. She had heard of headless men walking around, yet had never seen any.

A neighbor told her a woman ghost came to her house one night, just sat on the front steps and said nothing, repeated her visits several nights in succession, but said no word as she sat on the front step. One night the neighbor's husband asked the ghost what did she want, why she sat on the steps and said nothing. The ghost then spoke and told him to follow her. He followed her and she led him to the basement of the house and told him to dig in the corner. He did and pretty soon he unearthed a jar of money. The woman ghost told him to take just a certain amount and to give the rest to a certain person. The ghost told the man if he didn't give the money to the person she named, she would come back and tear him apart. He very obediently took the small amount of the money and gave the balance where the ghost directed, and he never saw the woman sitting on his steps any more.

Another time she heard footsteps approaching a certain house in the yard, but she could never see anybody walking, though she could distinctly hear the gravel crunching as the ghost walked along. "God is the only one who can do any conjuring. I don't believe anybody else can."

Source: Aunt Janie Gallman, 391 Cudd St, Spartanburg, S.C.
Interviewer: F.S. DuPre, Spartanburg, S.C.

Project 1885 -1-
Spartanburg, S.C.
May 31, 1937
District #4
Edited by:
Martha Ritter
FOLKLORE: EX-SLAVES

"I was born in Edgefield County, S.C. (now called Saluda County) in 1857. My father and mother was Bill and Mary Kinard who was slaves of John Kinard. The year I was born, I allus heard say, there was a big fire near Columbia, S. C. It started in the woods near the river, spread over all parts there and the people, womens with new-born infants, had to leave in a hurry, going back from the fire and crossing the river, to Edgefield County. I 'member there was a big fire in Prosperity back in about 1875.

"I was a girl in slavery, worked in the fields from the time I could work at all, and was whipped if I didn't work. I worked hard. I was born on John Bedenbaugh's place; I was put up on the block and sold when a girl, but I cried and held tight to my mistress's dress, who felt sorry for me and took me back with her. She was Mrs. Sarah Bedenbaugh, as fine a woman as ever lived.