Laura Redmoun
"My first baby was born the year of the big yellow fever in New Orleans. I had six chillen but they all died when they's little from creepin' spasms. I advertises round in the papers and finds my mammy and she come and lived with me. She's in a pitiful shape. 'Fore the ceasin' of war her master done sold her and the man what bought her wasn't so light on his niggers. She said he made her wear breeches and tote big, heavy logs and plow with oxes. One of the men knocked her on back of the head with a club and from that day she allus shook her head from side to side all the time, like she couldn't git her mind straight. She told me my paw fell off a bluff in Memphis and stuck a sharp rock right through his head. They wrapped him in a blanket and buried him. That's all I ever knowed 'bout him.
"My husband was a good man and a good worker. We farmed and I worked for white folks. We took a notion to come to Texas and I been in these parts ever since.
"I don't have no complaint to make. I seen some hard times, but I's able to do a little work and keep goin'. They is so many mean folks in the world and so many good ones, and I'm mighty proud to say my white folks was good ones."
[Elsie Reece]
Elsie Reece, 90, was born a slave of John Mueldrew, in Grimes County, Texas. Elsie came to Fort Worth in 1926 to live with her only remaining child, Mrs. Luffin Baker, who supports Elsie with the aid of her $7.00 monthly old age pension.
"I's borned in Grimes County, ninety years ago. Dat am long time, child. It am heap of change since den. We couldn't see dem airplanes flyin' in de air and hear folks sing and talk a thousand miles away. When I's de young'un de fartheres' you could hear anybody am 'bout a quarter mile and den dey has to holler like a stuck hawg.
"My massa's name am John Mueldrew and he have a small plantation near Navasota, and 'bout twenty cullud folks, mos' of 'em 'lated to each other. There was seven chillen in mammy's family and I's de baby. Pappy dies when I's a year old, so I don't 'member him.
"Dey larnt me to weave cloth and sew, and my brudder am de shoemaker. My mammy tend de cows and Uncle John am de carpenter. De Lawd bless us with de good massa. Massa John die befo' de war and Missie Mary marries Massa Mike Hendricks, and he good, too. But him die and young Massa Jim Mueldrow take charge, and him jus' as kind as he pappy.