"When I's 'bout 20 years old I marries Alex Patterson and he was brung from Tennessee to Texas and owned by Massa Joshua Patterson. After freedom we rents land from Massa Patterson and lives dere and farms 'bout seven years.
"Me and Alex has 15 chillen and six of dem is still livin'. Dere is two here in Texas and two in California and one in Oklahoma and one in Kansas. My husband am dead now and I's alone.
"I owns a little farm of 36 acres out near Rogers' Hill and I gits sixty dollars de year for de rentin' of dat land and now de folks wants me to sell it. But my husband bought dat place and I wants to keep it. I don't git no pension. I know dis much, I's worked harder since after freedom den I ever worked befo' freedom."
[Martha Patton]
Martha Patton was born 91 years ago in Alabama, slave to the Lott family, who came to Texas about 1847 and settled near Goliad. After marrying and bearing two children, surviving a famine and scarcity of water, she was freed. She, her husband and others of her family leased farm land on the San Antonio River near La Bahia Mission, at Goliad.
"Yes'm, I was bo'n befo' de war. Best I kin remember, I'll be 91 years old come June 15, 1937. I was bo'n in Alabama, but was brought to Texas when I was nine months old. My folks stopped at Goliad, on de creek near to Goliad.
"I 'member seein' de soldiers, but t'weren't no fightin' 'round us no closer den Corpus Christi. One day one of my uncles went to Corpus Christi. He say, 'Dey done tol' all de women and chillen to git outta town.' We done heard 'em shootin' bombs. De smoke was so thick it looked like it were cloudy. De soldiers come through and took anything dey wanted outta de stores. Pretty soon nothin' was left in de stores and dey couldn' git no more.
"My mother was a cook. We chillen brought in wood and water. My uncles had cotton patches. My master sol' dere cotton for dem and dey had money to buy shoes or anything dey needed. We picked cotton and picked peas. We had a spinnin' wheel and a weave(loom). We made cloth, blankets and our own stockin's. We made dye outta live oak bark, mesquite bark, pecan leaves. They made a dark brown and it dyed the cloth and blankets pretty.
"I never saw any slaves whipped, nor any with chains on. Our white people were very good to us. Their name was Lott, Jim Lott, yes'm, me and Jim Lott was chillen together. He sure was a good boy. He died over at Goliad las' yea'.
"We made cotton and wool cloth both, yes'm, we made both. We raised cotton. The sheep were so po' they would die. We would go through de woods and find de dead sheep and pick de wool offen 'em. Then we would wash de wool and spin it into thread and weave it into cloth to make wool clothes.