TENNESSEE.
Woman’s Work Among Women.
MISS HATTIE MILTON, MEMPHIS.
Out of a population of 40,000, one-third are colored. Many of the children attend school a few months during the year; but the parents think if their son John Quincy Adams Anderson attends school two weeks out of four, he will “learn a heap,” and be ready to graduate in a year or two. However, some of the children do make good progress at school; but the home influence is so degrading that the necessity of missionary work among the mothers is felt more and more, as we see more of their homes. Many are too poor to send their children to school at all; consequently they have no opportunity of becoming better.
In my daily visits from house to house I found them in a wretched condition, filth and vermin reigning supreme. Often, on entering these abodes, my sensibilities were so shocked that I could not speak at first—dogs, cats, chickens and children clamoring for the hoe cake in the ashes or the unleavened dough baking on the stove-cover, which, when done, is broken and handed around to each, sometimes with the addition of a dripping bit of bacon. In many of these homes the table is never set, the entire furniture consisting of a bed, two chairs, a trunk, box, cupboard, bundle of rags and a poor stove, if there is no fireplace. They sometimes own the board shanties in which they live, and rent the ground they stand on; and when they wish to move, they pull down the shanty, move it to the new place, and put it up again.
I was usually received kindly; by some enthusiastically. One old ex-slave, learning the nature of my errand at her house, said, raising her hands above her turbaned head, “Oh, bless the Lord! Thank the Lord! for He has heard the prayer of His downtrodden people, and put it into the hearts of His dear children in the North to send some one to instruct us. My blessed baby, come as often as you can, and read to Aunt Hettie, for she is an ole Etheopum, and don’t know nothing.” After I left, she rushed around to her neighbors, saying, “Bless the Lord! for He has heard our prayer, and sent an angel right down from heaven to instruct us, and she has been to my house this evenin’.” They were usually glad—many were anxious—to hear the Bible read, some insisting on paying me, saying, “Do take it. We wants you to come often, for we don’t hear anything like it anywhere else.” One woman, wishing, as she said, to do something for the Lord, and having no money, sent me a nice warm dinner. They are very liberal, giving as long as they have a nickel, whether they rightly own it or not.
Some who were suspicious said, “Never heerd tell of white lady going to humble colo’d cabin to read the Bible. Look like it’s mighty queer.” These suspicions had to be overcome in various ways. Often, by attending the sick ones, the good will of the neighbors would be secured. One poor creature, who had not been washed in six months, and was almost dead, after I had bathed her and put on her clean clothes—furnished by the good Northern friends—thanked me and said, “Thank the Lord! when we get home to heaven, we will all have on clean clothes.” Her last days of suffering were thus made more comfortable. I went in often, as she loved to hear the Bible read, and singing. But a few weeks later, I went in one morning, and found her poor remains stretched out on a rough board, resting on two chairs. Thus she lay in state, in her winding-sheet. A plate, placed on her crossed hands, with its mute appeal for money to bury her, told how poor they were.
One day a very black woman met me on the street and said, “How d’y’, Miss. You don’t know me; but I knows you, for you is the one what visits the sick; and I heard you read the Bible, and I wants ye to read it to me. We all loves ye, and we all says, ‘If any one is gwine right up to heaven, it is you.’” I often found the best way to reach the mother was through her children. By giving them little presents, they would become fond of me. Then the mother, who was proud of them, would say, “I wants my children to be better than me, but don’t know how to make them so. I whips them a heap, but they is bad all the time.” After convincing one mother that she was teaching her children to lie by her daily example, she said, “Sure enough! Never thought of that afore. I alus wondered why my children would lie so, ’cause I alus tells ’em not to. Now, Miss, you come often, and teach me; I needs it much as any one. How can we be expected to do better? No one we go with does any better; and in ole slave times, if master saw us with a book, he would ‘slap our jaws;’ so we cannot read to find out better.” Another said, “This is the first work I have seen that looked like really making our homes better.”
Finding the mothers and daughters knew but little about sewing, an industrial school was started, where they met once a week, and were taught how to cut, fit and make garments. The material for this school was furnished by the good people of Romeo. A small sum was charged for each garment, when finished, and used to purchase more material. Also a small price was charged for a few of the more valuable garments sent in boxes, the persons gladly paying the small sum, which was used to procure medicine and other comforts for the sick ones.