" This misfortune had disfigured
her face and she always avoided meeting people. I can see her
now, with one child at the breast, and another at her knee, with her
hand on its head, feeling for "buggars." I was very much attached to
this woman and wanted to take care of her in her old age. I went to
Southern Texas to get her in 1873. I found some of her children in
Sherman, Texas, but aunt Judy had been dead six months. She always
said she wanted to live with me.
My mother always left her small children in the care of the servants.
I was quite a little girl before I was allowed to eat at "white
folk's table." Once my mother had been away several days and came
home bringing a lot of company with her. I ran out when I saw the
carriages driving up, and cried: "Oh, ma, I am so glad to see you.
I don't mind sleeping with aunt Eliza, but I do hate to sleep with uncle
Josh," think I was quite dirty, and some of the colored servants snatched
me out of sight. Aunt Eliza was aunt Judy's half-sister, her father
was a white man. She was given to my father by my grandmother,
was very bright and handsome, and the mother of seventeen children.
My grandmother remembered aunt Eliza in her will, giving her some
linen sheets, furniture, and other things.
One of aunt Eliza's sons was named Newton. My father had a mill
and store up in Lincoln County, near Hustonville. Newton used to do
the hauling for my father with a large wagon and six-mule team.
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