Dat my belief bout de way de world
turnin, I say."

Source: Lizzie Davis, colored, age between 70 and 80, Marion,
S. C.
Personal interview by Annie Ruth Davis, Dec., 1937.

Project #1855
W. W. Dixon
Winnsboro, S. C.

LOUISA DAVIS
EX-SLAVE 106 YEARS OLD.

"Well, well, well! You knows my white folks on Jackson Creek, up in
Fairfield! I's mighty glad of dat, and glad to see you. My white folks
come to see me pretty often, though they lives way up dere. You wants to
write me up? Well, I'll tell you all I recollect, and what I don't tell
you, my daughter and de white folks can put in de other 'gredients. Take
dis armchair and git dat smokin' ash tray; lay it on de window sill by
you and make yourself comfortable and go ahead."

"I was born in de Catawba River section. My grandpappy was a full blood
Indian; my pappy a half Indian; my mother, coal black woman. Just who I
b'long to when a baby? I'll leave dat for de white folks to tell, but
old Marster Jim Lemon buy us all; pappy, mammy, and three chillun: Jake,
Sophie, and me. De white folks I fust b'long to refuse to sell 'less
Marse Jim buy de whole family; dat was clever, wasn't it? Dis old Louisa
must of come from good stock, all de way 'long from de beginnin', and I
is sho' proud of dat."

"When he buy us, Marse Jim take us to his place on Little River nigh
clean cross de county. In de course of time us fell to Marse Jim's son,
John, and his wife, Miss Mary. I was a grown woman then and nursed their
fust baby, Marse Robert. I see dat baby grow to be a man and 'lected to
legislature, and stand up in dat Capitol over yonder cross de river and
tell them de Law and how they should act, I did. They say I was a pretty
gal, then, face shiny lak a ginger cake, and hair straight and black as
a crow, and I ain't so bad to look at now, Marse Willie says."

"My pappy rise to be foreman on de place and was much trusted, but he
plowed and worked just de same, mammy say maybe harder."

"Then one springtime de flowers git be blooming, de hens to cackling,
and de guineas to patarocking. Sam come along when I was out in de yard
wid de baby. He fust talk to de baby, and I asked him if de baby wasn't
pretty. He say, 'Yes, but not as pretty as you is, Louisa.' I looks at
Sam, and dat kind of foolishness wind up in a weddin'. De white folks
allowed us to be married on de back piazza, and Reverend Boggs performed
de ceremony."

"My husband