j:~(~~(;o	&rchle Koritz, Field Worker
		Federal Writers‘. Projee~t
		Lake County, District #1
		Gary, Indiana




	Jo~:n Eiibanks, Garyts only no~ro Civil War survivor has lived. to see the ninety~eighth anniversary of his birth and despite his advanced age, recalls with surprising clarity many interesting and sad events of his boyhood days when a slave on the ~erett plantation.

	I~e was born in Glasgow, i3arron County, Kentucky, June 6, 1839, one of seven children of a ~hattoi of the ~veret~ family.

	The old man retains most of his faculties, but bears the mark of his extreme age in an obvious feebleness and failing sight and memory. He is physically large, says he once was a husky, weighing over two hundred pounds, bears no scars or deformities and despite the hardships and deprivations of his youth, presents a kindly and tolerant attitude.

	III	remembah well, us young uns on the Everett plantation,“ he relates, “I worked since I can remembah, hoein‘, pickint cotton and othah chohs ‘round the fahm. We didden have much clothes, nevah no undahweah, no shoes, old ovahalls and a tattahed shirt, wintah and summah • Come de wintah, it be so cold nah feet weah plumb numb mos‘ o‘ de time and manya time ~ when we git a chanot-. we druve the hogs from outin the bogs an‘. put ouah feet in the wabxned wet mud. They was cracked and the skin on the bottoms and in de toes weah cracked and bleedin‘ mos‘ o~ time, wit bloody scabs but de si~.iznmah healed them ŕgin.“

ttDoes yohall remembab, Granpap,“ his daughter prompted, „

Yoh mahstah ~ did he treat you mean?“

	“No,“ his tolerant acceptance apparent in his answer, tt~ weah done thataway. Slaves weah whipt and punished and the .

: • ~ounguns belonged to the xnahstah to work foah him oh to sell. When ~

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