240201



Missouri

I~-~Siaye Stories
~	Page 1.	~	25



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	The subject of this sketch is Mary A. Bell, 85 years old, living in a 4-~room frame cottage at 1321 Argus Street, St. Louis County, Missouri.

	wary Bell has a very light complexicn, light brown eyes, mixed gray hair, very long and straight. She has fine features. She is quite bent, and shows her years, but is cheerfui. She is living in the same yard with her daughter who is married and lives next door with her family, Mrs. Virginia Miller and six children. Her story follows:

	“I was born in Missouri, May 1, 1852 and owned by an old maid named Miss Kitty Diggs. I had two sisters and three brothers. One of my brothers was killed in de Civil War, and one died here in St. Louis in 1919. His naine was Spot. My other brother, four years younger thin I, died in October, 1925 In Colorado Springs.

	“Slavery was a mighty hard life. Kitty Dlggs hired me out to a Presbyterian minister when I was seven years old, to