4 ~2O 250
	EL.SLAV~ STORIES	Page One
(Texas)


MATTIE GILkOR~ lives In a
	~	little cabin on E2. Pifth Avenue,
in Corsicana, Texas, A smile came to her lips, as she recalled ~iays when she was a slave in Mobile, Alabama. She baa no idea how old she is . Her master ~ Thomas Barrow ‚ brought his slaves to Athens, Texas, during the Civil War, and
~	Mattie had two children at that time, so she is probably
about ninety.




	~~I‘s born in Mobile, Alabama, and I don‘t have no idea when. My white folks never did tell me how old I was. My own dear mammy died ‘fore I can remember and my stepma didn‘t take no time to tell me nothin‘. Her name was Mary Barrow and papa‘ B name was All leon Barrow ‚ and. I had sisters, Rachel and. Lou and ar, and a brother ‚ Al ~.i ~

	“My master sold Rachel when she was ‘ a . I ~ d Id cry. They put her on a block and sold her off. I heared. they got a thousand dollars for her, but I never seed her no more till after freedom. A man named Dick Burdon, from Xau±~uian County, bought her. After freedom I heared she‘s sick and brung her home, but she was too far gone.

	“We lived in a log house with dirt floors, warm in winter but aho‘ hot in aw.uner, no screens or nothin1, hu~ homemade doors. We had homemade beds out of plWIk8 they picked up around. Mattresses nothint, we had sI~ck beds. Bute anyway, you. takes it, we was better off den dan now.

	“I worked in the fields till Rachel was sold, den toolcen her place, dom‘ kitchen work and tannin‘ flies off de table with a great ‚ long limb. I liked dat. I got plenty to eat and not so hot. We had jus‘ food to make you stand up a~4 wo&. It wasn‘t none the good foolish things we has