"Both of my grandfathers said their masters used to give picnics. They
would have a certain day and they would give them all a good time and
let them enjoy themselves. They would kill a cow or some kids and hogs
and have a barbecue. They kept that up after freedom. Every nineteenth
of June, they would throw a big picnic until I got big enough to see and
know for myself. But their masters gave them theirs in slavery times.
They gave it to them once a year and it was on the nineteenth of June
then.
"Grandfather Joe said when he wanted to marry Jennie, she was under her
old master, the man that Anderson worked under. Old man Glass found that
Grandfather Joe was slipping off to old man Field's to see Grandma
Jennie, who was on Field's place, and old man Fields went over and told
Glass that he would either have to sell Glass to him or buy Jennie from
him. Old man Glass bought Jennie and Grandfather Joe got her.
"After old man Glass bought Jennie, he held up a broom and they would
have to jump over it backwards and then old man Glass pronounced them
man and wife.
"Grandfather Joe died when I was a boy ten years old. Grandfather Smith
died in 1921. He was eighty years old when he died. Grandfather Joe was
seventy-two years old when he died. He died somewhere along in 1898."