"I never lived in the country. I lived in town. But sometimes my father
would go into the country to hunt and I would go with him.
"I was born in Austin County, Fort Valley, Georgia, 105 miles below
Atlanta one way, and by Macon it would be 140. I was thirteen years old
when the war began and seventeen when it ended. I was born the fifteenth
day of February, 1848.
"My mother was a nurse and midwife. My father was a finished mechanic. I
never had to do any work until after the Civil War, but I was just crazy
about railroading and went to railroading early. I railroaded all my
life. I did some draying too and a lot of concreting too.
"I was born free. There weren't so many free Niggers in Georgia. None
that I knew owned any slaves. I never heered of any owning any slaves.
My mother was a full blooded Cherokee woman, and my father was a dark
Spaniard." [("Dad" or "Pappy" Holloway is a fine looking old white man
and shows evidence of White and Indian blood; however, Negro blood
shows.) [HW: omit]]
"I am the only one out of twelve children that can't talk my mother's
language and don't know my father's. I remember the Indian war whoop,
and the war dance--used to do that myself. When they run the Indians out
of Georgia into Florida, my mother never did go. She was one hundred
seven years old when she died."