"I haven't had a great deal of schooling. I have had a little about in
places. Just after the emancipation, my mother died and my father
married again. My stepmother had other children and they kept me out of
my education. Since I have been grown, I have gotten a little training
here and there. Still I have served as supervisor of elections and done
other things that they wanted educated people to do. But it was just
merely a pick-up of my own. The first teachers I had were white women
from the North."