"My father's name was Isom Blackshear. Some people call it Blackshire,
but we call it Blackshear. His master was named Uriah Blackshear. I have
heard him say so many times the year he was born. He died (Isom) in 1905
and was in his eighty-first year then. That would make him born in 1824.
His birth was on the fourth day of May. People back in them days lived
longer than we do now. My grandfather, Jordan Martin, lived to be one
hundred sixteen years old. Grandpa died about nine years ago in Sumter
County, Alabama. He was my grandfather on my mother's side.
"My grandfather on my father's side was Luke Blackshear. He was born in
Alabama too, and I suppose in Sumter County too. He died in Sumter
County. He died about five years before the Civil War.
"My mother was born in North Carolina. Her name was Sylvia Martin before
she married my father. She was a Blackshear when she died. She died in
1885. The white people went out in North Carolina and bought her, her
mother, Nancy, and her father, Jordan, and brought them to Sumter
County, Alabama. My mother's mother was an Indian; her hair came down to
her waist."