"Good Morning, how is yer? Dat front door am locked Mister, but I'll
come 'round and undo it."
"I'm not feeling ve'y well an' it looks lak dey'll rob me out'n all I
got. Dey had a mortgage on my home fer $850. I paid it, an' den dey got
to gamblin' on it, an' tuk it. I didn't git de right receipts, when I
paid: dat's de truf. I got a farm loan on de house part, yes sir, an' I
still has it.
"I wuz born near Garner, Wake County, North Carolina. I belonged to
Aufy Pool. He wuz a slave owner. His plantation wuz near Garner. I am
91 years old. I wuz born August 10, that's what my grandmammie tole me,
an' I ain't never fergot it.
"My missus name wuz Betsy. My fust master, I had two, wuz Master Aufy
Pool. Den he give us to his son, er his son bought us in at de sale
when Master Aufy died. After Master Aufy died, his son, Louis Pool wuz
my master den, an' his plantation wuz in Johnston County. My mother wuz
named Violet Pool. She died in child-birth two years atter I wuz born.
My father wuz named Peter Turner. He belonged to John Turner in
Johnston County, right near Clayton.
"My grandfather, I had two grandfathers, one on my mother's side and
one on my father's side. On my mother's side Tom Pool, on my father's
side Jerry Beddingfield. I never seed my great-grandparents, but my
great-grandfather wuz name Buck. He wuz right out o' Africa. His wife
wuz name Hagar. I never have seen dem, but my grandmother wuz deir
daughter. Dey had three chillun here in America. My grandmammie and
grandfather told me this. My brothers were name, oldest one, Haywood,
den Lem, an' Peter, an' me, Parker Pool. De girls, oldest girl wuz
Minerva Rilla.
"I had good owners. My missus and master dey took jes as good keer o'
me as they could. Dey wuz good to all de han's. Dey giv' us plenty to
eat, an' we had plenty o' clothes, sich as they wuz, but de wuz no sich
clothes as we have now. Dey treated us good, I will have to say dat.
Dey are dead in their graves, but I will have to say dis fer 'em. Our
houses were in de grove. We called master's house 'de great house'. We
called our homes 'de houses'. We had good places ter sleep.
"We got up at light. I had to do most o' the nursin' o' de chillun,
case when choppin' time come de women had to go to work. We had plenty
ter eat, an' we et it. Our some'in to eat wuz well fixed an' cooked. We
caught a lot o' 'possums, coons an' other game, but I tell yer a coon
is a lot harder to ketch den a possum. We had one garden, an' de
colored people tended the garden, an' we all et out'n it.
"Dere wuz about 2000 acres in de plantation. All de farm lan' wuz
fenced in wid wood rails. De hogs, cows an' stock wuz turned out in de
woods, an' let go. The cows wuz drived home at night, dat is if dey
didn't come up. Dat is so we could milk de ones we wanted ter milk.
"We dug ditches to drain de lan', blin' ditches; we dug 'em an' den put
poles on top, an' covered 'em wid brush an' dirt. We put de brush on de
poles to keep de dirt from runnin' through. Den we ploughed over de
ditches.
"We tanned our leather in a tan trough. We used white oak bark an' red
oak bark. Dey put copperas in it too, I think.
"I knows how to raise flax. You grow it an' when it is grown you pull
it clean up out of de groun' till it kinder rots. Dey have what dey
called a brake, den it wuz broke up in dat. De bark wuz de flax. Dey
had a stick called a swingle stick, made kinder like a sword. Dey used
dis to knock de sticks out o' de flax. Dey would den put de flax on a
hackle, a board wid a lot of pegs in it. Den dey clean an' string it
out till it looks lak your hair. Dey flax when it came from de hackles
wuz ready for de wheel whur it wuz spun into thread. I tell you, you
couldn't break it either.
"When it wuz spun into thread dey put it on a reel. It turned 100 times
and struck, when it struck it wuz called a cut. When it come from de
wheel it wuz called a broach. De cuts stood fer so much flax. So many
cuts made a yard, but dere wuz more ter do, size it, and hank it before
it wuz weaved. Most of the white people had flax clothes.
"We had no church on de plantation. We had prayer meetin' an' candy
pullin's, an' we would ask slaves from udder plantations. My master had
no public corn shuckin's. His slaves shucked his corn. He had about 50
head. De slaves dey went to de white folks church. Dey had a place
separate from de white folks by a railin'. We could look at de preacher
an' hear him preach too.
"No, sirree, dey wouldn't let us have no books. Dey would not let none
o' de chilluns tell us anything about a book. I cain't read an' write,
not a bit. Dey preached ter us to obey our master. Preacher John
Ellington wuz my favorite preacher. No nigger wuz allowed ter preach.
Dey wuz allowed ter pray and shout sometimes, but dey better not be
ketched wid a book. De songs dat dey sung den, dey hardly ever sing 'em
now. Dey were de good ole songs. 'Hark from de tomb de doleful sound'.
'My years are tender,' 'Cry, You livin' man,' 'Come view dis groun'
where we must shortly lie'.
"No one ran away from our plantation, but dey did from some other
plantations. When some o' de niggers were carried by their masters to
wait on 'em as servants up no'th, some o' de other people would see how
dey were treated an' git 'em to run away. When dere master started home
dey couldn't find 'em. Dey took and educated 'em and made women an' men
out'en 'em.
"We visited at night during slavery time. De men went courtin'. When a
man, a slave, loved a 'oman on another plantation dey axed der master,
sometimes de master would ax de other master. If dey agreed all de
slave man an' 'oman had ter de [HW: do] Sa'dy night wuz fer him to come
over an' dey would go to bed together. Dere wuz no marriage--until
atter de surrender. All who wanted to keep de same 'oman atter de
surrender had to pay 25c fer er marriage license, den $1.50, den $3.00.
If de magistrate married you, you didn't have to pay anything, less he
charged you.
"We got de holidays, Christmas, and atter lay-by-time o' de crops. Dey
had big dinners den. Dey had big tables set in de yard, de rations wuz
spread on 'em, an' everybody et. We had brandy at Christmas.
"I have been whupped twice, an' I have seen slaves whupped. Ha! Ha!
missus whupped me. She wouldn't let nobody else whup me neither. I
'members what it wuz about as if it wuz yesterday. She wuz fretted
'bout de cook. We wuz skinnin' i'sh taters. She tole us to make haste,
if we didn't make haste an' peel de taters she would whack us down. I
laughed, she sent me to git a switch. She hit me on de legs. When we
were whupped we would say, 'oh! pray,' and dey would quit. If you acted
stubborn dey would whup you more. She axed me, 'ain't you gwine ter say
'oh! pray?' I wuz mad. She wuz not hurtin' me much, an' I wouldn't say
nuthin'. Atter awhile I said, 'oh! pray', an' she quit. I had good
owners all o' dem. My masters never did hit me. Missus would not whup
me much. She jes wanted ter show off sometimes.
"We had good doctors when we got sick. I 'members Dr. James o' Clayton
comin' to our house. Dey carried dere pills an' medicine den, an' lef'
it at de house fer you.
"My master had a son in de war, Walter Pool. He wuz a footso'dier at
first. He got sick an' he come home sick on er furlough. He hired er
man to go in his place at first, den de man went. Atter awhile de men
got so skurce, he had to go agin; den he got de chance to go in de
cavalry. Ole master bought him a horse, an' he could ride nex' time. He
belonged to the 1st. Ga. Reg. 2nd Cavalry Gen. Dange's Brigade, C. Co.
N.C. Volunteers.
"I saw de Confederates' General Johnson come through Clayton, an' de
Yankees come de 2nd [HW: second] day atter dey come through. I think I
seed enough Yankees come through dere to whup anything on God's earth.
De Yankees camped three miles from our plantation at Mrs. Widow Sarah
Saunders across White Oak Creek on de Averysboro road. Her son, Capt.
Ed. Saunders wuz in de Confederate Army. She wuz a big slave owner. She
had about 100 slaves. She wuz called a rich 'oman.
"De Yankees played songs o' walkin' de streets of Baltimore an' walkin'
in Maryland. Dey really played it. Dey slaughtered cows and sometimes
only et de liver. I went to de camp atter dey lef' an' it wuz de
awfulest stink I ever smelt in my life. Dey lef' dem cows part o' 'em
lying whur dey were in de camp. Dey killed geese an' chickens, an'
skinned 'em. Sometimes dey skinned de hind quarters uv a cow, cut 'em
off an' lef' de res'.
"When dey tole me I wuz free I didn't notice it, I stayed on and worked
jest lak I had been doin', right on wid missus and master. I stayed
dere a year atter de surrender.
"I dunno what ter think o' Abraham Lincoln. Dey said he wuz all right.
I guess he wuz a man God loved, er all right man. I think some o' de
slaves wuz better off when dey had owners and wuz in slavery den dey is
now. De colored people are slaves now more den dey wuz den. I can show
you wherein de nigger's got all his expenses ter bear now. He gits his
pay out'en de white man and de white man don't pay him much. De nigger
in de South is jest as much a slave as ever. De nigger now is a better
slave den when dey owned him, 'cause he has his own expenses to bear.
If you works a horse an' doan have him ter feed, you is better off, dan
if you had ter feed and care fer him. Dat is de way dat thing is now.
"I seed many patterollers durin' slavery. If dey caught you out at
night without a pass dey would whup you.
"I think Mr. Roosevelt is a mighty nice man. He has done me a lot o'
good. No man can make times real good till everybody is put to work.
Wid de lan' lyin' out dere can't be real good times. Dis is my
'lustration. My horse died las' year. I ain't got no money ter buy
nother and can't git one. You see dat lan' lyin' out dere I have farmed
it every year fer a long time. Through part o' de year I always had
vegetables and sich ter sell, but now my horse is dead an' I can't farm
no more. I ain't got nothin' ter sell. I is bad out o' heart. I shore
hope sumpin' will be done fer me."
N.C. District: No. 2
Worker: T. Pat Matthews
No. Words: 779
Subject: RENA RAINES
Person Interviewed: Rena Raines
Editor: G.L. Andrews
[TR: Date stamp: AUG 17 1937]