*Interview with Lucy Kimball*
--_Francois Ludgere Diard, Mobile, Alabama_
_THE FULFILLED WISH OF MAMMY LUCY KIMBALL_
I made two visits to the home of Mammy Lucy Kimball. The first was
during the month of April, 1937; the next was nearly a month later. On
the first trip I had a very successful talk with the old Negro woman,
but on the last, she wasn't at home, and so the information I sought had
to wait. I was very disappointed that I couldn't see her on my second
venture, but it was impossible.
Mammy Lucy had not grown very feeble when I last saw her, and her
methodical mode of living can be attributed to her consciousness of the
venerable age of eighty-five years which she had reached. She was born
into slavery in 1851 at Swift's Landing near the town of Blakeley, in
Baldwin County. She was a slave in the Charles Hall family of that
county before and during the War between the States. In 1907, she came
to work for the T.S. Fry and Santos Rubira families of Mobile.
Following the War between the States, Mammy Lucy Kimball worked in
various families at the summer resorts of Baldwin County.
When a young girl, Mammy Lucy performed the duties of a children's
nurse, and worked as a dining room servant. She had some education, and
as she had worked in families of refinement and culture all her life,
her manner was that of a well educated person. However, like the average
educated Negro, she still displayed the characteristics of the Negro of
the ante-bellum days. She said that she strictly adhered to old
fashioned methods, such as: going to church twice a week, not believing
in doctors, and always taking home-concocted remedies.
I asked her if she believed in carrying a rabbit's foot for luck, to
which she responded:
"Honey, you don' think I'm like these other Negroes, who still believe
in that old nonsense? I might tell the children that a rabbit foot
brings good luck because it is an old custom for superstitions persons
to carry one, but, honey, you'd have just as good luck if you carried
brick-bats in your coat. My white people in Baldwin County never brought
me up to believe in such things."
"Well, Mammy Lucy," I asked, "do you remember any strange or weird
things that happened during the Civil War?"
"Yes," she answered slowly, "I remember during the Civil War some of the
mischievous Sibley boys who were kin to the Hall family over in Baldwin
County, tied a strange long black thread to the ankle of a black boy
named Slow Poke.
"Some Negroes were going to town that night to fetch supplies and among
them was Slow Poke. The boys jokingly asked him if he had his rabbit
foot with him as he might need it to keep the rattling noises away at
night. Slow Poke showed them his rabbit foot and, displaying his
glistening teeth in a broad grin he said that there 'warn't goin' to be
no ghosties atter him.' The boys deftly tied a string to Slow Poke's
ankle while some of their friends held his attention. On this string
were attached three cow bladders. Slow Poke hadn't gone far when he
heard the bladders rattling at his heels. He immediately decided that
there was a whole troop of ghosts after him, and so began to hit his
fastest gait down the middle of the dark road. He ran till he reached
Montgomery Hill some miles distant, where the string finally wore out.
His people didn't find him till three days later. Then they took him
home and gave him a sound whipping for running away."
Mammy Lucy talked of the Hall and Sibley families and of the wealth that
they once had, and what happiness she found in being slave to such good
people. She remembered all the summer resorts on the eastern shore of
Mobile Bay when they were in their glory before the Civil War, and how
the Mobile ferries landed bringing over all the fashionable Mobile
families to their summer homes on the bay. She remembered hearing father
Ryan, the poet-priest of the south, preaching at the dedication of the
Catholic Church at Montrose and the storm in the '70's which almost
demolished Alabama City (now Fairhope). She recalls the landing of the
Confederate troops at Hollywood for wood when they left Mobile at the
outbreak of the war on their way to Fort Pickens, Florida, to enter
active service.
I found Mammy Lucy to be neat and prim as she must have been thirty
years ago, when she first went to work for the Fry and Rubira families.
She still walks with the agility of a young person, and her mind is
fertile with fresh thoughts and with the deeds of the past. "I have
found happiness," she said. "People have been good to me and I, in
return, have tried to be kind to those around me. I have lived a plain
life and have been rewarded with a ripe age that still finds me feeling
young. I shall never grow old in my thoughts and actions, but always
keep a place in my mind to welcome something new. I will have had a
complete life if I can live only two weeks longer. There is something
I'd like to see."
After a few more minutes I left her and returned home. There was
something I wanted to ask Mammy Lucy; something that preyed on my mind
for days. I wanted to ask her what the thing was that she wanted to see.
She was so gentle and courteous; my interest seemed officious prying
into her affairs. Someday I shall go to see her again, I decided, and
bring up the subject casually. Then she'll never know of my unworthy
curiosity.
Three weeks later I walked to the door of Mammy Lucy's cabin and on the
porch stood a Negro girl watering a few pots of flowers.
"Is Mammy Lucy at home?" I asked.
The girl was silent for a moment, then she spoke in a high-pitched
whining voice: "Mammy Lucy, she died."
"Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "When did she die?"
"Fo' days ago," was the reply.
I walked down the path of pebbles toward the bay. The question would
never be answered, but I knew that Mammy Lucy died content.