Document text
I AIN'T NO MIDWIFE
Written by: Mrs. Sadie B. dornsby
Area 6 Athens, Ga.
Edited by: Mrs. Sarah H. nail
Area 6 Athens, Ga.
dohn N. Booth
Area Supervisor of
Federal VIriters' Project
Areas 6 and 7
Augusta, Georgia
'Tune 9, 1939
March 14, May 29, 1A)39
Mary Willingham (Negro)
140 c;ohen Street
Athens, Georgia
Practical Nurse
S.B.H.
I AIN'T NO MIDWIFE
"You'll have to come up on the porch and set down whilst
I washes if you wants to talk to me," Mamie announced, when I found
her in the backyard tending the fire around the boiling washpot. "I
meant to wash outdoors in the sunshine," she continued, "but my
husband and daughter got off befol I had a chanst to get 'am to move
my wash bench off of the porch for me."
"I'm surprised to find you at home, Mamie," I told her. "I
was just taking a chance when I strolled around to the back after
there was no answer to my raps on your front door. Have you given
up nursing in favor of taking in washing now?"
"No, main, I ain't Aad no nussinl jcb in gwine on a month
nov. I'se just doin' my own fambly washin', least I is this mornin'.
I does have two small washin's. I means I calls myself havin' two,
but the folks didn't bring 'em last week, and they ain't brung 'em so
far this week."
I sat down and watched her as she worked. Mamie is a
stout wman of -Ledium height. Tightly braided gray hair framed her
gingerbread -colored face, and she wore a nurses' soiled blue uniform,
a white apron, black slippers, and gray cotton hose.
She spat int the tub of clothes, half-heartedly rubbed a
garment across the -eshboard a time or two, stood up streight and said,
"Miss, does you know Ithere I can git a job?"
2.
"No," I replied.
"What:" she ejaculated. "Outen all the folks you knows:"
"That's true, Mamie, I surely don't know of a job you could
get right now," I told her, "but the National Reemployment 6ervice
will help you to get work if you'll register in their offioe."
"I did try at that place. They axed me a hundred and one
questions end then some: 'What did you make? What did you spend
your money fore ell, why didn't you save some of it while you was
makin' it?" They took all them questions and washed my face with
/em. I'll bet not a one of them folks that asks them questions
saves none -f their own wages, yet they goes right on askin' other
folks questions they wouldn't wants answer for nobody else. I told
the one that axed me them things that the reason I couldn't save
none of my money was that me and my fambly had to eat, buy clothes,
and pay rent, let alone having to holp my people when they needed
it. They'll been a heap of colored folks gone hongry at times in
these lest several years, when they own folks didn't have nothing to
'vide 7,.ith 'em no mog.
"I sho don't know what us pore Negroes is gwine do," she
grumbled. "When I first started to work I got more to do than I
could keep up with. Now, folks goes to the hawspital, but when
taey gits b ok home some of they folks comes and stays with 'em 'til
they's up and obeut aesin. I reckon folks just has to do that way
to out 'spenses."
"How long ieve you been a nurse?" I asked.
"Lemme see now, since 1C124," she answered. "You know
I ain't no midwife; I'se a practical nurse. I'se holped doctors
and midwives, and I'se maided and cooked. Lord, have mercyt I
had to spend my money fast as I could git it fesdin' my fambly,
peyin' house rent, and for all the things I told that man what foxed
so many questions at the 'Ployment Office. I got my 'stint:tate to
do practical hursin' in 1926. It took me 2 years to it it. It
used to be anybody could welt on a 'omen havin' a baby; they could
go ahead end cut the cord and tie it if they knowed how. Now, that's
all changed. If you don't have that 'stifioate they'll put you in
the penitentiary for life. I hopes to git my next 'stificate in
'bout another year, and then I on oall myself a midwife and pull
down 435 a week. Then I won't have to worry 'bout my meat and
bread no mo', leastwise not long as 'omens keeps on havin' babies.
I means to save up for a rainy day When I does git to makin' what a
midwife should.
"I don't knov. when I was born 'cause I didn't know
nothin' t'all 'bout my ma. I recomembers seem' my pa all right
enough. I can guess at my age, but I really don't know jest how
old I is. I tells ever'body that. I espect I will be 'most forty-
nine my next birWay. I was born on a farm down here in t;larke
County, and all I ever done in my younger days mostly was work in the
field. I'se just been in town 'bout sixteen years. I used to have
time and money to go see my folks, but I don't no mot. Like I done
told you, my ma died when I wes a baby. My sister raised me part
4.
of the way, then some white people took me up and I lived with 'em
years and years. I lived and worked in the house with them *Lite
folks 'til I rearrf_ed.
"The first real nurse I ever seed wes 8 white 'omen what
they called in to nurse one of the °hill= that was took bad sick
out in die country. One day that nurse went out in the yard to
the lavatory folks didn't have them places in the house to set on
in the country. The lavatory was hid back of a grape arbor. She
was passing under the arbor on her way back to the house when a bug
got in her ear. She went to the kitohen, twisted a little white
somepin"round on a match stem, got some warm water and worked with
her ear a long time. I thought that WES fine doin's. I said to
myself, 'If she can do things like that, I can too.' Right then and
there I decided to be a nurse.
"Gittin' my first case come so eesy that 1 thought nursing
was goirg to be a reg'lar job. My husband's sister that was nursing
a white 'omen took sick and give me the job. I went tnere and liked
the work and the white folks liked me. Itat $8 a week they paid me
WFS a 'Yhole lots more'n I coulda made cookint,or maidin', or takin' in
washin'. That was a good lady whet I nursed. Her aunt said that
shakin' disease se had was caused by her being a senervis (stenographer).
She had done worked her fingers so long on a typewriter that she 'most
lost use of her hands and. arms, and that condition spreed over her
whole body. 'Oh, please rub my legs,' she would say. 'Oh, please
scratch my head. If you will only rub my back; I'm so nervous.'
I had to be doing somethin' for her all the time, day and night."
b.
Mamie stopped talking
the tub of clothes and to rub a
It seemed a good time for me to
clothes?" She laughed heartily
long enough to spit again into
few strokes on the washboard.
ask, "Why do you spit in the
and was not the least ambarressed
when she replied, "They tell me if you spit on dirty clothes it'll
take the spots out when nothin' else will. So ever time I sees a
bad dirty spot I just up nnd spits on it, and it 'most always comes
.lut without no mos trouble.
"This nursin' business," she continued, "brings you up
against all sorts of folks and things. Why, I even lost one lob
I had 'cause the sick 'omen told the doctor I ned said her pulse
wes too fast. 'Well, if she has to go 'round tellin' sick folks
such things, we'll let her go,' he 'lowed.
other sick folks 'bout theyselfs no no'.
"I couldn't git my 'stificate to do practical nursin'
'til I obt.served at leant one operation, and so I got my chartist
when a white 'omen what lived in the country come to her sister's
house in town to hive a tumor cut out. The colored nurse whet was
to holp the doctors and the white nurse got to poutin' so I had to
take a hand, and not hevins done nothin' of the sort befo' I emptied
out the water with the gauzes in it snd they couldn't count 'em right.
That sho larn't me a lesson for Whea that patient didn't git well
lak they thought she oughta, they made a szamination and 'scovered
that n gauze was sewed up in 'er. Cutting her open again and tekin'
it out never 'mounted to nothin', so they done that hut in the country
in her own house, and she got well fast enough then. Now don't you
I ain't
never told no
6.
go blamin, them doctors. Them was grand doctors, but that little
old room was too dark, in spite of that big old flashlight 'most
long as my arm what her husband had bought when the doctors wee
fussin' 'cause they wasn't no 'leotric lights in that house where
they done the first operation. Besides there was so much discharge
they couldn't half see, and it was my fault for pouring out the
water before them pieces of gauze could be counted. That colored
nurse that pouted and didn't do her part on that case lost out
with the doctors and they don't never call on her no no'.
"Another time I holped one of them dectors remove a big
tumor from a colored woman that I -ad been suffering with it 30 years.
It weighed nearly forty pounds on the cotton steelyards. I have
worked for that doctor many times since. He is a good 4en and a
fine doctor, but you better watch out and not lake him Akd."
As Mamie rinsed the clothes in tubs of clear water, she
told me sonething of the wide range of her experience in nursing.
aternity cases ecoounted for at least ninety percent of her patients,
and her vivid descriptions ranged from the "pore white folks" and
Negroes who knelt on the floor to give birth to their children, to the
complications of a "Cessare-an" birth, wide necessary by a fall that
injured the mother three months before the baby was due. She had
tended mothers and babies in the poorest of colored families, and in
the homes of "uppity" white folks, who were able to employ a maid and
a cook, in addition to a nurse to tend the mother and baby after they
returned from the hospital. Fatienta with bladder disorders, cancers,
nervous diseases come what .Aght they were all accounted for in
7.
in Menie's story which came to an abrupt halt as she dropped the
last wet bundle into her clothes basket.
"Well, Ilse done got these clothes washed, now Ilse got to
hang 'em out," she said, as she made a hasty excursion to the
kitchen for clothespins. "Good Lord, lies, it's done twelve -thirty:
When does you eat?"
"Oh, not as long as you are willing to talk," I told her.
"I can eat any time."
She went out in the yard and began to sing: "Come to Jesus
Now." Looking at Me; she said: "You can tali. I can hear you
and ain't nobody else gwine to hear you." I assured her I did not
mind waiting until her work was finished.
"Just as soon as I hang these clothes out, I'se got to go
down town, so you'd better ex me what you wants to know now." She
continued to hang out clothes. "So it's my schoolin' you wants to
know 'bout now" she said. "I got as far as the second grade.
That's n come I can't talk proper now: I didn't have 'nough
schoolinl. I went to school in Morton's apel. It was a church
house. Us chillun went to school there during the week, and to church
and Sunday ohool there on Sundays. That's the way colored folks
done in them cays. Now they's got a reg'lar schoolhouse.
"A blind 'oman come through here once and give a music
singin' at that church. ';'e paid 100 a heed to neer her sing. lhat
wes the way she had to make her iivin'. She said her me had fourteen
chillun, seven born with sight, and seven blind. be Was one of them
blind ones. ,ii•tor Lnc singing was over she said the church was a
8.
great big qorton and a little bitty chapel, and that was sho what
it wee. Mr. Morton that give that chapel was one grand fine man.
"I don't hardly know
when I net him he was with his
prettiest an I ever seed, and
He told me I had the prettiest
how I met my husband. I believe
first wife, I thought he was the
:le said he thought I was pretty too.
legs; they was so big. I was just
a ittle low squat. I never seed him no mo' in 'bout four years.
Then he was separated from his wife. Nhen I seed him he was on the
ob. I knowed his face and he knowed mine. Ulg went together 'bout
a yeer befo' our oarriage. Us got married all right but there wasn't
no big weddin'; julA a crowd of folks come to the house to see and
hear the oreeoher say a little somepin' over us. Two of our to'
chillun l oir1s and the other two is boys."
Mamie had finished hanging out tne clothes end started in
the house when a lerge German pollee dog came out of e dog house and
bered at her. "I just oates this big old dog. I wish my son-in-law
would come nnd it 'im," She complained. "I has to keep 'in chained
up so he can't run off." :Ale spoke to the snarling animal, "Now
you just go on beck, 'cause you ain't gwine to git none of this
somejn' t'eat i'se got for my og." Picking up a .Darket basket of
bread sorops from the yard she sat it on the porch.
me
"Miss, if you ants/to talk to you, you'll have to come
with me in my bedroom." I followed her through the kitchen. "come
in here first. I wants you to see my daughter's roam. he lives
in tlanta end sne's gwine move her furniture when she gits a roam
there."
9.
The room and its contents eeemed clean but revealed no
attelpt at orderly arraneeitient. The conglomeratton of its furnish-
ings incliAed a walnut bedroom suite which was crowded egainst
chairs end tables of vtrious kinds. A pink bedspread clashed with
t'e red drapee that frwned tbe dingy scrim curtains at the windows,
wide
and s cheep rug, of red rose pattern, added another/splash of color.
e went to the kitchen where a round table, surrounded by
cnirs in the center of the room, was easily accessible to a small
-cod-burning cookstove. Pots, pans, dishes, end cutlery, as well
as for.d, were scattered ar,Yavl apparently at rvIdom.
7assing through a narrow hall, we entered a bathroom which
we com2lete with tub and 'ther conveniences. The fixtures were ctiesp
and crude, but ter were a s:urce of ride to Mamie. ne lives in a
heuse with e bath end en indoor "laretory." "VS nurses knows the
needcessity of these things :rd 1;c does without other things, but us
hes to ha7e our bst.hrooms,W she declared.
The small hell ale: ue to e room barely large enough for
n btAtere,1 z,1114Q "Dad end an -:,1d oak flreseer. "I stripped this
bed thls amle de'zlare., "sad I ain't ttme to make
it p yit." .he mattress tick wns split its full length, exposing
lumps of dingy cotton. 3ne ct another door, saying, "Come in
here. Thie is my bedroom." The tw.o iron beds in her room had
evidently z,zen !luch use end many cots of paint, hicn was flecking
off now and revealed Tore ten one color. 'here was no attempt at
orderly arragenent of the oek dresser, mano?any center table end
Its coal oil letrp, two rockers, end several split bottom chairs that
were scttered about st recA'e distance from the small heater.
10.
"Have a oeeer," wee her attempt at hospitality, "and
'scuse me whilst 1 fixes my hair." After several moments of
vigorous wielding of the comb, she began replaiting her hair in
tight braids that meandered at random ebout her head until the last
look of hair had been securely fastened in the braids. Few, if any,
hairpins were necessary, for the heir was gathered up in such a
manner that the braids did not form incipient "pigtails" but lay
close against the scalp. This chore finished, Mamie put on a black
heir, and said, "I'm going to git me somepin' Vest; I can't do
without food as long as you can." She returned in a short time with
a plate of biscuits and stewed fruit. "I would ask you to have some
of these peaches and biscuits but I knows you wouldn't eat nothin'
like this. This jaere fruit ain't got a bit of sugar in it 'cause
I didn't have none to sweeten it with.
"eorkint 'round doctors had done learnt me that you has to
eat keerful to keep well, even if you ain't got nothin' much to
spend on eats. Too much breed by itself ain't good for folks, and
these old peaches is got somethin' in 'em that I needs. 'Cordin' to
whet Ilse been told, they's better for me 'thout no su'ar no how.
One of the best doctors I works for when they's any work for me to
do evermo' fusses down if he finds any of his patients that's old
as I IS efitirly sugar on grapefruits even. He Eays middle-aged
folks ain't got no business stuffin' theyselfs with sweets and meats.
Not that I'll ever be eble to buy no TO/ grapefruits, let alone sugar
to go on 'em, lessen I can git 7rie some work to do.
11.
"No, mem, us don't awn this house. Us pays 47 a month for it. Us used
to pay $9 a month, but times got so tight the colored 'oman what awns it
had to out the rent 'cause us wasn't able to pay that much. All her
chillun got grown and she picked up and went off to Detroit with 'em.
Lord knows I couldn't pay no proper rent for a piece like this with a
levathry and plastered walls. I sho couldn't. Pse been livin' her*
five years this last gone August, long enough to own it.
"Shop I belongs to the church. 'sae a good old Baptist,
I is. hhy, I wasn't nothin' but a gel when I jined up with diiiorton's
Ohepel 9sptist Church 'most nigh ZO year ago.
"Now I knows I'se told you just about all the spe-unoes
I'se ever had, 8nd I can't stay no longer. And this is sho 'hough; I
'spects you to gimme five cents to ride to town on the bus, 'cause I'se
to tired .o %elk. I knows you'se 'blesged to be hongry, for one thing
;o, you steyrd riatt on here till you finished what you come for 'thout
nothin' t'e8t. That beets me how you done it, for I'se got to have my
oats on time. It's 'bout time for that bus. I thanks you for this
nickel."
On my second trip to Mamie's hhuse she sew me before I
reached the front door. "'rust open the door and come on in," she celled.
"What's the use of knockin' when I'se lookin' right at yhu. You sho doss
look hot, so have thet cheer over there by the window. A good breeze is
comin' in there. 8hst'6 you fetch me? eem's like to me if the govern-
ment's payin' you for this story, you oughts pay me pert of what you gits
outen it."
12.
Mamie was ironing. Her ironing board was resting on the
backs of split bottomed chairs. Large field rocks were placed on
the sects of the chairs to keep them from tilting under the vigorous
onslaught of her heavy iron. She was ironing e white uniform of the
type usually worn by nurses, and did not make any further attempt to
talk until the garment was carefully folded and placed across the
back of a rocking chair. Then she unfolded a tightly wadded piece
that proved to be a ragged pillow case and spred it out on the board.
"If you'se noticin' this pillow case you might as well know it's mine,
for I wouldn't wash nothing for white folks that was as ragged as
this for fear tney'd charge me for it claimin' I tore it up. Colored
folks has had things like that to happen, but don't ask me no
questions, for I ain't goin' to tell no tales like that. They's
apt to get Negroes into trouble, no matter how true they is.
'Did I tell you when you was here befo' that a lady that
works at the college brought her weshin' back to me lately after she
done took it away from me and give it to somebody else. She pays
me 750 a week for it now and it she is worth ever cent of it and mo'
besides. It tickled me for her to find out that other folks don't
wash as good as I does, and 'sides I just bet she had to pay mo' to
them others she tried out.
"The most I ever got in one week we 414 and tnat was on a
nursin' job. I'll never forgit what tne man said that hired me after
my $14 -a -week patient got to where she didn't need me no mo'. He
didn't offer me but 4J0 a week, and I didn't want to take 44 less
than I had been Fittin' and I told him so. 'Mamie,' he said, 'I don't
make much myself, but whatever I promise to pay you you'll git it
and you won't have to wait for it.' then I goes on a job I gives
my whole time, niht and day, 'oept for 4 hours a day rest period,
that cny doctor'll tell you a nurse ties gotta have if she is to
stay on the job and be able to do what the patient needs her to do.
Now you knows it10 a week ain't nothin' to pay for day and night
services, and White folks wouldn't think of expectin' white nurses
to work for such a little bit, and them white nurses does a heap
less than me.
"On my last job I didn't git to take'no 4 hours off ever'
day, for the patient told me she couldn't stay by herself a'tall.
I v,as on that job day end nif7ht two weeks without no extra pay for
-ver-time. These days, nursin' jobs is so hard to git that I'se home
m2re'n I'se off nursin'. I never had but three jobs of nursin' all
of last year; at one I stayed two weeks, three weeks at the second,
and I was on night duty six months straight at the last plaae.. Them
first two places paid me '410 a week, and I got a dollar a night for
the night duty.
"Ellen that's my baby gal got as far es the eighth
grade in school. She works lust any pleas she can git a job. Most
of her work's been cookin' and maidin', for that's all she knows how
to do. -henever a colored girl tries to git into some other sort
of work they's ellus asked, 'What 'ape'unce is you had?' If the new
work is dif'reat from what they's been doin', they don't git it.
How's they gwine to it 'spe'unce if nobody gives 'em a chanst? Answer
me that!"
14.
"1 don't know," I told her, "unless they take some sort
of training for it."
"ay gal ain't able to pay for that," Mamie answered. "aer
baby goes to the NPA nursery school, and that's a big help when I'se
off nursinl ond that baby's ma's off huntin' work. She 'most allus
Fits around three dollars a week when she's got work, and I reckon
she might work for less if anybody would hire her. But now ain't
it a sems for folks to have to work for less than it takes for 'en
to live on. then she ain't got no work, she lives on me and her
daddy; thnt's ell she can do. Then when she does it samepin to do
it takes all she csn make to feed and clothe her end her child and
to ray her pert of our rent. When she ain't workinl she just mopes
around ::ere with me and aer eddy. Sae ain't got no work now, and I
reckon sne's out )untins a job, for sae left out bright and early
this -ornin'.
"Our baby boy ain't married 7mot yit and he's workin' his
way through a school at Macon, Georgia. I don't know what he's gwine
t take up. The scool eits work for him to do. Aight now they're
tearine down old buildings on the campus and rebuilding 'em. My boy
cleans them bricks end does anythin' else that comes to hand. I
promised to rervide his clothes, but I ain't been able to give him
nary u rment this yeer, 'cause 1 ain't hed no money to pay for no
clothes with. This is his first year off from home, and he gits
mighty homesick. He writes us they don't give him enoueh to eat down
t ere. You see, me being nurse, I knows 'bout diet and things
like that and I as to knov now to feed folks so as they eat*Ill do
15.
the most good, and that's ho ,N come eetin' away from home don't
satisfy none of my fembly.
"My oldest daughter went to the tenth grade, and since
she's been out tryin' to holp make a livin' she's done 'bout
ever'thing that come to hand. She ain't never been able to give us
much towards ayin' for eats, and rent, and the like, for it's allus
took all she made to take keer of her own self. All my chillun
holps me end they daddy with the fambly 'sponses when they's home
and rkin', but more'n often we has to holp them. But it was
this oldest gal of ours I was tellin' you 'bout. She done maidin' at
a big furniture and undertakin' store here and made 44 a week long
as she could hold out at it, and lemme tell you them folks had lotsa
furniture for her to keep dusted and cleaned up. She was about the
onliest one of my chillun that ever kept a study job. Since she got
married her health's been so bad she has to stay in bed most of the
time, and she don't give me one nickle no mo'. The doctor says she
be
won't never/well no mo'. 'till she has a operation. She ain't able
to nay for that and Lhe lord knows I ain't able to give it to 'er.
"Our oldest boy lives in this town but he can't never seem
to It nothin' much to do. He had to stop school to go to work in a
drug store at a week. He's got leas schoolin' than any of the
others, for he never went further'n the fourth grade. His wife gits
two dollars end a half a week cookin' for a white 'omen that just
keeps ner half the day. She ain't borned but one child since she and
our on t:ot married, and that little boy ain't big 'nough to do
tv)thin' but go to sollool yit.
16.
"All our chillun worked ever' day after school was out,
soon as they was big 'nough and could git the work to do. The
girls nursed. The most I ever got from their workin' after school
and all day Seddays wes a dollar and a half a week apiece, but as a
rule I just got a dollar apiece. I took the money and bought books,
tablets, pencils, and shoes and clothes. bchool supplies wasn't
furnished by the State then, and by the time I paid out for all them
things, there never was enough left to dress 'em right. They allus
worked in vacation times if they could find the work to do. It was
lots easier for 'em to find summertime work thdn it was in school
time, for folks wanted workers tnat could stay all day on the job.
Both the boys done -ost of they work 'twixt school hours at drug
stores, carryin' packages, weitin' on curb trade, and data' all
sorts of odd jobs 'bout them stores.
"Wien I first come to this town to live I didn't have no
nursin' job, so I started out takin' in wasein' for the mill folks.
ry prices was all 'cordin' to how many was in the famblies, 'bout
a quarter of a dollar for each person in the fambly. here a fambly
had a papa, a mama, and one child, I usual]y got 'bout seventy-five
cents a week, and if they was five folks in the fambly they had to
for
pay me a dollar and a quarter/a week's washin'. Takin' it all in all,
by and large, l'se seent mo' of my life washin' than nursin'. There
ain't been no rest for me only on eundays, and not then when l'ae got
nurain' job, for I -es to work to feed my fambly.
17.
"My husband mixes o:orter. When he can it 'nough work to
do con make as nuca as 45 or 46 a week, but he don't 'aerdly ever
eit .nore'n two weeks work in any 4onth, and oftentimes not that much.
fo.!)As won't hive 'im no other sort of work, end no mo, of it
just 3 week or two, aow and then.. Folks Oellin' 'round here that
the white folks is done passed a law not to work middle -age men.
:het ay be FO, bot tlicy don't give colored folks no jobs no how,
'eAfJe If ywould give my on C job, he could tolp take teem of
us. My 'zuous thc iLorter business just like his daddy; yet and
st,113, he'll Oo anythin' he can find to do, but then he can't git a
job.
''Now, you olay not believe me, Miss, but ".'se gwine tell you
the truth, i-hen L,z don't have no work to du, us just eets 'round here
hongry. Olght now lily house rent is way past due, and tiLat rentin'
agent ie talkin"bout puttin' us out iffen he don't it *10 to go
on back rtnt ri6Lt ick. Us abed to ie.y our rent 'direct to tne
'omen whtit owns the house. She lives in Detroit, like I done told
you when you was oere befo'. She got so tired foolin' with us gittin'
behind so often and payin' in little old driblets, that she turned
it over to 8 hard-boiled agent that'll set yo, things in the street
in e hurry when you don't pay like he tells you to. We knows now
we's got to git the rent cash from solmoers and give it to 'im on
thc, dot.
"Ri4;ht now, our water bill is on the cut-off list again,
iceusc Us Owes somepin more'n three dollars on back bills. They
ain't cut it ocr yit, but tOey's apt to any minute. A notice come in
toe -mail this mornin' from the 'lectrio light folks, sayin' iffen us
18.
don't pay that i2.66 us owes for lights they's gwine to cut 'em off.
well, if they does, just start using oly old kerosene lamp again.
"I's e tellin' you what's the truth; things is in a
WOrner condition now than they's ever been in befo', since I come
on t ie earth. When I was first married, 'bout thirty year ago, it
wasn't no effort to 3tep out and get a job. If things got tight in
town a person could go to the country and git mit in the fields to
holp out. Now you can't git nothin' to do in the country, for whet
few white folks is still runnin' farms ain't able to pay out much for
wages. My cousin that lives in the country has a wife and eight chillun
to bed, feed, and clothe, and le don't it but sixty cents a day. his
wife has two little washin's. Come springtism, the Chillun totes
cotton seed and guano and drape corn. They chops cotton and in the
fall they picks it, but none of them little jobs pays 'nough to pay
for the clothes tliey rots out with sweat whilst they's doin' the work.
"It used to be !most any fambly could grow 'nough corn,
wheat, potatoes, and sugarcene for syrup, to last 'em all winter.
Now them folks whet carries out government orders has cut down on 'em
so, they don't have 'nough home-relsed victuals Vest. I will say for
'em, they ain't cut down on potatoes and other vedibles yit just
mostly corn, wheat, and sugarcane, and, Oh, yes, I mustn't forgit,
they's got hard-boiled 'bout how much tobacco a man can raise. I
reckon the folks that's at the tiptop head of the government knows
whet they's doin' when they fixes up they plans, but I don't believe
they meant for the folks that carries out the orders to run things
19.
like they 4oes. If things was done Just like our President wants 'em
done I don't believe there'd be no hongry folks, or no folks sufferin'
for lack of fire to warm by in cold weather, and no little chillun
stayin' out of school, 'cause they ain't got no clothes to wear to the
schoolhouse in winter weather.
"White folks in gen'rel don't have no idea how us colored
folks is sufferin'. If us wee to try to carry our troubles to 'en, like
us used to when ever' colored fambly hed some white fambly to look to,
they wouldn't listen to us now. We wouldn't it nowhere with our story
for they's Fot troubles of they own. Since freedom come, the colored
folks is done come so far from what they was befo' the war that White
folks don't feel 'sponsible for 'em no mot.
"'Most all colored folks in town tries to carry insurance
to holp out when they gits sick and 'nough to bury 'em with. Ilse got one
polish I pays 250 a week on. But country folks don't have no way to make
extra twenty five cen-ses to pay on no insurance polish. It used to be
they could bring chickens end eggs, vedibles, or Whatever else they might
hove sometimes lelons and fruits to town and swap 'em at the stores
for coffee, sugar, and other things they needed. Now they don't have
them things to bring, and if they does bring 'em, they can't swap 'em
for nothin'. When a person that ain't got no insurance and no money
dies, toey's buried like a cat or a dog without no embalmln,. You can't
I s
iect them undertakers to do embalmins fr nothins; It's tapeneive.
"When us first come to town to live, for a 'amen to make
£0.
$4 a week washing was con-sidered big money. It took a heap of work
to make that much; I knows, 'cause I done it. My husband worked for
tie city till he fell off of one of them city trucks and broke his
collar bone. After he got well they wouldn't take him back, even if
he did git hurt doing they work just like they told him to. Up to the
time of his fell he was making 49a week, but since that time he Makes
whatever folks is minded to pay him.
"Let me tell you the God's truth: Since 1932 lots of
colored foX heS died nongry. Looki See haw big this dress hang*
on roe. I've lost ten pounds, and ever' pound of.it was lost 'cause
I didn't have 'nough Vest. I'll be glad if I ever see the day again
,,C,en I can put my foots under somebody's table and eat a belly full
one more time.
'Not long ao I axed a white 'omen why colored folks couldn't
git no work to do. She told e the Negro race had brought it on they-
selfs. She said that when times was 400d and white folks would go to
hire a cook or a nurse they would be told: 'Us ain't working out no
mn'. Us is looking for a cook, a washerwoman, or a nurse ourselfs.!
She say our sassy ways like that is why the white folks don't pay us no
mog heed since times is done got so tight they ain't no jobs for us.
"It ain't been long since I axed a white 'omen to loan me
.4 to holp me out of a awful tight. She lied when she told me with a
straight face tt she just didn't have it. I knowed she did have it,
gcFLuse some of her folks had just died and left her a sight of money.
The only way she could eke be believe she ain't got it now would be to
git the Good lord to come down as a natural man, and tell me she ain't
eot t,hnt much money che don't need that she could loan me. One thing
sho, these folks that's got so such can't take none of Width 'elm,
an all right, I say, let sea keep they old money. Say, listsn, now
ain't the ;overman% got some sort of °Mee in this town where they can
loan out money to holy pore folks to git book on they foots after they's
done got down and out? No, I don't mean no Rural Mohebte business; 1
means just straight out loan? Wall, iffen you don't know 'bout its
don't '.pest they's no *Loh plow, hers; but if they was they sho
would do a big heap of business,
"A little flour and very little Goff** is all they is in
this housts Vest today. Soon as I gits the 'Ng for this washino I aims
to take it and buy us momo meat. ky husband ain't had but one day's
work this week and he won't git no pay befoo Sadday, sind that day's work
don't oame to but a dollar.
wThe older doctors used to look out for us prestige/ nurses,
but these younguns whet's dole the doatorin' now don't do that no moo.
And I liked the ways the older doetors bad of look/no after sick folks
lots betteen 1 does the young doctor's ways. Woo one of them old-
time doctors would leave, they'd ax you lots of questions 'bout how you
meant to handle the patient till they found how much you knowed, and
then they'd tell you how in such a. nice way that it seemed like they
was just offerin' suggestions, but you knowed betteen to tail to do
what they suggested. These hero young doatore rushee in and out like
bats out of torment, and beta' you knows it thoy's gone without tellino
you nothint. Yet, if anythin' goes wrong it's she to be all your fault.
They ain't quite all of the youngsters that bad. I worked for one young
NE.
doctor here last year that advised with me plenty and allue axed me
question* till he was satisfied I knowed how to treat his patient.
Take them old doetors; when one of then some to see patient and
saw be was suffOring he allus give something to ease the pain if it
wes needed. These yore youngunts just stays long enough to take the
temperature, feel the pulse, and tell the nurse to slap a Lei Sep on
the patient's heed till the ambulanee can git there to take gin to the
hawspital. Then the pore nurse is left without no job, and the patient
is teeing the expense of a operation. Gimme them good old doctors
do you hear me? any day in the week.
"When a dootor takes a patient that's got moaey to the
hawspital, he's charged like 130 going North,' but if sick folks and
they famblies ain't got nothing the charges is sometimes reasonable
enough for operations and etch like. I ain't never had to pay for
none of then things for myself, 'cause I ain't never been to no
hawspital to be cut nowheres, and I hopes I never will have to go.
"I knows I axed you the last time you was here, but, hiss,
in all your gittin' 'round and talking to so many folks, don't you never
hear of no job you could pint out to met I ain't only a good nurse
and a washerwoman, but I eau cook good too. I don't like cooking, but
can do it, and do a fine job of it, if I do say so my own self. One
thing sho, I ain't able to do no me big heavy washings like I used to,
but if I can't git me nothing else to do I'll have to git another
small washing. Now, why don't you lease try your washing? I knows you'd
113.
like the way I does washin' and Rememboring how often
had seen her spit on the clothes when I was taking her. first inter-
view, I hastily told Mamis that mine was a hesvy washing, for my
children in school nestled so many clothes that it would be too mush
of a burden on her.
"Yon she don't neitt me to tell you no no'," she grumbled,
"for I'se don. told you all I over did know, and 'sides Ifse hongry
now and I wants to hurry through this ironin' so I oat go after my
money end git me somepin t'eat." Recognising her intention to end
the conversation, I gathered up my notes and prepared to leave.
"If you ever does have to oome back, tell them government
folks you works for to send we some money for this talkie I'so done
for you." As I started out of her room, Mamie said, "'Souse me, Miss,
for not stoppin' to go to the door with you, but I can't play with
this yore 'leotrio iron, like I could them old flat irons us used to
heat on chsrooal buckets." She stuck a finger in her mouth and then
aIplied it to the iron. I oould hear the sisals of the spittle, which
proved to her that the iron was hot enough to work on starched clothes.
thanked her and left. She called after alp, "Don't you forgit to write
it down straight that I ain't no midwife yit. They puts folks in jail
that says they's midwifes and osn't show no 'stificate."