Document text
STATE Few York
NAME OF WORKER
F rms io be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM
Circumstarces o Irterviz_Adv
Dorothy West
mnmEss 131 ':i. 110 St. Jew York
DATE Joy er,i1;er
SUBJECT
1938
'212:2.THA L.
1. Date and time of inteP,Yiew
iovember 9, 1938 1-3 F
2. Place of interview
Informantts rented room.
3. Name and addresL 6` i:fortra1i1.
Mrs. 1,artha
20 111th 3t.
iew York City
4. Name and addres-.; oP persnn, if any, w-:ko put yoa in
touch with informant,
flown to interviewer
5. Name and addref3s of person, if any, accompanying you
hone
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc,
Adequately furnished bedroom in larL;e flEt in averE
ne'hloorhood.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
mid hi e class
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
Personal R12tory uf Informant
STATE New York
NAME OF VOTIKER Dorothy West
MHTESS131 W. 110 S. New York
DAIF November 9, 1938
MtsjECT TALES:- INTERVIEW WITH MLS. MARTHA L.
1, Ancestry
American Negro.
2. Place and date of birth
New York City 1872
3. Family
Married daughter who lives elsewhere.
4. Places live' in, 'Alth dat(
New York City all her life.
5. Education, With aes
Possitly finished grade school.
6. Occupations and accompliOtme,ntF, with date
Maid in private home for several years.
7. Special skills and interests
Spiritualism (landlady is a spiritualist)
8. Community and religious activities
FOLKLORE
NE' YORK
In failing health, but when able she attends Salem Methodist
9. Description of informant Church
Tall, thin, pale Yellow in color. Powders heavily. Wears hair
piled in coils on top of her head. Has sharp, emaciated face,
10. Other Points gained in iuterview almost witch -like in appearance.
Eone.
FORM C
Text of Interview (rnedic,e'-3)
STATE New York
IWT OF VaIITR. Dorothy West.
ADDRESS 131 W. 110 St. New York
DATE November 9, 1938
SUBJECT TALES: -INTERVIEW WI= MRS. MARTHA L.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
My mother had four sisters, and they all lived in Brooklyn.
It was a rule in our family at least among my mother's people -not to
ever strike any of the children. My mother and my aunts always ruled
their husbands, and they were very clannish. When they talked about
each other and themselves they said the "Harveys". That was my mother's
maiden name. Their marriage names didn't count. One day one of my
uncle's slapped one of his children. The child's mother wasn't at
home and he ran over to one of his aunt's houses and told her that his
father had hit him. That aunt gathered her other sisters and they
collected at that uncle's house. They fussed at him the aunts did
and told him he had no business hitting a child. He told them that
it was his own child, and that he had a right to hit him if he wanted
to. They stayed there fussing and told him they dared him to ever hit
that child again. They waited, all of them, until the child's mother
came home, and then they started fussing at her for marrying a man
who would hit his child. They,wound up telling her that she had no
business marrying him in the first place. They told her that my
grandfather hadn't wanted her to marry him anyhow. They didn't
care how bad my poor uncle felt. They were just keeping up the Ilarvey
clannishness, and running each others families.
-2-
11.
You know, a long time ago they didn't embalm people the way
they do now. Plenty people used to be buried alive. Like this, now.
When I was a little girl, one of my mother's friends died. They used
to go and sit up with the body more than they do now. Well, my mother
couldn't go sit up with her friend's body, so she took an hour to go
to the house to see the body and console with the relatives. She took
me and two of my cousins who were about my age. The body was down-
stairs. My mother had to go upstairs for something I don't remember
what it was now- and the people who were downstairs went up, too. My
mother told us to be quiet and stay downstairs.
You know how kids are. We were quiet for a little while, then
we got up and started prowling around the room. We went over and looked
in the casket. There wasn't any glass over the top the way there is
now. But we weren't afraid a bit. It was the first dead person I had
ever seen, and I guess I thought she was just sleeping. Well, while w e
were looking at her, she raised up in the casket sat up like she was
in a chair -and tried to say something to us. Then she fell back down.
When my mother came back downstairs, we tried to tell her about it, but
she told us to be still. After we got outside, she asked what we had
been talking bbout, and we told her. She said that the woman couldn't
have sat up in the casket or said anything to us because she was dead.
'Course when I got old enough to figure things out for myself, I de-
cided that the woman was in a trance.
-3-
I told you my folks lived in Brooklyn, Well, a family come
up from the South moved next door to my Aunt Lucy. They seemed like
nice folks and were neighborly and quiet. One day the woman from next
door I've forgot her name -came rushing in to my Aunty Lucy. She told
her that she had been conjured. Aunt Lucy just laughed and told her
that the Harveys didn't believe in conjuring, and that there wasn't
any such thing as conjuring. I guess the woman went back home after that.
Then about a week later, she fell sick in bed. Aunt Lucy
went to see her, and the woman told her ggain that she had been conjured.
Aunt Lucy still didn't put any stock in it, and the woman didn't say
much to her about it after that. But she kept getting worse. It took
her a long tie to have a doctor because she kept saying that it
wouldn't do any good since she had been conjured. But after the doctor
started coming, she didn't seem to get any better. Then, one other
time when my Aunt Lucy went to see her, she told Aunt Lucy to look
under the back steps when she left to go home. Just to keep her quiet,
Aunt Lucy told her alright. And do you know that Aunt Lucy found a
little bag like that tobacco comes in under the steps. It was full
of something. Aunt Lucy didn't open it to see what it was because she
said she didn't want no part of the mess. She took the bag in to the
woman. When she showed it to her, she started screaming and carrying
on and told Aunt Lucy to take the bag in the kitchen and put it in
the stove and burn it. Aunt Lucy did but she always said she thought
it was foolish. When Aunt Lucy got ready to go home, the woman told
her to look on her kitchen window and shelf find some little balls
like berries off the waxberry bush -on the window sill. Sure enough,
Aunt Lucy did find them, but she always said that the woman next-door
had them put there.
The woman started to get better after Aunt Lucy burned that
little bag. She swore that she would have died if Aunt Lucy hadn't
found that bag and burnt it. Aunt Lucy asked her how she knew it
was there, and how she knew those berries would be on her window -sill,
and the woman said that she had a feeling they were there. 'Course
I don't believe it myself, I guess. But it did seem funny that that
bag and those berries were right where she said they were. It looked
kind of funny, too, when she started getting well after the bag was
burnt. But Aunt Lucy s aid that she just happened to t ake a turn for
the better right long through there, and after all, she did have a
doctor.
FORK D
Extra Comment
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Dorothy West
ADDRESS 131 W. 110th S. New York
DATE November 9, 1938
SUBJECT TALES:GINTERVIEW WITH MRS. MARTHA L.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
Mrs. L. (who wished to have ner name witheld) appears to
have a wealth of interesting stories to tell, but she either stops
midway in relating a sotry or prohibits the use of the story because
she says that it might be detrimental to her landlady. The stories
which she tells have mostly to do with conjuring and spiritualism.
She has indicated that she had a very interesting childhood, and the
interviewer will continued to go to see her in an effort to record
the stories of her childhood.