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15th. St.
West Durham, N. C.
September 9, 1938
I. L. M.
IDA ALLT
She seems hewn from rough granite, this woman
who sits in her front room and talks while her slowly
changing expression brings at long intervals a kindly,
creeping smile to her ruddy face. Her features though
definite and firm in outline have a roughness which
makes one think the chiseler laid down his tools before
the surface had been smoothed. Change and time have
moved about her and brought ege to her body, but her
mind has remained impervious to change. The beliefs
of her childhood are the mainstay of her old age.
A tiny light of learning came into her life as
a child, tnd with creditable effort she clung to it
and passed it on in such measure as she could to her
own children.
I shall set down in her own words the story of
Ida Allen as she told it to me the other day while
set with her in her front room which contained a
cheap settee, two chairs, a table, end a linoleum rug.
"I was born in Chatham County, the second of Sid
Reagin's six children. Pa was a good mall, always
sober and a steady worker. He was thoughtful of Ma
and took the best care of her he knowed how. Ma was
a weekly woman end Pa seen to it that she stayed in
bed for four or five weeks after each one of her
children was born. He had a doctor with her every
time too, and not all poor folks in them days had
doctors.
"Before going to the field of a morning at such
times when lie was ailing, he'd lift her outa bed end
set her in a chair. When she got weary of settinl
I'd go end eall Pa, end he'd come and put her in the
bed agin.
"Before he was married Pa had fought to help
free the colored people. He never believed that
slavery was right and it taint. Pa never had much
of a chance hisself and he never learned to write his
name. For generations we've been poor people and
before me there was none in the family could read.
Take Pa though; he'd been glad of a little schooling
if there'd been any way for him to get it. I'll tell
you why I know in a minute.
"Pa sent me to a four month's school that cost
him a dollar a month. They wasn't free schools in
them days end only a few got learning. But it was in
me to learn more than I could get in them four months.
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We lived on Stroud's place then and Mrs. Stroud was
my Sunday school teacher. She seen how well I done
my Sunday school lesson and she took to havin0 me
come to her house for school lessons. I got to -where
I could do fair zeadinl and writin, and figurin'. They
was plenty in them days that got all the schoolin, they
ever had from Sunday school teachers that was willin,
to teach them for nothinl.
"Now comini back to Pa end the reason I think
he'd been proud of t little learning. I've never
knowed e person that loved to hear readint more than
him. I got to where I could reed any pert of the Bible
with fair undorstandin', and of a night after he'd gone
to bed, tired out from a hard day's work, I'd set and
read to him by the light of a light'ood knot. He loved
most of all to heel* about the kings of Israel.
wThey wasn't any foolishness ttall about Pa and
his younguns was never seen at no sort of party. He
said a party was a place where young folks got in
trouble and he was goin, to help us stay outa trouble.
Till this day I ain't never been to no party and to no
picture show neither.
::Folks seem awful careless about love in these
times to me. It taint a good thing for young girls
to read these love story magazines and such like. Hit
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puts ideas in they heads that's got no business there.
I've never read no love story of no kind. Love ain't
nothinl to be trifled with, and as for gain' with first
one and then the other I think its a pure sin.
"They was one boy that come courting me and I
married him. Bob Allen and me played together when we
was children, end then after we was both growed up he
took to walkin, home with me from Sunday School of a
Sunday. He was twenty-three and I was twenty when we
got married. Bob was a wage hand then, getting twenty
dollars a month. He kept on at that job and I worked
such little patches as I could get. When the children
come along and was big enough to work I sometimes
raised two bales of cotton a year. We had our own
hogs end a cow, and we lived right well.
"Then Bob's health give away. He took down with
the consumption and he knowed he didn't have long to
live. He said that me end the children couldn't make
a living on the farm and he wanted to move to the cotton
mill where the children could take care of theyselves.
They worked children in the mills them days. You know,
little ones not more than nine oriten year old.
"We moved to Carrboro and the children went to
work. They never made much but put together it was
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enough to feed us. Then I took in washing for awhile
till I got a chance to go to work in the mill. In less
than two years Bob had wasted away with the consumption
and died. We was a long time payin, for his buryinc>
"Eighteen year ago we moved to Durham. We worked
some at East Durham and then got on here at West Durham.
"My children are all married now with families
of they own all except Louise. Last week she drewed
$9 from the mill and it's like that most times. They
send her out for restinl pretty near a day out of every
week and she don't have a chance to draw full pay. Me
and her and my son's child live on that. My son lied
was killed on the railroad and he left his wife with
five children. I took Annie, next to the youngest,
to raise and since they ain't no way for me to make
money the burden falls to Louise.
"I've got one son making $18 a week when he don't
have to rest none but he's got six children to support
outa that. His daughter Ella had to be operated on
for the appendicitis in June and he's still payin, on
her doctor's bill.
"They's not a child I've got that's really able
to take care of me. (put in for the old age pension,
and after a long time it started comin, and come three
0.
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months. How I don't get it no more. If I had education
enough to put my reasonin0 down on paper, I'd write a
-letter to Governor Hoey and explain to him that I'm
almost compelled to have that $10 a month if I keep on
livin'. tone of my children can write it for me either
because they ain't got no more learnin' than me) it
was never so I could send them to school much, and most
of what they know is what I learnt 'em myself. I've
not got one that caint read and write some though.
"Old ones caint get jobs no more, you know. I'm
seventy-two. Maybe if they caint get it straightened
out about the old age pension they'll pass a law for
doinl away with us old ones that's in the way. (y,
:)Lord, its a queer sort of world.11