Stepney Underwood; from the Library of Congress Collection
Remembering Slavery: 
Those Who Survived Tell Their Stories
 
And one more thing I want you to promise me:  
that you's gonna tell all the children my story.
--Papa Dallas Stewart
Their Voices: 
microphoneAudio clips are set to automatically begin; transcripts appear below. 
 
Laura 
Smalley
(beating)
Age: about 91
                                  Interview Place: Hempstead, TX
                                 Interview Date: September 27, 1941
                            Interviewers: John Henry Faulk and Hally Faulk
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    And when she -- Mr. Bethany come home, she was crying. And Mr. Bethany asked her what was the matter, you know. She told Miss Adeline Miss -- Aunt Martha Albert hurt her -- hurt her wrist. And, uh, she -- they asked her then, says, uh, "What you doing in this house here hurting old mistress?" Said, "She wasn't hurting no old mistress she was just, when mistress started whip her she sot her down." But they taken that old woman -- poor old woman -- carried her in the peach orchard and whipped her. And you know, just tied her hand this-a-way, you know, 'round the peach orchard tree. I remember that just as well look like to me I can't and 'round the tree and whipped her. Well she couldn' do nothing but just kick her feet, you know, just kick her feet. But the, they, they had her clothes off down to her waist, you know. They didn' have her plum naked, but they had her clothes down to her waist. And every now and then they'd whip her, you know and then snuff the pipe out on her you know just snuff pipe out on her. You know, the embers in the pipe. I don' know whether you ever seen a pipe smoking.  
    JHF: Blow them out on her? 
    LS: Uh huh. 
    JHF: Good Lord have mercy. 
    LS: Blow them out on her. 
Gaston, Alice (AL)   |   Hughes, Fountain (MD)   |   McCrea, Billy (TX)  | McDonald, Joe (AL)   |  Moseley, Isom (AL) | Smalley, Laura (TX), beating    | Smalley, Laura(TX), child care     |  Smith, Harriet (TX)  |  
Faulk, John Henry (interviewer)   |  Epilogue  
 
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These pages are maintained by Dr. Jeutonne Brewer and Timothy Flood for the Institute of Language and Culture.  So that they can be accessible by as wide-ranging an audience as possible, these pages  are frame-free and java-free   Last updated September 28, 1998.