Texas Slave Narratives

Texas Slave Narrative

  Lucinda Smith

Lucinda Smith weights four-hundred and ninety pounds. She is known by the colored people as "Miss Wichita." She lives in a shack at 805 Waco Street, in the colored addition. Her right hand is deformed from a serious burn. She does not know the month or the day of month of her birth; but thinks it was sometime in fall '79 -- probably November. My name is Lucinda Smith . I was bo'n in Downville, Texas, November -- well I dosen't know zackly when. It was sometimes in the fall. I isn't sure what day of the month. My name befo' I was married was Stewart . I'se been married twice't. My first husband's name was Jones . We was married two years; then Mr. Jones died. I didn't stay a widow long till I married Mr. Smith . We was friends befo' Mr. Jones died. We had eight chillens. They is two girls living, and six daid. My mother was a slave on the Jenkins Plantation near Waco, Texas. Her Massa was Lee Jenkins . He was a young man. My mother wo'k hard in the fields. She had to plow and plant crops. My father was killed. The team he was driving ran away; he fell off the wagon and broke his neck. I don't 'member much mo' wh'at my mother told me. When I come to Wichita Falls, in 1919, I weighed two-hundred and fifty pounds; in 1920 I weighed five hundred and five pounds. I 'cided to reduce, so next time I weighed I just weighed four-hundred and ninety pounds. I weighed at the bus station. I got seventy cents for consentin' to weigh. I did laundry work for years and years, but my health won't let me do hard physical work. Seem lak my heart's bad. You see that po' hand? You want me to tell you how it happen? Well, this way it was. When I was a little baby about three months old, my mother tied me in a rocker and left my little brother to watch me, and she went out to milk the cows. My little brother got to rocking so hard he rocked me over into the fireplace, that is how I know I was bo'n in the fall 'case I was three months old then, and that was winter time. I love to go to church but I can't go now, I can't walk far. I belong to the Pilgrims Rest Church. Yas'm, thank you, ma'am. Come again some time.


BACK TO TEXAS "S" SLAVE NARRATIVE INDEX