Sallie Wroe

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"Befo' I's married, I's Sallie Burdette. De white folks tell me I's born eighty-one years ago. I reckon I's dat old. I know I's born on Massa Mike Burdette's cotton plantation at Burdette Prairie, right close to Austin, and mammy's name was Het Burdette. She chopped and picked cotton and been dead long time. John Burdette was my pappy and he was jes' a reg'lar fieldman, too. Pappy been dead, mercy, so long!

"Massa Burdette had a overseer and he sho' rough. I think his name must be Debbil, he so rough. My sister, Mollie, was weaver at de loom, and iffen she didn't git out 'nough for de day she am tied up in sittin' form and whipped hard. She had stripes all over de shoulders.

"Dere was a whole row of log cabins close to de big house and de roofs was made of clapboards. It didn't rain in none. De only openin' was de door, no windows. Dere was mud and stick chimnies and a dirt floor. It wasn't no better dan a corncrib but purty warm in winter, 'cause de holes chinked with mud.

"Massa Burdette 'low us nigger chillen come to de big house at night and his chillen larn us to read. Dey had blue-back spellers, but I didn't cotch on much and can't read or write now.

"Pappy a purty good man, 'siderin' he a slave man. One day pappy and Uncle Paul and Uncle Andy and Uncle Joe was takin' bales of cotton on ox wagons down to de Rio Grande. Each man was drivin' a ox wagon down to Brownsville, where dey was to wait to meet Massa Burdette. But pappy and de others left de wagons 'long de river bank and rolled a bale of cotton in de river and all four of dem gits on dat bale and rows with sticks 'cross over into Mexico. Dis was durin' de war. Pappy come back to us after freedom and say he done git 'long fine with Mexico. He larnt to talk jes' like dem.

"Me and mammy stays on at Massa Burdette's place de whole time pappy am gone. It was on June 19 we was made free and Massa Burdette say iffen we stays on his place and gather de crops, he give each of us a free eggnog. We ain't never got no eggnog befo' so it sound purty good and we stays and gathers de crops. But dat eggnog made me sick.

"My cousin Mitchell come and got us and brung us to Chapel Hill. He done rent him a farm dere and looks out for us till pappy comes back. He brung some money back from Mexico and taken us all to Brenham and buyed us some clothes. Den he moved us up to Austin and done any work he could git. I stayed home till 1874 and den married John Wroe, and he rented land and farmed and died in 1927.

"We raises eleven chillen and dey all good and 'haved. All my grandchillen calls me 'Big Mama,' but I's so li'l now dey ought to call me 'Li'l Mama.' I owns dis li'l farm. John saved 'nough money to buy it befo' he died. I gits a li'l pension and my daughter works and when she's workin' my grandchil' takes care of me."