Description
Strange Meeting. Aged Sisters Brought Together at Van Buren, Arkansas. (excerpted from longer article) - - That truth is stranger than fiction…was recently shown in this city (Van Buren, Arkansas) when two negro women, one aged 70 and the other 59 years, and sisters, met for the first time in their lives.
Their narrative was a weird one, as they led their listeners back over a period of 60 years to the old slave plantation of Colonel J. H. Thompson, near Paducah, Kentucky, where Anna Thompson, or Mrs. Anna White, as she is now known, labored in the fields of her master beside her slave parents.
In 1838, Captain A. S. Smith of Jasper County, Missouri, appeared at the plantation of Colonel Thompson to collect a debt of $1000 due the former. Her master was unable to meet his obligation in cash, and she, as her masters chattel, was offered in payment.
She was given no time to say goodbye. From the little cabin she was let out to the front gate by her father, and placed behind Smith, who was on horseback, amid the lamentations of her fellow slaves, who stood in their cabin doors and waved her a farewell that meant as long as life should last.
The long tedious journey was made to Jasper County, Missouri, where she remained until after the war broke out, when Captain Smith took her, with 40 other slaves, into Texas, and, later, where they were given their freedom. From Texas, Anna Thompson came to Van Buren, Arkansas, where she married Sam White in 1870, and where she has resided ever since.
(text omitted) One year after she (Anna) was sold away from her old home, another pickaninny was born to her slave parents and was christened Drucilla.
As she grew in years, her old black mother, as they toiled side-by-side, told her of her sister sold from their cabin door and carried off, and that of her they had never heard a word. (Following Emancipation) The Thompson slaves separated, and time found Drucilla living near Leavenworth, Kansas, where she married a negro farmer by the name of Barrett.
After coming to Van Buren, Anna White, through other ex-slaves who had moved here from near Paducah, learned that a sister had been born to her a year after she was sold."
In 1896 Sam White was a delegate to the colored I. O. O. F. from Van Buren. James Johnson of Leavenworth was also a delegate. White made inquiries and learned that Drucilla was living near Leavenworth in indigent circumstances. Sam White told Anna of his discovery and a letter was sent to Drucilla Barrett. Anna and Drucilla began correspondence and eventually Anna White saved enough money to bring Drucilla to Van Buren for the first meeting of sisters.Date(s) of Creation
1/3/1899