Description
Mrs. Harriet Harper, who lives with her grandson, Ed. Freeman, at 927 North Eighth Street, will be 93 years of age (born ~1815) if she lives till the 28th of next December, and she is a fine example of the old-time colored ex-slave. Polite, and kind, and interesting. one can easily imagine after a talk with her how great was the attachment that often sprang up between white children and the colored “mammies” before the war. Mrs. Harper was born in Logan County, Kentucky, and while she had lived in slavery the greater part of her life, she never knew what it was to be mistreated, or sold on the block. She belonged to a man named Hardin, and after his death became the inheritance of his son. She married a man named Freeman who belonged to a man 4 miles away, and twice a week. after doing his work and his chores, Freemen would walk the 4 miles to see his wife, walking back 4 miles before daybreak in the morning. This was all she saw of him for 10 years, during which time 3 children were born. Her husband was then sold and transported to Liberia, and she says that “it liked to have killed her.” She never heard a word from him after that, and at the beginning of the war was married to Louis Harper, and they came to Atchison over 40 years ago. Mrs. Harper was a famous washerwoman in her day: For 12 years after they came here, she washed 6 days in the week, but kept so well that she never took a dose of medicine. Her husband lay helpless with paralysis a year and nine months before his death, and her three children are dead. Almost 93 years of sorrow! Mrs. Dickey, an ex-slave living south of town, calls herself a “night rider;” She rides out at night to bring the babies into the world. Mrs. Harper, when asked if she ever had a doctor when sick in slavery, said that when her babies were born, they always sent for a “granny woman.” She had never heard of the “night rider.”Date(s) of Creation
10/22/1908
