Ida Jackson & Mattie T. Stevens

DR. ROBERT LUCKETT: This is Saturday, September the 17th, 2016. My name is Robby Luckett. We are at the Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center. First of all, do I have your permission to record this interview?

IDA JACKSON: Yes.

MATTIE T. STEVENMTS: Yes.

RL: Could you begin by telling me your name and spelling it?

IJ: Ida Mae Jackson, I-D-A M-A-E J-A-C-K-S-O-N.

RL: And yourself?

MTS: I’m Mattie Stevens, her sister. My name is Mattie T. Stevens, and it’s M-A-T-T-I-E T initial S-T-E-V-E-N-S.

RL: I’d like to begin, just have you tell us a little bit about where you’re from, your parents, how you grew up. Either one of you could start.

IJ: Okay. We’re from Satartia, out 00:01:00from Yazoo City, and we was livin’ in a big house with my great-grandmother who lives in there [ph], and she was a real Indian. I got a picture of her. And my granddaddy was livin’ in there. My grand-mama was livin’ in there, my uncle, and my daddy, and my mother, and my auntie, and us five children was born in there, from my mother and my daddy. And I thought one time my auntie was my mother, ’cause she was the young lady in the house, and she paid us a lot of attention. And everybody went to the cotton field, but great-grand-mama, she stayed in the house and watched us and took care of us while they were in the cotton field. And I understand that the cotton field belonged to my granddaddy, and so we grew 00:02:00up in that house til I got three years old, and I had two sisters over me Name them? Carrie [sp?] [inaudible] Thompson [sp?], and Georgia Mae Thompson [sp?], and me, myself, Ida Mae Jackson, and then Marie [sp?], my sister, Thompson, and my brother, George Lee Thompson [sp?].

And so we all lived right on the Wolf Lake. Called it Wolf Lake. And my granddaddy and my daddy and uncle and all them, they [inaudible] for fish, frogs, honey, sold their hives from their property, you know, to the city, and made extra money. And then we had a big home [ph] out there for the hogs [ph], and it was all right on the lake. And they had a pond with a red barn 00:03:00that they put hay in. My granddaddy had a tractor, and he worked in the field, and he had horses, cows. My mother, and my auntie, dad, and uncle, they milked the cows, they churned the milk. My grand-mama, she was named Carrie Beatrice Thompson [sp?], and she made [inaudible]. She had a vineyard [ph] out there, like plums, apple trees, and grapevines, and peach trees, and all like that. You had peanuts and all like that. We killed the hogs, we ate the hogs, and we had crossed the—what you call—the lake, to get to go to town for [inaudible] you sell [ph]. And anyway, that’s where we wanted to go [ph].

And there was a old, raggly, wooden crossway that we had to walk on, and the old folks, they are [inaudible] end up on the [ph] walkway, 00:04:00and we [inaudible] they dressed to ya [ph], and the frogs, snakes, and everybody was hoppin’ off down there, scarin’ me. [Laughter.] And so, but we lived like that until they came on there and built a big dirt path across there, and so then we was all right, and you could drive a car across there then. And then you go out in a boat, and Daddy, and my granddaddy, and all the older people [ph] used to go out in the boat.

MTS: Don’t forget to tell that our grandfather and our father built that bridge that— IJ: Oh, they built the bridge. Okay, they go across there. Okay, across to walk on, but with dirt from the [inaudible] in the water, on a hook, big pile of dirt, so they can walk and go places like Yazoo City, Vicksburg, places like that. And did I say my grand-mama made beer in the house?

MTS: Yes. [Laughs.] IJ: She made beer in the house, out her vineyard, 00:05:00and we had a smokehouse for the meat. We had a vegetable house where they put the veggies, and shelfs all around in there to set the jars on, and how they did it [ph], they fry the mat, hold the meat over the grease, and put a top on, and turn the bottom up, and when the grease chill, they would turn it back up, take the rag top off, and they would [inaudible] spoil ’em [ph]. And we also baked that meat. They cook on it, hang it up and smoke it, you know, smoke it. We smoked fish. They had dried fish to eat. I was only three years old, but I remember all that. Later on in life I came to take care of my mother, and we was talkin’ about this. She said, “How you remember all that if you were only three years old?” But I remember all that. And we used to play out there, and in the smokehouse my sister that older than me, we would play hide 00:06:00and seek, and she would hide in one of the smokehouses, [laughs] and got up in there one time and ran into a snake, and she was up in there hollerin’ and hollerin’ and hollerin’, and we had to go get her out, get her [inaudible] ’cause we was playin’ hide and seek, okay.

And then we had—what else we had? We had all kind of vegetables [ph] and stuff, raised in the garden, stuff like that. So sooner or later my uncle and my daddy got hauled off to the Army, and my uncle went but my daddy didn’t wanna go, so he had had some treatment for this. And so my mother and him separated at that time, and since my mama and him was separated, and my uncle was goin’ off to the Army, other uncle went on to the Army, so we had to come 00:07:00to Flora, Mississippi to live with my mother’s daddy then. So he came over there to—I can’t think of the name—Yazoo City to pick us up, and we had to walk all the way from where we was living in Satartia, in the hot sun, bare feet, and everything, to meet him over in Yazoo City with the truck, ’cause he didn’t know how to get down [inaudible] down in there [ph] to get to us by the lake [inaudible].

And so we came over there to live with him and his wife and his sister, were livin’ in a house. His wife’s sister was livin’ in a house. She was a special person [inaudible]. They called ’em ill-formed [ph] people back then, but now, since I’m in this job with the healthcare peoples now, we call ’em special peoples. So she was a special person in the house. 00:08:00We had some old peoples come live with us, Anna Lee [sp?] and her three children. She had three, I think, two girls and one boy. She might’ve had four, three girls and one boy. They lived down in Jackson, so they would always come out and visit us, and we’d come to Jackson and visit them on weekends. And my mother was goin’ to the cotton field to help my granddaddy and his wife out, [inaudible] we call her Grand-mama. And I had to watch the special person in the house. And my brother was seven months. She was two. Mattie Marie [sp?] was two, and I was three, and I had to watch her when I got, like, seven and eight years old, while they go to the cotton field and pick cotton. And we had chickens and hogs and cows there, fish and everything there, too. So that’s [inaudible] til I got married 00:09:00at 17. No, we went to Benton State [ph], her and I.

MTS: Yeah.

IJ: Our granddaddy had— MTS: Two sisters.

IJ: —two sisters lived together in Benton, and we would complain all the time about walking to school and everything, through the path, and them black cows with them long horns, and kickin’ in the dirt, and born [ph] in the sound [ph] of the dirt and everything, and I was scared of that, so we always started tellin’ him ’bout we didn’t want to walk to school and all that stuff like that. We were goin’ to Flora School. My brother couldn’t go to Flora School; he had to go to school in a house down in a pasture [ph], and—he was older [ph]. And so we was complainin’ about that so much til our aunties said when they come over there to visit us, say, “Well, y’all scared to stay out there in that pasture [ph], y’all come and live with us until y’all mama get her another house out that pasture.” And so we did. We came to Benton, Mississippi, 00:10:00to live with them. We didn’t have no idea we had a first cousin over there. My mama’s had a sister, had a son livin’ over there already, and that’s how we got to know him, and a whole bunch of our family. Then all the [inaudible]. We had a auntie over there that had about, ooh, ten children, didn’t she?

MTS: Yeah, 10 or 11. [Laughs.] IJ: Ten or 11 children, so we got to walk to school with them, walk to church with them, and til I got six years old. And then we moved back. My mama was always writin’ a letter, and my auntie said—she would read the letters to us. She said, “Now,” she said, “your mother said she gon come visit y’all this Sunday.” They call me Tea [ph]. It’s supposed to be sweet, ’cause my grand-mama, I was her pet when [inaudible], and she named me Sweeney [ph] as a short name, but my sister—I’m older [ph] next to her—she couldn’t say Sweeney. She said 00:11:00Tea, so I growed up with that name, Tea. So she said, “Tea, don’t you cry. Go back with ya mama now.” That’s what my auntie told me when I was older [ph]. “Don’t cry now. The retribution will come [ph] through this child [ph] [inaudible].” [Laughs.] Til she came and got us after two years. We stayed with her [inaudible]. I got to learn all [inaudible], and that was the experience which I liked it there. [Laughs.] MTS: Now tell about your first child on [inaudible].

IJ: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

RL: Before we get there, can you tell me: you said your grandfather owned the cotton field.

IJ: I think he owned so much of that field.

MTS: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

RL: How long had he lived there? Do you know when he—?

IJ: Sure didn’t— MTS: [Shakes head no.] IJ: —’cause we were born in that house.

RL: And when were you born?

IJ: And we lived there. I born in 1943, March the 8th. That was in the ’40s. And they were great [ph] back then. So 00:12:00then came to [inaudible] Flora, went to [inaudible], went back and forth, and then when we went back to Flora she had moved up the hill, 22, like, one [ph] [inaudible] in Flora, so I got pregnant at 15 years old, and that’s when I met Ms.— MTS: —Ms. Perry Lee [sp?].

IJ: —Ms. Perry Lee, the midwife. My brother had got big, and my mother sent him over there to Mr. Abernathy’s house, the man place there [ph], watchin’ over the cotton fields and stuff, to go to Flora and get the midwife for me to have my first child, which I love children. Well, I thought my grand-mama shoulda gave me that boy that I was taken care of there.

MTS: Special.

IJ: Special, from the special people. 00:13:00And so that’s when I had heard about her, Ms. Perry Lee, the midwife, ’cause she— MTS: Mama [inaudible].

IJ: And she was—it was later they told us had 14 children, and one or two sets of twins, and this lady, Ms. Perry, had always been goin’ over there. And we were wonderin’ why she’d go over there, and she’d leave, there’d be a baby. And a lot of people was tellin’ us that the baby came in that black bag that she was carryin’, [laughs] but that was her tools that she worked with and all that stuff like that. And so— RL: And this is in Satartia?

IJ: No, this was in Flora.

RL: In Flora.

IJ: After we moved to Flora.

MTS: Around the time when [inaudible] her first baby.

IJ: Around the time when I got pregnant with my first child. And so they would tease 00:14:00us around, and we’d tease them. Oh, Lord, I’ll tell you about that lady brought the bag, in the black bag. [Laughs.] And so when I had got pregnant, some of us, brother went over there and got her for me, and she came them. My baby was comin’ foot first, and she put some mineral oil on my stomach and rubbed it round and round and round til she turned him around. That was a big experience for me. She turned him around, and just pushed him. He came out, head first, then, like he was supposed to come out.

RL: When did you find out what the black bag was for?

IJ: After I had got pregnant. [Laughs.] After I had got pregnant with my child, [inaudible] my mama [inaudible] and told, ’cause I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I told my mother, I said, “Every time 00:15:00I go to eat, I get sick and throw it up.” She said, “[inaudible] boys [ph].” [Laughter.] I said, “Yes, ma’am.” She said, “Girl, you pregnant.” And so from then on I know what pregnant was all about, for my whole nine months, and— But I didn’t experience having the child til then, but that was a bad experience for me, and being 15 years old. But by the helps [ph] of the Lord, it came out all right, and that boy come here weighing ten pound. Ten pound. And I was so happy, but I couldn’t sit down for a month. [Laughter.] RL: And the midwife’s name was Pat Lee?

IJ: Perry.

MTS: Perry Lee.

RL: Perry.

IJ: Perry.

MTS: Peterson.

IJ: Perry Lee Peterson. ’Cause everybody called her Miss Perry.

MTS: She’s gonna be one of your—some other women are going to interview for her.

IJ: For Ms. 00:16:00Perry Lee?

MTS: [Shakes head yes.] RL: And did you meet her before your baby was due, or just when— IJ: No, I didn’t really meet her. I just saw her goin’ over there, and I know of her.

MTS: [inaudible] other mother knew her.

IJ: And my mother knew her, and all the people just around me, ’cause she was waitin’ on everybody around then. And then I found out all about where a baby come from and what happen and everything. ’Cause I just only had that one experience with my boyfriend, and next thing I know I was, like I said, havin’ morning sickness, and my mama explained that to me.

MTS: The black bag, do you remember anything that was in it, what she used?

IJ: I know she pulled that mineral oil outta there.

MTS: Her mineral oil.

RL: Right.

IJ: Mineral oil.

RL: Oh, yes.

IJ: And she pulled it outta there, and I was hurtin’ so bad, and I wasn’t lookin’ too good, so she rubbed me with that, just turned that baby around with her hand, and he came on out.

RL: Did she have anything to offer you for the pain? It must’ve been very painful.

IJ: It wasn’t no pain 00:17:00until after you had a baby, after when you— The pain comes from when you finna push to have the baby, and once he come out, or she, the pain don’t be there no more. You have the pain when you get ready to sit down, if you split, if you have a oversized-weight baby, you split, [inaudible]— MTS: That’s her experience.

IJ: —it splits down there, so that’s the only pain I had after having a baby. But before I had, you know, regular pain that everybody have.

RL: Did she have any other tools in her bag that she used?

IJ: I didn’t pay no attention to that. [Laughter.] I was so glad to get that over with, and get to feelin’ all right.

MTS: You just knew she had that mineral oil in that bag.

IJ: I know she had that mineral oil, ’cause she put that in her hand and rubbed it on my stomach so til she just turned that baby, could feel it easing’ all around. 00:18:00[Makes quick “shoop” sound.] RL: How many children do you have?

IJ: Four.

RL: And did she deliver all four of them? Just one?

IJ: My husband’s auntie after I got married—I got married at 17—my husband’s auntie was a midwife. her name was Bertha Parker [sp?], Bertha Lee Parker, and she lived right there in our yard. Her mother-in-law lived up there, and she lived right here, and we lived in the back.

RL: And— IJ: She— RL: —she was in Flora, or—?

MTS: Yeah, Ms. Bertha Lee Parker, talk about her.

RL: Yeah, Ms. Bertha Lee Parker.

IJ: Oh, Ms. Bertha Lee Parker. I didn’t ever get to see her too much after she delivered the baby, but she would deliver the baby, too, but I had more experience with the first one than I did this one because I was kinda known about what to do and how to do it. And so she just tell you to, “Push, push, push, push a little more, 00:19:00push a little more.” [Laughs.] MTS: This is Ms. Parker now.

IJ: This was Parker. “Push a little more. Push a little more.” Til the baby just come to life.

MTS: Now, how many children did she deliver for you?

IJ: Three.

RL: Wow. And how did you pay the midwives?

IJ: Now, I had insurance with the last—my auntie [ph], but— RL: And who was the insurance through?

IJ: I don’t know. I done forgot that. That been a long— That been 52—let me see—fifty-some years ago.

RL: Was it pretty common for women to have insurance like that?

IJ: I don’t know, but I had it, ’cause I had got married, had a husband. He was workin’. I didn’t work, so he worked. So I had insurance, but with Ms. Perry Lee, I think the boss man paid in Flora [ph].

MTS: No.

IJ: Yeah, you know, when we picking cotton and stuff like that, and you’re on the plantation, you get all your equipment from the boss 00:20:00man, ’cause you’re on his property, and everything you get to do that property with, they pay for, take it out your money at the end of the year. So my mother probably put it on the ticket so he could pay for that, too.

MTS: We were on that— I can’t remember the name of it now, but they have, you know, where— RL: Sharecroppers?

MTS: Sharecropper, that’s the term. [Laughs.] IJ: That’s it, that’s it, sharecroppers, uh-huh [affirmative]. So that’s who paid for my first.

RL: And for your other children, how did you pay for those?

IJ: I paid for—I had insurance.

RL: Insurance.

IJ: But I forgot the name.

MTS: Tell him, your husband worked on the road some [ph].

IJ: My husband worked at a time on the road, and he always paid for that through that insurance that he had.

RL: What did he do on the road?

IJ: He drove a truck for a asphalt paver company.

RL: What 00:21:00else do you remember about the midwives that you knew? Was there anything that stood out in your mind about ’em?

MTS: Her feet [ph], what she wore?

IJ: Not— My auntie feet [ph]?

MTS: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

IJ: Auntie just told me she’ll take care, ’cause I had the insurance.

MTS: [inaudible].

IJ: I really don’t know, ’cause she said, “I’ll take care,” so she got whatever she wanted.

RL: Did they wear uniforms, or—?

IJ: Mm-hmm [affirmative], auntie did.

RL: What did the uniforms look like?

IJ: Oh, just a old, old cotton sack. [Laughter.] You know— MTS: Made like a smock?

IJ: Made like a smock or somethin’ like that.

MTS: What about a cap?

IJ: She didn’t have no cap.

MTS: Now, she had one, ’cause her daughter found it in a trunk.

IJ: Uh-huh [affirmative].

MTS: It was all torn, had all fallen apart.

IJ: Oh, I guess she could have— MTS: But you don’t remember a cap?

IJ: I don’t know about the cap.

RL: Did the midwives travel a lot, all over the area, or did they kind of stay— IJ: Now, Ms. Perry Lee did. Ms. Perry 00:22:00Lee traveled all over the plantations all around in Flora, all around down in there where my daughter-in-law and them stayed, everywhere.

MTS: In Madison.

IJ: In Madison, she— Yeah. Probably Yazoo City, as far as I know, ’cause I don’t know about that. She probably came to Jackson, and I don’t know about that. And so— But I know they gets up any time of night, and get that black bag, and they come on outta there. And Bertha was livin’ right there in my yard, so she had me come over there early.

MTS: What about other people that she delivered? Would they come to the house?

IJ: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. She had a special room. She had three bedrooms. She had two rooms where she took care of her patients in, and [audio glitches; inaudible] her bedroom.

MTS: We can get a picture of that house. It still stands.

RL: Oh, wow.

MTS: Someone’s livin’ in it.

IJ: Her granddaughter live in it.

RL: So she tried to have people come to her house to be delivered there, but she would also go to—?

IJ: Yeah. She’d always get people to come to her house, because she delivered. She delivered 00:23:00thousands and thousands and thousands of children. A lot of times I went over there and the sister [inaudible] in the house and [inaudible] maybe pass her some water or somethin’ like that, put on some boilin’ water in the kitchen. You know, you had to have that boilin’ water and stuff like that.

RL: Who was usually sent to tell her that she was needed? Was— IJ: Oh, they’d call her. She had a telephone.

MTS: Now, she was in the telephone [inaudible]. [Laughs.] IJ: She was in the telephone pages then.

MTS: Now, we didn’t have telephones back then with that first one [ph]. [Laughs.] IJ: We didn’t have telephone with our first. I was in Flora.

RL: And with— IJ: [inaudible].

RL: With the first one in Flora when you were 15, who went to tell the midwife?

IJ: My brother. He went to the main house over there.

MTS: With straw boughs on the plate [ph].

IJ: Straw boughs on the plate, and he— MTS: Who then contacted the midwife.

IJ: So he took him over there, him and that James guy. Another 00:24:00guy, Black guy, that lived over there by the boss man. My brother stopped by and got him, boss man, and he went out there [inaudible], brought over there. You had to do it quick because the patients be in a lot of pain. We didn’t live too far from her, and my brother [inaudible] roll [ph] and walk, roll [ph] and walk, til you got there. [Laughs.] RL: Did the midwives, did they have any assistance? Were there people who helped ’em?

IJ: Mm-mm [negative]. I didn’t never see nobody help nobody. [inaudible] sometime. I just do it for the [inaudible], just to be doin’ somethin’. I take [inaudible] my baby, I take him with me [ph] and we walk over there. Then I said I’d keep comin’ sometime while she go back in the kitchen, doin’ nana stuff [ph], whatever she needs to do.

RL: Did the midwife visit you after the child was born, or just for the— IJ: All the time, 00:25:00’cause right there in the yard [ph]. We talked all the time out there in that backyard. Houses [inaudible], like, move in.

MTS: And she could [ph] move other people in her house more than one day, right?

IJ: Oh, she gave ’em three or four days in her house before they go home.

RL: Oh, wow.

IJ: I even stayed over there with mine three or four days.

RL: Did she have medicines or anything that she gave to you, or—?

IJ: Not that I know of. I didn’t [inaudible]. None of mine, I never take no medicine. You just had to stand that pain before that baby come. [Laughs.] You had to take that pain. That’s a pain you have to take.

RL: That’s why I asked if there was anything that she may have given you for pain relief.

IJ: If you wanted any, you go back to your house and get it afterward, but she didn’t have [inaudible]. ’Cause you know how that go: you don’t wanna give nobody no medicine 00:26:00back then.

RL: It’s very different than the process of childbirth today.

IJ: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. They give you a shot, cut that pain down today, so they tell me. They don’t have as much pain today. I can’t think of the name, a ural shot or somethin’.

MTS: Epidural.

IJ: Epidural, that’s right, epidural shot.

RL: Anything else that you remember about the midwives that you knew, or anything that stands out about them?

IJ: Everything they did stood out about ’em to me, ’cause I [inaudible], ’cause she said she had her own baby in the house. She told me that, that she had her own baby, she got pregnant, she was at home with her mama, and when her mama in the room since she had had the baby up in the bed, she said, “Get outta that bed like a cat, nasty girl!” [Laughter.] Who had that baby.

MTS: Was that Twee [sp?]?

IJ: Uh-uh [negative].

MTS: Oh, she’s got more sisters.

IJ: She had a son that 00:27:00died at 12 years old, Ola Twee [sp?].

MTS: Okay. But she was like—Ms. Bertha was like a pillar of that community— IJ: Oh, yeah.

MTS: —church, schools, children.

IJ: Church, schools.

MTS: Talk about all the different things she did.

IJ: She went to church. She taught Sunday school. And she drove the Head Start program, a van, to pick up children. And on Wednesday night, she didn’t have nothin’ to do but go on home in that station wagon. Them children come runnin’ down there, pass by her house, and go on into her house [inaudible]. She’d take up the Bible way [ph]. And my nephew mother lived next door. He come through durin’ that revival time through the week [ph], and he could play the piano [inaudible]. Mm-hmm. You know, he got his religion for it [ph].

RL: So she was a very well-respected— IJ: Yes, everybody. All you had to do, say, “Ms. Bertha Parker.” They’d know. All around, too: 00:28:00in Madison, Flora, Canton, Jackson. She was well regarded [ph]. Well known.

MTS: She owned property, too.

IJ: She owned that house. Her grandchild is out there now. Yeah.

MTS: She owns more property out of town.

IJ: Yeah, she owned the property, the house that you bought one time, sure did. But there were will [ph] [inaudible].

MTS: She was just well known.

IJ: She was well known. And a very good person. Very lovely person. Lovely, lovely, lovely person. She always was.

MTS: I imagine people went to her for information.

IJ: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. And her sisters, they [inaudible]. She had ten children. And I bet she midwifed all ten of them.

MTS: But you don’t know that, though, right?

IJ: I don’t know that, because I had gotten married, had a family at that time. When I got married, she hadn’t had all her children. You know, [inaudible] with my oldest 00:29:00one [ph]. [inaudible].

RL: Wow. Anything you remember about the process of childbirth with the midwife? I assume she’s the one who cut the umbilical cord, who cleaned the baby?

IJ: She just come in there and wash her hands, and washed the part where the baby gonna come out, and she really don’t— MTS: Had hot water already boilin’.

IJ: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

MTS: She didn’t have to have gloves at that time, right? She wasn’t using gloves.

IJ: Yeah, they were usin’ gloves, I believe, mm-hmm [affirmative].

MTS: Okay.

IJ: Yeah. [inaudible].

RL: Anything else you’d like to tell us, or that you think we need to know about the midwives that you knew?

IJ: I can’t think right offhand.

MTS: But she kinda kept up with her children, and then she gave a lot of the children [inaudible].

IJ: All—a lot of children, yes, she delivered, they always, always [ph] had somebody come visit them, and come bring 00:30:00her somethin’. And another thing: a lot of people, she delivered the baby for nothin’. A lot of people she delivered for probably a chicken, sack of potatoes, stuff like that. A lot of ’em she did, ’cause she know them before they had the baby, know they didn’t have too much or whatever back then, and she did it for nothin’. [inaudible].

RL: And you mentioned that for at least one of your babies it was charged to the account of the landowner as part of your sharecropping.

MTS: Yeah, that would be the first one, yeah.

IJ: Yeah, that was my first. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. That was not my auntie, husband [inaudible]. After I got married, she was there for my other three.

RL: Do you have any idea what the landowner charged you for that, out of the shares?

IJ: Don’t know.

MTS: Somebody mentioned $25.

IJ: Not [ph] $25.

MTS: I can’t remember which one of the persons I was talking to, but that was, like, a goin’ fee [ph].

IJ: And I don’t know how much auntie charged me, because 00:31:00I never— She never told me she got to [ph], but she [inaudible], I guess, and I [inaudible] what she got, long as she get that baby. [Laughter.] Woohoo! And she’s my auntie, too, in marriage, you know. Anything I wanted, anything she thought I wanted, she gave it to me. Anything she thought she could do for me, she did it, even though [ph] she wasn’t even waitin’ on me for no baby.

MTS: That’s the kind of person she was.

IJ: That’s the kind of person she was.

RL: And all your children were born happy and healthy?

IJ: Mm-hmm [affirmative], all of ’em. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Happy and healthy. And then that first one, boy I had, he started walkin’ at eight months. It’s ’cause he come here weighin’ ten pounds! You remember?

MTS: Yeah, mm-hmm [affirmative].

IJ: Started walkin’ at eight months old. Everybody loved my son. Everybody took my son away from me. Even when I got married, they took him away from me. 00:32:00I just let ’em have him, and he spoiled [inaudible]. I spoil him. Anybody come in contact with him spoil him. [inaudible]. Ain’t he [ph]?

MTS: Yeah, [inaudible], ’cause he was such a healthy, jolly-go-lucky baby.

IJ: Healthy, jolly lookin’ baby. And I don’t think— Only thing he ever been in the hospital for was a car accident, and then one time he found out he was allergic to eggs and penicillin [ph]. That’s the only time he went to the hospital. [inaudible]. Weighed eight pounds. He big and healthy, muscle and that [ph]. Tall [inaudible].

MTS: After you had your other babies under Ms. Bertha, were there times when you had to call her afterwards that you might have been havin’ some kind of little sickness?

IJ: Mm-mm [negative]. On one of ’em, they were rest [ph], the baby, 00:33:00he— They didn’t tell me, ever tell me in the hospital what was wrong with him. He— Looked down on the floor. He looked like kickin’ in the carpet, and I couldn’t figure out what wrong with him, so I take him to the university. I first take him over there to her, and he were walkin’ plain outta the yard, about two or three years old. And I grabbed her, took him over there to her, and she said, “Rush him to the university hospital.” That’s what I did [ph]. And he stayed in there a week, come out [inaudible].

MTS: And they never did tell you what was wrong with him?

IJ: No, nothin’.

MTS: But later you found he had a heart murmur.

IJ: Uh-huh [affirmative], the heart murmur, and that brought us [ph] into the Jackson family. Her sisters [inaudible], and—but when he got ready to play basketball, 00:34:00I took him to Dr. Gridley [sp?]. He said he can play ball, and he played ball on scholarship, and go to college. And then, after that, he got him maybe eight, nine years old [ph], eight or nine—eight? Would’ve been married [ph], got married eight or nine years ago. He went to the doctor, and he said he had to take some high blood pressure things [ph] for a while. He was too fat, got overweight.

RL: I guess— MTS: But you— RL: I’m sorry, go ahead.

MTS: You don’t remember any complications from the birth?

IJ: Mm-mm [negative], not one of my children. No complications. I didn’t have no complications, not for the three.

RL: For a midwife to deliver that many babies, there must have been complications at times. If there was any complications, were they sent to the emergency room, or to a hospital, or—?

IJ: Mm-mm [negative], never.

MTS: She doesn’t know 00:35:00of any.

IJ: I don’t know nothin’ about the others. I don’t think the others around me that she—in my neighborhood, they never had no complications, and— MTS: Because the neighborhood would know. [Laughs.] IJ: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And me, myself, I had no complications with none of mine. But, you know, like, comin’ from my mother-in-law’s side, that was my auntie’s sister. Her children had easily get infections, like the heat you [ph] newspaper we got there [ph].

MTS: From those inks.

IJ: From that ink on that newspaper. And he was a grown man, married and had four children, and that start [ph] [inaudible].

RL: What are the years that your four children were born?

IJ: Hm. [Laughs.] I can hardly remember. I know 00:36:00how old they is, but I forgot the years. I know Wes [sp?] was born 19— The last one was born in I believe it was 1960. Yep [ph], was born 1960, the old one. Wasn’t he? Don’t you know that? [Laughter.] 1960.

MTS: No, I [inaudible].

IJ: I think so, but I— MTS: But how old is he now?

IJ: He’s 56. And Wesley [sp?], the baby, was born in 1964, I believe, or ’65, somethin’ like that. Three days for Christmas. That’s all I can remember, ’cause they didn’t have no cake [ph].

MTS: Okay, how old is he? Just give me ages of the children, if you remember that.

IJ: Wes [inaudible] is 60—I mean 56, and [inaudible] is— Fifty-somethin’. All of ’em in their fifties.

MTS: They came one year after another.

IJ: Mm-hmm [affirmative].

MTS: 00:37:00all [inaudible].

MTS: Just [inaudible]— IJ: We lost our daughter. Had three boys, one girl, and we lost her— MTS: To cancer.

IJ: —to ovarian cancer. And she was 46 years old, [inaudible]. Married, young [ph], homes. She had two or three homes, [inaudible]. Yeah.

RL: Well, thank you very much. Anything else?

IJ: That’s about all I can think of right now.

RL: Thank you both very much.

MTS: You’re quite welcome.

IJ: Are you gonna be interviewed, too? [END OF INTERVIEW] 00:38:00 Yeah.

IJ: They’re