Rosa Herns King

DR. JANICE K. NEAL-VINCENT: Hello. I am Dr. Janice K. Neal-Vincent, oral historian for Scott Ford House, Inc. and W.K. Kellogg team. Today’s date is Friday, May the 7th, 2021. I am accommodated in this video recording by Ms. Edna Harris [sp?], the videographer. I would like at this time for our interviewee—and we are so happy to have her present with us at this moment—to please give us her name.

ROSA HERNS KING: I’m Rosa Herns King.

JKNV: And 00:01:00Ms. King, I have a series of questions pertaining to your knowledge of the granny midwives here in Mississippi. Of course, we say that they were granny because they are long ago gone from us, but when they were here they did so many significant things. And I would like to know if you would allow me to interview you.

RHK: Yes, ma’am. I’ll help you any way I can.

JKNV: Thank you very much. Like I said, I have a series of questions. First of all, what I want to know from you is: what was the time period when you knew of a granny midwife who worked with you and/or your relatives? Specifically with whom 00:02:00did she work?

RHK: I never worked with a granny midwife, but my great-grandmother was a midwife, and I first became aware of what she did probably when I was about six. I don’t know a lot about her practice; I just remember her as a great great-grandmother.

JKNV: Okay. What made her so great to you?

RHK: She could do everything.

JKNV: Such as?

RHK: She was proficient at needlecraft. She could can and fish, and make good cheese sandwiches with gingerbread cookies. She loved flowers. 00:03:00She showed us how to set up zinnias, and how to crop her chrysanthemums. I learned about chrysanthemums later, but she just called them mums, but I learned later that “mums” were referred to some other plant. But she was my kindergarten teacher, so to speak. She was kindergarten, because in my day there was no such thing for us. She told me my first Bible stories. I especially loved to hear her talk about Joseph, especially the story about the coat of many colors. And some nursery rhymes that most students learn about when they are kindergarten, I learned them from my 00:04:00great-grandmother, and she insisted on our reciting them. It was funny to us, the way she told the story about Humpty Dumpty, and she was dramatic. When I first heard of Little Miss Muffet, it was from my great-grandmother. I first heard of Hansel and Gretel from my great-grandmother.

And since she was born in 1859, and Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t until 1862, that made her three years old when that proclamation was issued. I don’t know how she learned how to read and write so well, and to know all of that—I just don’t know—because slavery was still 00:05:00rampant and practiced then, especially when she was three years old, so how did she learn all about Hansel and Gretel and all the stories in the Bible. I don’t know, but she was proficient at it. She was a person who got me my first thimble that actually fit my little finger, at six. And she made us keep our ribbons nicely ironed on a iron that was heated on the stove, or some little charcoal thing that mamas used to heat the straightening combs, to warm comb your hair. I learned all about that, and how to hold the curlers, how 00:06:00to hold a straightening comb. Madam C. J. Walker had nothin’ on my great-grandmother.

JKNV: Okay. Mm-hmm, this is very interesting. Did she tell you the story behind it, the straightening comb for your hair?

RHK: No, except I remember her saying, “Be careful when you get in the kitchen,” the part that was on the back of the neck, for your neck, so you won’t burn yourself. And we had to hold our ears to keep the straightening comb from touching our ears. But she was very diligent about hair. She washed our hair every week, and she parted it, and put Blue Seal Vaseline in the parts. Our 00:07:00hair was washed with coconut oil shampoo. I think it was Raleigh’s [sp?] coconut oil shampoo. And she would insist on our brushing our hair 300 strokes. [Laughs.] JKNV: How many?

RHK: Three hundred.

JKNV: Why was that?

RHK: I don’t know, [laughter] but we had to stroke our hair, brush our hair. She was religious about it. And we sat between her big knees—my great-grandmother had big knees, big legs, big hips. I remember that, in direct contrast to the way mine subsequently became. I remember hearing her talk about attending somebody 00:08:00who was expecting—the way she put it, who was “in family way”—with my mom and some of my aunts. She was not talkin’ to us children; we weren’t supposed to be hearing. But I recall that she would go and stay with the family, especially if the mother was having trouble with her pregnancy. And she recommended that the mother stay off her feet. She would stay with that mother so that she could rest as much as possible, and she would do the things in the family that the mother couldn’t do: wash, and iron, and can food, take care of the children. I remember her talking about that. There 00:09:00was some woman named Wilbur [sp?]. I don’t know her, don’t know if I ever got to know her, but I remember particularly her talkin’ about some mother who was having a subsequent pregnancy, maybe 10 or 11 or 12, some great number, but she was having difficulty, and she would stay at the lady’s house and organize things, and make her household ready for when the lady went into labor.

JKNV: Okay. So she left her home.

RHK: Mm-hmm [affirmative], she left her home to stay at the mother’s home, to make certain that she wasn’t overworking. I 00:10:00guess what she wanted to do was to make sure that the pregnancy was as uncomplicated as she could make it, lessening the additional stresses of worrying about how the laundry was going to get done, and which entailed pumping water, cutting wood. It was a hard chore. I remember how she used to recite poetry, Bible verses, and tongue-twisters, riddles. She loved riddles. And we would be so fascinated, trying to get the answers to them. I 00:11:00remember her telling us this one about—how did it go? “As I was on my way to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks. Every sack had seven cats. Every cat had seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks, and wives: how many was goin’ to St. Ives?” So we would multiply, [laughter] and tryin’ to find the answer to that, and everything we came up with she’d say, “No, that’s not it. No, that’s not it.” “But, Grandma, she had seven sacks, and she had seven cats in that sack, and every one of the cats had seven cats! That’s seven 00:12:00times seven times seven.” She said, “No, that’s not it.” And when we learned that—she said, “As I was goin’ to St. Ives. Who was goin’ to St. Ives? I. How many’s that? One. I.” She said, “So how many was going?” Oh, my! [Laughter.] And we would laugh. And then she’d come up with something else. So that really was our kindergarten. She was teaching us to be more critical with our thinking.

JKNV: It sounds like that was very exciting. I was just imagining myself in such a situation. She should be with me now, [laughter] as I’m doing this interview. That is really wonderful, a remarkable story about your grandmother.

RHK: She was filled to the brim with stories.

JKNV: Mm-hmm. Do you suppose 00:13:00that’s rubbed off on you at this time?

RHK: I think so, because I spent a lot of time with her, especially with the needlecraft part. I learned how to make all these embroidery stitches by the time I was six, so while I was six I didn’t know the names of any of them, I still don’t know the names of all of them, but I can make them. I can do them. I think I know chain stitch, because it looks like a chain when you do it, but the rest of them, I don’t know the names of them; I just can do them. I’m not even sure whether she told us the names of these stitches, but at the time all young girls were taught how to do basic things with needles. We didn’t go to home economics classes; we had a grandmother, in my case my great-grandmother. I don’t think my 00:14:00grandmother was proficient at those kinds of things, I don’t think she had that interest, but my great-grandmother did. She could tell stories, as I said before, and I remember that so well. She could cook, too. She loved cooking.

JKNV: Mm-hmm. What were some of the things that she cooked that you liked?

RHK: I remember a basic poundcake. That’s one of my favorite cakes to bake, to this day.

JKNV: And what kind?

RHK: A pound, just a basic pound. But she used to make something called butter roll, but I don’t know what she did. I recall my mother making that, too, but it seems like it was a crust with butter in 00:15:00the milk, reminded you cinnamon roll but it wasn’t tight. I don’t know how she did it, but I recall that that was a fast— JKNV: Fix. [Laughs.] RHK: That’s a good way, a fast fix. If you needed to have something sweet—they didn’t always say “dessert”—you wanted to make something sweet right quick, this was a go-to recipe, but I don’t recall what it was—but that we just liked it.

JKNV: Okay, very good.

RHK: “When are you gonna make another butter roll?” And it was not a roll, but that’s what it was called.

JKNV: But it had lots of butter in it, whatever it was, with some milk, some kind of dough.

RHK: You could see—right, there was a crust— JKNV: Seems like I remember my big mama had somethin’ like that, too.

RHK: And did she— JKNV: It was light.

RHK: Yes. Tasted really good— JKNV: And delicious.

RHK: —yes.

JKNV: [Laughs.] 00:16:00Oh, this is very interesting. Well, tell me: in what community and/or county did your great-grandmother live?

RHK: She lived in Coahoma County.

JKNV: What is it called now?

RHK: Coahoma.

JKNV: C-O-A— RHK: O-A.

JKNV: —H— RHK: Right.

JKNV: —O-M-A?

RHK: But— JKNV: That was Coahoma County?

RHK: Yes. People say Co-homa, but—they skip that A.

JKNV: Okay. Oh, Coahoma County.

RHK: It was really Coahoma, but she didn’t say Co-a-ho-ma; she said Co-ho-ma.

JKNV: Okay. Was that county the same as Quitman, Mississippi?

RHK: Quitman is west of Coahoma.

JKNV: Okay, okay.

RHK: No, no, no, east of.

JKNV: East of Coahoma.

RHK: Quitman County was east of Coahoma County, and Quitman 00:17:00was between Panola County and Coahoma.

JKNV: Okay, okay.

RHK: Modern folks say Batesville and Clarksdale. Her community was called Lula, like Lula Mae. Lula.

JKNV: L-U-L-A.

RHK: L-U-L-A was the name— JKNV: That was the name of her community?

RHK: The name of the community was Lula. It still exists as a sign on the highways. There’s some houses there, but not a prominent community as it was then. And at one time she lived further west, in Friars Point. But I know that she was in Lula for a long time because my grandfather was born in Lula, and 00:18:00my mother was born in Lula, so I’m thinking that she probably spent the bulk of her life— JKNV: There.

RHK: —especially if she were practicing midwifery, that it was in the Lula community of Coahoma County.

JKNV: Okay. What was the community like?

RHK: From what I can remember their discussing, the typical Mississippi deprived community, having to go to Clarksdale, the big town, when you needed to buy something important. Things that they didn’t raise themselves they would have to go into Clarksdale to get it.

JKNV: Okay.

RHK: I 00:19:00don’t recall how—well, we know that everyone raised cotton at that time.

JKNV: What was that like?

RHK: Now, I remember— JKNV: The cotton fields.

RHK: —the cotton fields for as long as you could see. It was just cotton. Fields and rows and rows of cotton. If not cotton, soybeans and corn. That was it: cotton, soybeans, and corn. No trees, just rows.

JKNV: Did your grandmother, your great-grandmother, pick cotton?

RHK: I’m sure she did, but she didn’t have a mother to take care of her, because that’s what everyone did. They picked cotton. They 00:20:00were basically sharecroppers. I don’t know what point they became landowners, but I do know that by the time it was my mother’s era, my dad owned his own property. But during my great-grandmother’s day, I think there were still sharecroppers in Coahoma County. I don’t know how many babies she delivered, so I can’t say, can’t guess how many times she left home to stay with the mothers who were expecting.

JKNV: What was your great-grandmother’s name?

RHK: Oh, my great-grandmother was named Sally Rhodes.

JKNV: R-H-O-D-E-S. 00:21:00RHK: R-H-O-D-E-S, absolutely. Sally Rhodes.

JKNV: Okay. And, of course, she was a member of the family. Approximately—well, do you know how old she was at the time that she was catching babies?

RHK: Okay, now she was born in 1859, and she died in 1950, at 91, so I’m thinking that she may have been in her thirties, maybe.

JKNV: In her thirties?

RHK: I’m just supposing this. Because when I knew her, of 00:22:00course, she was not practicing, and I was 11 when she died in 1950.

JKNV: She was 50?

RHK: No, I said it was 1950 when she died, and I was 11, and I don’t remember her practicing at all. She was just my great-grandmother. So she had to have been delivering babies when she was much younger, so I’m just rounding it off as in her thirties.

JKNV: Okay, in her— RHK: But you had to— JKNV: As you recalled— RHK: Yeah, but she had to have been in good enough health, and young enough to walk the roads to the places where the mothers were, and to stay there with her, to do things, and you can’t wash and cut 00:23:00wood and take care of children, combing their hair, and milking the cows, and whatever, unless you are physically able.

JKNV: Right. Well, now, you said you were 11— RHK: When she died.

JKNV: —when she died, and she died at what age?

RHK: She was 91.

JKNV: Okay, she died at age 91, 1950 or ’51.

RHK: 1950.

JKNV: 1950? Okay. At age 91. So reasoning that, about how old was she when you were 11, if she died at age 91? Were you still with her when she died?

RHK: We lived with them during school. My 00:24:00dad had bought this house Memphis for my grandparents so that we could go to school in Memphis, rather than at the one-room schoolhouse in the neighborhood, and my great-grandmother lived with my grandfather, like a lot of households, so she was a prominent body. My step-grandmother was there, who cooked, but I loved my great-grandmother, and she spent a lot of time showing me how to do stuff, and, of course, tellin’ the stories. So I spent a lot of time with her.

JKNV: Okay. So now, you spent a lot of time with your great-grandmother, who was a midwife.

RHK: Who was the midwife.

JKNV: You were 11— RHK: When she died.

JKNV: —when she died, and she was 91 when she died. You 00:25:00know that before you went to the home, she was midwife.

RHK: Oh, yes, I heard. I heard my mother talk about— JKNV: Talk about it.

RHK: —the fact that she was a midwife.

JKNV: So did your mother—she never— [END OF INTERVIEW]