92
Ruby	Pickens Tartt, Livingston ‚ Alabama
Luther Clark, Editor.




EX-SLAVE ELLA CROCKETT

( 80 YEARS OLD )


	CEll the old east road from Livir~ston to Epes, about six miles north~ east of Livingston, is the “double houses‘ built of widely assorted mate~ riais, where Emma Crockett lives. The older part of the house is the

settin‘ room“ where the stick.and-clay chimney of its earlier days has been rer~.1aced by a new brick chimney‘. A roof of corrugated sheet metal tops the war~ed, roughly hewn logs which form the walls. The “new roomtt is built in the later shanty style - pine boards, un)laned, and nailed u?right to a frame of 2X4‘s, the cracks of the fl~t joints ttstripped“ with nar$ow siding. A roof of hlboughtnl shingl‘es covers this room. Con— rLectin~ the two rooms is an open hail roofed with hea~r boards “rived“ :~roru ~~)jne blocks. Despite its conglomerate architecture this is a batter “colored folks“ house than many in the Black Belt. These“double

nouses“ often have no roof for the hail and some also lack a floor, the	t :~a11 being made entirely of earth, s~y ~ imagination.

	~mrna settled herself on the to~ step at the front of the hail to t~.1k to me, after first ironing a tiny wrinkle out of her ~string apron“

•.:i~)h her hand.

	t Liss, I‘m ‘bout sebenty—nine or eighty year old,‘1 she told me, ‘:~ ~ belonged to L:arse Bill Hawkins ana Liss Betty. I lived on deir

~ 1~P.nt~tion right over y~nder. Ly mammy was called Cassie Hawkins and :: .a .~py was Alfred Jolly. I was Emma Jolly ‘fore I married Old Henry ~O2kett. Us had five chillun ~d dey‘s two of ‘em livin‘ in BuinminL ~a, :~e~~je and L~ary.