A Slave Girl's Story: Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold.Drumgoold, Kate
Religion
A Slave Girl's Story: Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold.
Drumgoold, Kate
Drumgoold, Kate; Enslaved persons -- United States -- Biography
When I got well of the smallpox, as I said, I went back to the place
where I was living when I took the malady, and there I tried to work,
but was very feeble for a long time and under the doctor's care all of
the time and spending more than I could make, for some of the doctors
charged me two dollars a visit, and that will use up a poor person's
earnings very soon.
But all of this time I kept in mind the idea that I should save every
cent that I could that I might send myself to school some day. That day
did come when it seemed as dark as any night I had ever seen, when I
should go away to boarding school and spend that little and should not
have enough to finish; but I went, taking the Lord as the guide of my
life, and the way began to grow bright before me and I could see all the
clouds rolling away and the brightness shining forth. I went to
Washington, D. C., and entered the Wayland Seminary, under the
leadership of Professor G. M. P. King, of Bangor, Maine, with his other
teachers and professors under him; all of whom are a noble band of
teachers. And the way the Lord did help me in my studies is a blessing
to the dear ones that I had under me for the eleven years that I was in
the school work, and the way they progressed.
I said that I attended the Wayland Seminary for three years, of eight
months, making it in all of my stay there twenty-four months, which may
seem long to some, but it seems short to me, though I am very glad that
I had that much time there for it was a fountain of blessing to my soul.
I left Washington, D. C., in the year of 1878 and came to Brooklyn and
went to work again to earn money to go off to school, and when I did go
it was another school in the Blue Ridge, Alleghany Mountains, where the
very air of heaven seemed to fan the whole hill sides, and there never
was a more lovely place on this earth for one to learn a lesson, for we
could see the key to all lessons where nature had designed for a grand
school of learning. At this place was to be found one of the best
schools of learning that has been built by man. And I think of the
hundreds and thousands of teachers and preachers and lawyers and doctors
that these two schools have turned out in the different parts of this
country, and many of them are in other parts of the world.
And all of this has been done through the churches, and God be praised
for those that have given of their means.
At Harper's Ferry I spent four years and they were years of hard labor,
but they were just as sweet as they could well be, for the Lord went
with me and I found favor with all of the teachers. When I had spent the
first eight months there I learned to have the greatest love for my
beloved teachers, and when the time came for me to leave the teachers I
thought that my poor heart would break. Though I was coming to my own
people in Brooklyn, I felt that I was leaving my best friends on the
earth and so did all of the students.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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