“I had a baby child nearly the same age of hers, and I nursed them both
at my own breast. That has been sixty odd years ago, but I grieve for
her till yet, for she was good to me. I’m trying to be ready to meet
her. Mr. Billie Gaines does not forget me; he comes to see me, and
sends me a present now and then, and so does Mr. Frazier Northington.
“I was the mother of fourteen children by my first husband, Wiley
Gaines, and there is something in my family that very few people live
to see, the fifth generation. My oldest daughter, Annie, married
Henry Fort, Sister Margaret Fort’s son; their oldest daughter,
Margaret, married Gabe Washington, and their daughter, Amanda, has
grand-children. While I was talking about my white folks, I forgot to
tell you they were kin to the ‘big folks,’ the Bakers, the Dortch’s,
and Governor Blount. These three families lived out on Parson’s Creek,
and Major Baker gave the land on his place for that great camp ground,
called Baker’s Camp Ground. Lor, the good old times the people used to
have at the Baker’s camp meetings. You could hear them shouting for
miles! The little church wasn’t much larger than a family room, but
they had tents all along the creek bottom near the big Baker spring,
and held the meetings two or three weeks at a time. Brother Horace Carr
enjoyed these camp meetings; I’ve heard him tell of some of the big
sermons old Dr. Hanner, Dr. West, and others used to preach there, but
somehow he was partial to Red River Church, above all the rest. It was
through his influence that I, and a host of others joined Red River,
and then when we were freed, and the Lord blessed us with a church of
our own, we followed him to Mount Zion.
“If everybody that Brother Horace influenced to be Christians here on
earth are with him in heaven today, he has a glorious throng around
him. I will never forget the last time I saw him. I heard he was
sick, and I went over and carried him a lunch basket of nice things to
eat. The weather was warm, and he was able to bring his chair out and
sit in his yard. He had dropsy and did not live very long after that.
He talked of heaven most of the time; he would clap his hands and say:
‘I’m nearing my Father’s house,
Where many mansions be,
Nearer the great white throne,
My people are waiting for me.’
“I used to go to Brother Horace’s prayer meetings that he held around
at night in homes that permitted him, and one night he called on me to
pray in public. I was confused, and did not say but a few words, but
he told me that a few from the heart were worth ten thousand from the
tongue. When I told him good bye, the last visit I made him, he held my
hand a long time, and pointed toward heaven and said, ‘In the name of
our Lord, we must set up our banner. Set it high, and never look down.’”
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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