Composite image created using my portrait of Mary K. Jones with a background image found on AmericanSlavery.com

The digital voice recorder I ordered had better come soon! Every time I sit down with any of the elders at Hannan House, their stories just flow. Today it was Dr. Mary K. Jones. Mary K. is a most interesting woman. She has a doctorate in physics and taught for decades. During that time she even spent a year teaching in the Soviet Union. But now that Mary K. is retired, she enjoys participating in simple things like gardening and the aerobics classes at Hannan House.

Today Mary K. told me about her great grandmother who had been a slave. Mary K. used to spend her summers on her great grandmother's farm on the shores of the Mississippi River in Arkansas. This land was originally the "40 acres and a mule" that was given to freed slaves after the Emancipation. Mary K.'s great grandmother and father had walked all the way from North Carolina to claim this land. Apparently her great-grandmother was very proud of the fact that her husband could read. He'd been what was called a "house slave" and would listen in when the tutor taught the young master. "My great grandmother loved to tell stories of her years as a slave." When I asked if she had expressed any bitterness, Mary K. smiled and said, "On the contrary, she made me wish I'd lived then!"

As Eddie reminded me when I told him this story, I am privileged to be spending time with the last generation to have direct ties with persons who had been slaves in our country. You know, I'm beginning to suspect the stories I'll be recording may well be the real treasure of this project. Yes, the photos will have value--especially after these amazing elders have passed--but it is their stories that will live on forever.