From Ancestry.com I learn that Joe Brazil was born in Detroit, Michigan on August 25, 1927 to Ida M. Hill and Hilliard Brazil. Ida was 19, twelve years younger than Hilliard and they had married eight months earlier in Laurens County, Georgia – cotton country mid-way between Atlanta and Savanah. Their first son, Zodis, had been born May 6, 1924.
Many slaves took the surnames of their owners. According to census records and deeds, a plantation owner in Laurens County, Georgia during the Civil War was named Willis Breazeal, son of Henry Willis Breazeal who established a plantation in the late 1700s. Perhaps Joe's family name came from this plantation.
Railroads to the nearby county seat of Dublin had provided explosive growth in Laurens County, and would eventually be the conduit for black exodus. The Vidalia Route on the Macon, Dublin, and Savannah Railroad was built in 1891, four years before Hilliard was born, with a stop in Montrose, pronounced “Mont Rose” by residents, a tiny town so puny and poor that even today it lacks a public sewer system. While Hilliard was growing up and working in the cotton fields with his father, Charlie, he would have heard whistles from the two steam trains that ran the 54-mile route north in the morning and south in the evening. One day in 1927, the Brazil family would get a one-way ticket on the north bound run.
April 7, 1978
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| Hilliard Brazil |
Joe Brazil: Hit it. And so it's recording now.
Hilliard Brazil: Uh huh
JB: You see that little needle jumping right here.
HB: Yeah, yeah.
JB: It's recording right now.
HB: Ok.
JB: I can look at this number and say its at...
HB: It takes smart people to operate them. And the guy that made it...
JB: Oh, my goodness.
HB: Oh, boy. Now he was something else.
JB: Yeah, right. He was really thinking. And they keep improving them you know.
HB: Yeah.
JB: Each year their doing something to them.
JB: I don't really have, I haven't thought of nothing to ask directly. You know it's just a basic want to try and trace our family tree. We've talked about it sometimes. I know you remember a lot of things and perhaps on both sides of the family, the Brazil side, and the Hill side, especially from Georgia. So maybe we can just start with where you were born at specifically and maybe dates and that kind of thing.
JB: What was that date? Date of birth?
HB: I don't know when that took place.
JB: No. Your birth date.
HB: My birth date? Oh, my birth date is back in the 1800s. I was born 1895. I was born five years before 1900 came in.
JB: Yeah. Do you remember the exact date? What was the day and the month?
HB: September 6th.
JB: Oh, September 6th?
HB: Yes. I was born 1895, September 6th.
JB: So you're under the sign of Virgo, then.
HB: Huh?
JB: I'm a Virgo, too. Well you see that's during the year, they chop the year into twelve different parts and from August the 23rd to September the 23rd, something like that is Virgo.
HB: What you call that Vego?
JB: Virgo - V-i-r-g-o. Everybody's got some sort of sign. It's an astrology sign. I didn't realize you were the same sign I am. We are the same sign. My brother is Taurus.
HB: Is what?
JB: Taurus. He was born in May.
HB: Who?
JB: Brother.
HB: Brother.
JB: Right.
HB: And his is?
JB: It's called Taurus. It's May the 6th. So everybody's got...that's just something that people look at...
HB: Well it's nice for them to find out all that. But I seen a card, you know they've got an attractive way of writing it on the windows or what have you. I couldn't even pronounce a lot of it but I seen those kind of signs. That's what you're talking about.
JB: So you're September the 6th in 1895 out of Montrose, Georgia.
HB: What's that?
JB: You said September the 6, 1895 right outside of Montrose, Georgia. Right near Montrose, Georgia. Within two miles you say.
HB: Mont...
JB: Montrose. Didn't you say Montrose?
HB: I don't know what that means. I can't understand anyway.
JB: Oh! Didn't you say right in Georgia where you was born.
HB: Yeah. Georgia.
JB: But you said it was Montrose, Georgia.
HB: Mont-rose. Yeah, Mont-rose.
JB: Oh, Mont-rose
HB: M-o-n-t-r-o-s-e
JB: I was saying Montrose.
HB: Mont-rose.
JB: Mont-rose.
HB: Mont-rose, Georgia. That was our post office. We lived out on, kind of slipped up on Route 2. I believe it was 24. I believe our box was 24. I believe. But it was Route 2, box 24, I believe. Mail carrier brought our mail out on Monday.
JB: Now what was your parents' names?
HB: My father's name was Charlie Brazil.
JB: That's my grandfather.
HB: Yeah. That's right. I got a picture... And my mother was named Mary Lou Brazil. Now I don't guess I got a picture of my mother. But I don't know of her picture being made at all itself. Once my sisters, she...My mother passed already and Queen had decided to make a picture of her passing. Well, I don't know if I have that. But my father, he was kind of, I don't know if you call it keen or what, but he was kind of deep into things. You know I made pictures when I was...
JB: You were into photography yourself.
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| Chicago Ferrotype ad 1915 |
JB: Yeah. That's way ahead of the time because they're doing almost the exact same thing today. In places like some big department store, they go and take your picture there, put a little background there. If you want a tree scene or you want a sunset or whatever. You just got a little picture there. And you were doing that.
HB: Yeah, that's right. I made that and I'd frame it. I'd fold it up and roll it up and put it across the handlebars in front. And I had all my stuff. Packing up the bike I could go seventeen miles up or down to the railroad, I go out in the country anywhere.
JB: So a lot of people wanted that service. I guess a lot of people wanted pictures taken.
HB: Oh, yeah. I made... you know the country's not heavily populated out of the city. There's a house here and there and then you get a bunch of people together you got to get people from all over. And I'd go up seventeen miles to Jeffersonville. I'd make thirty-five dollars. I remember going on up there ah, I think it was the fourth Sunday in September. I never, I don't remember going up there and making less than thirty-five dollars.
JB: Son of a gun. That was good.
HB: Thirty-five dollars was a lot of money in the country because people at that time was working for fifty cents a day. I'd go on my bike and make thirty-five dollars rain or shine. You know if it rained, it would have to, well it didn't happen, but it would have to rain continuously all day and keep people close to the machine. Because if it rained in the morning, they would cut out and the show go on in the afternoon but I'd make that thirty-five dollars like that. I'd only have two hours anyway. Wait for it after that. Because...
JB: How much did you charge for each picture?
HB: Well, I'd start of at a dime or whatever, a quarter.
JB: And you made that much money off of that. You made a whole lot of picture then, huh? To make that thirty-five dollars you'd have to make about fifty or a hundred.
HB: Oh yeah. I made, I don't know how many I made. But ah, it was, we use to do, because, sometimes whether it was the morning or afternoon, and the reason I said I did it in half days, I guess it wouldn't be over an hour, hour and a half at the most because I was located between the church and the railroad station. And everybody would come on the train. But if he was at the buggy they would find out were I was and cut out to get a picture made. But ah, people were going when they leave the train or depot, or any direction, going to the church, they weren't too much concerned about.
JB: Oh, I see.
HB: But when they leave, going away, then that's the time everyone wanted the picture made. Well, you see, it wasn't too long before all the people going to church would be passed anyhow. But that's the time actually it took, maybe a little more, for me to make that money. But the machine I had, it was a one minute machine so I had two sections in the cup in the back where I developed the pictures. And it took them a minute to develop. I'd drop them in there, maybe, if I had nothing in there I'd maybe make, depending on the crowd, maybe four, five, maybe half a dozen. And then I'd turn that thing around and start putting in the other section. You know it revolved around. Like after one section, you revolve it around and put in the other section where you drop it in there. Well the minute it required for those to develop, it was back there developing, you know, so then I'd make pictures for least a minute or maybe a minute and a half.
JB: And then you would just take them out.
HB: Oh I took them. By then I would have the bottle filled anyway. But THESE would be developed. By the time I deliver all of them, the ones over there would be developing. I'd turn around and take them out and deliver them and then I got to get one again, and put in maybe a few here, turn around and set it up like that.
JB: Production line going.
HB: Yeah. Well I was the only one on production. You know, I worked it out. So anyway, ah, on the third, I believe it was the third or fourth Sunday, whatever it was, I made thirty-five dollars. And I had a pretty good experience on that because ah, I ah, would write to, if on the back of the magazine at that time under, through all, under every page, because I had time on my hands anyway. So if there was something of interest I would check on that and it would turn out to be this picture machine with the most interesting thing I ever saw in a magazine.
JB: Oh, I see. So you ordered it.
HB: Yeah, well, what made it interesting, I wanted to make some money. And I saw, must have been Jim Turling or somebody, a picture man come from a little town, maybe, might have been, if it was Jim Turling, he come from Dublin, and he was standing behind the tripod, three-legged you know, and making them dimes. That's what it took to make them dimes. That's what I liked. Well, I was too bashful to ask the man, could any of them make them from him how to get that machine. I didn't know how to get it. I just saw this man doing it. That's all. That's as far as I got. So ah, looking through the magazine I saw a picture of a guy standing behind looked something just like, I said, "This is it." And I, I don't know, I must have saw it for a while before I was able to do anything about it because my money was hard to come by. And ah, but I kept wanting until that one day there was one advertised for six dollars. It was the small one, it was, oh a little square box, you know, a little box but it was small. But it was for six dollars. And ah, they said you could pay it on an installment plan. So that was right down my alley. So I wrote for one. And waited for a week. It took you a week to get a reply. I wrote for one and waited for a week and it didn't show. So I wrote for another. I waited another week and it didn't show. So I put in an order for another one. Three of them. By that time, things started coming.
JB: Oh, all of them started coming.
HB: The third of them didn't come but the second one did. But I took this album from the first one and I would read, well I had read and found out what I had found out, but the important stuff I didn't. Such as the instruction how to operate it. I read up and found out it had six, the possibility of making six pictures come with the set. And if you understand you can make the six. But it was my first affair so I had to count to see if the guy was cheating me. So I counted the cards. And that meant I took them out of there in the light. And that's silly. They wouldn't make a picture. You couldn't expose them to light because...
JB: Right, right.
HB: So ah, then I realized, "Oh, that's why I ruined them."
JB: Yeah, I want to...
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| Montrose lower left, Millville upper right |
JB: Ha, ha, he was enjoying himself.
HB: So I went over there an looked all over his machine to see what was the trademark. Who made it.
JB: Yeah.
HB: And it had the same name as what mine had, Chicago Ferrotype Company.
JB: He had a bigger one that yours.
HB: So I came home. I was paying or whatever it was. It wasn't but a little while past, anyhow. I think it was a dollar a week or a dollar a month or something. I would send it to them. But this one, it was much more, it cost, it looked like a monster to me. It cost forty five dollars I believe.
JB: Hmm.
HB: I believe that big one cost forty five dollars. Or near fifty dollars.
JB: That was a lot of money at that period.
HB: Oh boy. That was a lot of money for me. I didn't have no part of that. So I, um, saw it was from Chicago Ferrotype. So I goes home and write a, you know, a business letter to the Chicago Ferrotype Company for one of them, you know. Well they sent me their magazine, sent me a whole lot of stuff. They sent me all of their advertising papers, you know, showing all the different kinds. Yeah, I don't know what that thing cost. It may... yeah it must have been about forty five dollars. Anyway, this was one, or like it was about the most expensive one they had on it. And I wrote them a letter and told them that, ah, I could pay them, I think it was fifteen dollars down. And so much per month or something. And they fell for it. But the important part about it, I never did pay over fifteen dollars for it. That's all it cost me for the whole time. That's all that big machine cost me.
JB: Oh. So they never did collect the rest of it.
HB: Never did. Now here's how that come about. I simply didn't have to send anything. You're supposed to pay fifteen dollars at the post office when it arrives. So it arrived and they had one. And they filled the little deal within that. And zero's condemning them on that whatever that typewriter or adding machine or whatever it was, condemning them. And Clem Williams was the postmaster, he was running that store, cause they had, the post office was on the grocery store, they sold stuff and had a post office in their store. And Clem Williams operated Mr. Williams store, his daddy's store. So Clem thought it was, right here, a dollar and a half. He didn't see. He thought it was...
JB: Oh, oh, oh.
HB: He didn't understand. He thought it was a dollar and a half.
JB: Oh, I see.
HB: So that's what it cost me. A dollar and a half. I didn't even pay the fifteen dollars.
JB: Ha, ha, ha.
HB: I paid a dollar and a half and got that big machine now, well. I knew I was poor. I had money. I had fifteen dollars but I didn't wake them up because...
JB: Right.
HB: I wasn't supposed to know anything.
JB: Right.
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| Modern ferrotype developer |
JB: Ah.
HB: It would refine the picture. Well I learned all that secret too.
JB: Oh, yeah.
HB: So I bought this in pieces and made my own developer. Well, and on top of that, and naturally, I would need more cards or more picture materials.
JB: Right, right.
HB: Well I had to contact the company again and I figured they would find that out that they didn't get but a dollar and a half for the whole grip and boy it was, I had a bunch to lose. Cardboard boxes, this and that, and different boxes you know. And plus with that tripod, the machine and the other supplies and stuff that went with it. So uh, I said, "They going to, got to find out." But I sent back and I bought developer from them, that mix you know that gets greener, made that developer and bought more products from them and they never knew. So I got that machine for a dollar and a half because the figures were faded more and more...
JB: Faded right there.
HB: I guess they needed a new tape on the typewriter or something. But that's the one...
JB: You really wanted and you got it for the price. That was really a break.
HB: Yeah, so, I kept, I don't know what happened to it because I got out of it. I go up to Atlanta and went to work there. That's where I wish that machine, I don't know what happened. Somebody must have stole it. Well since as much as I wasn't using it, it was there in the house or about the house somewhere.
JB: I see.
HB: And I didn't check on it every day.
JB: Yeah, right.
HB: Well I don't know when, or anything about its disappearance. It's just gone.
JB: You came home late, it went on late. Anyway. Getting back to the family, you had what, four or five sisters and brothers.
HB: Well uh, how many are all dead and alive, I have twelve.
JB: Twelve sisters and brothers.
HB: Yeah.
JB: Do you recall...
HB: I don't know their names, maybe one of the brothers named Little B. Senior, but they all died young.
JB: Oh I see.
HB: They all died.
JB: As many of the names you can think of and maybe just when they were born.
HB: Who is that?
JB: All the sisters and brothers. As many of the names you can think of.
HB: Yeah, well, if I can really, well I would say would be my... before.
JB: Yeah, right.
HB: Because I remember them.
JB: Right, yeah.
HB: One was named Queen. Queen Victoria Brazil at that time when she was born. And I was next to her a year.
JB: Oh she was older.
HB: Yeah. She was the oldest.
JB: Do you remember what her birthday was? You don't when her birthday was, huh?
HB: Huh?
JB: Recall when her birthday was? Aunt Queen's birthday. Do you know when Aunt Queen's birthday was?
HB: Yeah. April 8th.
JB: April 8th. That's tomorrow.
HB: Yeah. April 8th.
JB: Or today. No, tomorrow. Tomorrow's April 8th.
HB: Yeah. Today is the...
JB: 7th
HB: 7th. No. The 7th.
JB: Yeah. Today's the 7th.
HB: Yeah. Today's the 7th. Tomorrow's the 8th.
JB: Probably remember the date, 18...
HB: 1890... I think Queen's birthday was 1893.
JB: So she was about 2 or 3 years older. She wasn't too much older. I'd say it's about a couple of years.
HB: She was about 2 years older than I was.
JB: Oh, I see.
HB: I'm not sure about that but I ain't never remember anything like what in 1894. But it was, I think, 1893.
JB: Now Mose was after you.
HB: Mose. Yeah. I'm nine years and twenty days older than him so you can figure whatever date that was. In fact he was born... I don't know exactly. But nine years and twenty days younger than I.
JB: Oh, nine years and twenty days, huh?
HB: Yeah. Nine years and twenty days younger than I am.
JB: Let's see. So your birthday is the 6th. So he was born in August then.
HB: Well he was born... Wait a minute.
JB: Yeah, see it was twenty days.
HB: Yeah our birthdays were about the same.
JB: Yeah, so twenty days earlier, that would have to be back in August. Because your September 6th. You take six days off of that. Takes you back to August. And then you take seventeen days after that. Let's see. The thirty first and seventeen is four. That seems like August fourteenth to me.
HB: I don't know about that.
JB: You said nine years and twenty days.
HB: Nine years.
JB: So if you take the nine years off and you say, well you add nine years to it, so adding nine years really makes it younger. You know. So that makes him two, 1902.
HB: I think he was born in 1904.
JB: 1904.
HB: I was born in 1895. He was born 1904. Nine years. From 1895 to 18... From 1895 to 1904.
JB: You're right. You're right. 1904. You're right. 1904. You're exactly right. Ok so yeah, he's 1904 and August the 14th.
HB: No.
JB: That's twenty...
HB: Seems like his birthday is in September.
JB: Hmm. Maybe it's twenty days the other way then. Maybe it's the 26th.
HB: I don't know why I had twenty days.
JB: Younger.
HB: Ok. He nine years. I guess what it is... I maybe...
JB: See he was, he would have to be September the 26th. Which would be twenty days that way.
HB: That's right.
JB: Or it would have to be August 14th, twenty days the other way.
HB: Uh. Yeah. I think it's something like my birthday but, you know, twenty days...
JB: So it's probably, yeah, probably September 26th.
HB: Yeah. I'm getting to where I can't remember.
JB: Yeah. That's a memory now.
HB: I'm filled up with don't know how many different things.
JB: Yeah. Right. Your main mind is busy trying to get that trip and everything going too. The other sister's Baby Girl, right.
HB: That's right.
JB: But what was her name?
HB: I don't know, I don't know anything about Baby's birthday.
JB: But you know her actual name is not Baby though is it.
HB: No. Her name is Mary Lou.
JB: Yeah, Mary Lou. Right.
HB: Same as her mother.
JB: Oh. Same as her mother's name.
HB: Yeah. My mother's name. In fact, between me and baby girl we lost a lot of my sisters and brothers. They died at a fairly young age. They was born but that's all.
JB: Maybe we ought to find out....
HB: They wasn't old enough for them to name them, give them a name.
JB: Right.
HB: Because they, you know, they tried different things and my father and mother was ah, devout, they was really religious. So they thought of everything. So they said maybe we're naming them too late. So they didn't name, they quit naming them.
JB: Because they thought that might have caused it.
HB: Yeah. And Baby Girl was born. So they didn't give her a name. And she lived until she got old enough to give her own self a name.
JB: Oh. She named herself?
HB: She named herself.
JB: That's interesting.
HB: Because, you know, and so she called her her mother's name so she named herself right after her mother. That's how that come about.
JB: Interesting, yeah. So she should be quite a bit younger than, ah so, if she's born after Mose was in 1904, so...
HB: Well, baby was older than Mose.
JB: Oh, she's older than Mose.
HB: Yeah. Baby Girl...
JB: Oh. I thought she was younger.
HB: She's younger than I am but she's older than my brother.
JB: Oh, I see. There were a lot of, lot of bothers in between there.
HB: More. There was Queen, myself, Baby Girl, and Mose.
JB: Oh. So Mose is youngest.
HB: That's right.
JB: Oh. I see. So Baby Girl would have to be somewhere in between there then.
HB: That's right.
JB: So she's probably around either 1900 or 1899. Something like that.
HB: I don't really know.
JB: Right around there, sure.
HB: And I talked to her here not too long ago but I wasn't thinking in terms of this at all. So I... in fact I never did. If I did, I forgot.
JB: And she lived, she's still living in Atlanta.
HB: She's still in Atlanta.
JB: I think I've got her... I'm sure I've got her main address.
HB: 236.
JB: Oh that's her address? 236.
HB: Mary Cantrell.
JB: That's her married name now.
HB: Yeah. That's her married name. She was named Mary Lou Brazil to start with. Yeah. 236 Holly Road.
JB: Yeah, right. I've been there. And that's in Atlanta. What was her phone number?
HB: Yeah, you know your going to go there a long answer for you that's 1-404...
JB: Oh. That's zip code 404. Oh, I mean area code.
HB: Well the area code would be 404.
JB: Yeah, right.
HB: And that, you know, you got to... You know what... And it's xxx-xxxx.
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| Ida [Hill] Brazil |
HB: Let's see. We was in Atlanta. Well I've been knowing her all her life.
JB: Right.
HB: She lived in Montrose, too. Out there in the county.
JB: Oh, I see. That was in Montrose too.
HB: Yeah. I've been knowing her...
JB: Well they came... She was born in Twiggs County, where ever that is.
HB: What?
JB: Was she born, in like, Twiggs County or something. I don't know what that is. Twiggs.
HB: Now I don't know if, I know, I don't know. But Mr. Hill moved... I can't [unintelligible] too good for her... He was an older... He was an older, and, and, that's how the judge and my father was.
JB: Oh, I see.
HB: And he might got caught from Twiggs County. But that's a little too deep for me.
JB: Yeah. Right. There's a couple of things I want, like momma's birthday and aunt Bertha's birthday. You know, on their records it shows Twiggs County.
HB: Yeah. Well. That must be it. They probably did live in there but they moved down down nearer to Montrose and our part.
JB: Oh, I see.
HB: Yeah. But, ah, that's too deep for me.
JB: Right.
HB: People was moving around, caught out there, caught at... So many people moved away from where we were and some moved in where every we were. You know, that kind of thing.
JB: Hmm. And did you guys, did you get married in Atlanta.
HB: To Ida?
JB: Yeah. Right.
HB: We were married here.
JB: Oh. You were married here. You're married in Detroit.
HB: Yeah.
JB: You just came up together.
HB: Yeah. Well, ah, after I was in Atlanta, after I was up there for a while, in Atlanta, then Ida came up. I don't know if Bertha came up, or Ida came up.
Woman's voice: Ida.
HB: Yeah. She came up there and was living up there, that's all.
JB: Um-hum.
HB: And that's when your brother was born in Atlanta.
JB: Yeah. Brother was born in Atlanta, right.
HB: And ah, then we came here. But you see, I married her after we got here.
JB: Oh. I see.
HB: And then you were born.
JB: Right. I was born here.
HB: You were born here in Detroit.
JB: Right. 1927. I guess brother was born 1924.
HB: 27.
JB: 1927.
HB: That's right.
JB: August 25th. I guess brother was born in 1924.
HB: Yeah. That was just before I left Atlanta.
JB: 1924. May the 6th is his birthday. And so, so you guys came up but, but it wasn't, wasn't together. Just the children, just the two of us. Didn't one child die?
HB: No. It was just the two, that's all.
JB: Ok. Do you remember what year, so what year did you come here to Detroit, in what, about 1925, 26, something like that?
HB: 25.
JB: When you came to Detroit?
HB: Yeah.
JB: About 1925.
HB: 1925.
JB: And then what? You came to work for Ford, or you just came to change towns, or...
HB: What's that?
JB: You came primarily to work or just to change towns?
HB: Yeah. I come here to work at Ford.
JB: Yeah. That's right.
HB: Finally I got on there, but not, not right off, not right off the rail. But I finally got to start working there.
JB: Right.
HB: But that's when I came here for.
JB: Yeah. That's... Now... if I try, I try to trace like from the Brazil side and... You don't remember what your mother's maiden name was.
HB: Hardy.
JB: Hardy.
HB: Her name was Mary Lou Hardy before she got married to my father.
JB: Oh. So therefore, her family tree would be the Hardys.
HB: That's right.
JB: Did you ever know any of the Hardys?
HB: I don't know of any other Hardy down there. That's getting back...
JB: Going way back.
HB: Getting back to where I can't remember too well.
JB: Yeah, right.
HB: So. But they was Hardys but I don't remember any more Hardys being down there. And there aren't any more. I remember my mother talking. Because my mother was born after the so called freedom.
JB: Oh.
HB: But her father, my grandfather, Charlie Hardy, he got a little taste, a little benefit...
JB: A slave.
HB: Because I think he was born just before the freedom.
JB: Ah.
HB: Whenever that is, you know, when you have slaves and freed all of them.
JB: So his name was Charlie, just like your father.
HB: His name was Charlie Hardy. And my mother's name, my mother's name Mary Lou, no my grandmother, that's Charlie Hardy's wife was named Jane Hardy.
JB: Oh. Ok.
HB: Yeah.
JB: Charlie. You remember quite a bit going back.
HB: I don't know how they come by that name Hardy. Because, from the best I can remember they, from the conflicts they had back then, they was McGriff. I don't know if my grandfather, I don't, I... If he was Charlie McGriff how did he come by Charlie Hardy? Maybe somebody named him Hardy bought him.
JB: He could have been a slave.
HB: Some of his relatives belong to a man named McGriff. Because during this time, that must have been just right around, or just before his birth or something. But they heard about it, they, you know, made such record that they had in their head. There are a set of people. Set of colored people, you know, one white, some white guy bought and take them away...
JB: Still was doing that then?
HB: No. That was my grandfather. He was born at the last part of that time or just past that. Because they talked and my mother remembered. They kept a record.
JB: I know. Right away.
HB: Somebody brought, somebody bought, I don't know if it was my grandfather's brother or what but some ancestor of mine, they bought that man and took him out west originally to Texas. And I don't know the county now but my mother did remember. She just had a good remembrance.
JB: A record.
HB: She heard them say that that's where them people...
JB: Was taking him.
HB: When they come from the boat, I don't know who, grandfather...
JB: Right, right.
HB: And took them over there.
JB: So that's how they trace it down. Because people had good memories then.
HB: Yeah. Well then after I got in the world and got to where I could read a little and write a little, she still remembered. She asked me to write a letter...
JB: To try to trace...
HB: She knew there was, it was some county in Texas. She didn't know the town, just the county in Texas where them people were. So she had me write a letter to whatever name that was, in that county in Texas. And she got a reply. She got an answer.
JB: Is that a fact?
HB: And ah, then they send pictures and letters. They used to correspond by letter. I was the one to instigate, and I was the one to read and write a little. So I read it an all that. But at that time, when these letters came, that cleared up. Because when we first wrote the county in Texas...
JB: Yeah, then you got the right address.
HB: Then we got the right address. It was Carson County. But at the time we got this Carson County, I pronounced it as Carters County. I was cutting them away now as Carters County.
JB: Close enough.
HB: But the reaction was Carson County. And if I'm not mistaken, if we didn't go to Carson County, we went close to that. Because we went through the state of Texas when I went out, down the, out west. And I thought about them people then. I said, "If I had known, that if I had known the address, I got along this far, I'd stop, go by, and say hello to them." Probably some of them still there.
JB: Some of them might still be tracing that.
HB: On top of the communications, they'd send pictures. And it was one of them pictures, a man looked just like my grandfather.
JB: Son of a gun.
HB: And another thing, they... the lord did it I guess, because they named their peoples over there something like the names we had over here. Because I have cousins named Calvin and they had somebody over there named Calvin. They named them the same as Alabama. It was just something similar.
JB: Probably we should have been starting on this a lot earlier because the time... I'm supposed to go to the west side, right around, I was supposed to have been over there a little after 10. But the next thing you know, you know, it... but you get in, you get involved and be a lot of interesting information, you know. We could probably still get together some other time. But what I want to do is maybe right here before I split, is to follow up, at least up to this day, you know, then, of course, you and mother had problems, you know, got divorced. And then you remarried. Do you recall what year that was?
HB: [Long pause] No. I wouldn't know exactly. But 1926 wouldn't miss it too far.
JB: Oh. No that's when you and mother got married.
HB: Yeah.
JB: Alright. 1926. No. I was saying after you got to Detroit and after you guys got married, then I guess about 1940 was it something that you were separated and divorced.
HB: Yeah.
JB: Then after you remarried, I was trying to think of the year of your second marriage.
HB: The second marriage...
JB: 1950s or 40s...
HB: was ah, 39, I believe...
JB: Oh. 1939.
HB: I believe is was 39. I think it was 39. Because Harold is 38 years old.
JB: Oh, he's only 38?
HB: Yeah. He was born on Christmas Day.
JB: Oh, he's a youngster.
HB: He was born 1940, Christmas Day.
JB: 1940. Oh.
HB: That's why I'm judging it must have been around...
JB: Oh, right. Oh, I see. He's just like Jesus Christ.
HB: Hmm?
JB: Jesus Christ, 19... born on Christmas Day. Son of a gun. That's Capricorn.
HB: Hmm?
JB: That's the Capricorn sign. Christmas.
HB: What's that?
JB: I mean, you know, a sign like say, you know, Virgo.
HB: I don't know.
JB: That stand for... yeah, 19, 20... I think he's on the verge of the sign... I think he had to be... No, that's right.
HB: You know, you know all the time. That's hard, hmm?
JB: Oh, well I was into that for a while, you know. I was studying that. That's what's called astrology, you know.
HB: Uh, huh.
JB: And I used to study that a little bit.
HB: Mmm...
JB: I see...
HB: Remember I told you about what they tell whatever the sign would be.
JB: Yeah, right, right, right. What is Bettie's birthday?
HB: I can't tell you that.
JB: She's younger though, isn't she?
HB: Yeah. She's the one here.
JB: And, but you don't remember.
HB: No. I don't know. She's a couple of years younger must have been.
JB: A couple of years. So she was around 1942. You're remembering well. I can't remember nothing myself. That's why I write stuff. That's why I use the tape recorder and write stuff down because I can't remember it.
HB: When somebody asks me, I tell them my birthday was 1895 September 6th. But when the birthday comes I can't even remember.
JB: Yeah, right.
HB: If somebody don't call me or write to me or something to remind me, I'll pass my own birthday up. And the same thing about whatever day it is. Like, for instance, Valentines. People already celebrating and all that. Well that will get me to know that Valentines is drawing near, or is here, or just past. Because it's all ready here. I just can't realize it.
JB: Right, right, right. We can get back, back in to it maybe one day because I'm going to be here until Sunday. I'm supposed to get together, I talked with Zoretta last night.
HB: You talked with Zoretta.
JB: Right.
HB: They live out at South Gate.
JB: South Gate or something like that. I may go by there Saturday. And so I got three, four more rounds to make that. I started to come by last night after I got back from uh, from the hospital, no, yeah, the hospital. And, you know, I think I talked to you last night a little bit.
HB: Yeah.
JB: I should have come on by about 8:00. I remember maybe we set a chat two or three hours, whatever. But still this is good information. It gave me a start and then maybe if I think of some other questions, you think of something else you think might be interesting, you know.
HB: Uh-huh.
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