To all of my family, this is the story of my life as I lived it, and remember it. I am the oldest living member of the Harris family of Dothan, Alabama. Mama was born and papa was born Toy, the oldest of my sisters, was born And I came along seven years later on September 25, We were all born in Dothan, Alabama.
Spivey delivered all of us. Black mama Alice was a freed woman who papa loved very much. While I lived in Dothan she was very much part of our lives, she took care of us like we were her own family. Mama sure loved her. She would come down to our house, put me on her hip, take my two sisters, and put the dirty clothes basket on her head, and at night time she would bring us back β clothes all washed and ironed.
Mama always made a point of giving to the grocery store that day. When we moved to east St. Louis I was only a baby, not sure how old I was. Mama sold all the furniture we had. Mama writes back she had bought the girls each a coat and me a pair of shoes. In her letter she refers to me as the baby. We rode a train from Dothan to east St. Papa said in another letter that he would meet us. I think we lived in east St. Louis two years. I know we lived there during the riots. It was a two-story, brick, beautiful old house with lots of trees and not too far from where papa worked.
I started to school when I was 7 years old. It was a country school with two teachers. I walked to school, about two miles each way. Grandma used to tell me stories of her life as a child. One I remember very well was the time when she was a small child. They had sneaked through the Union lines to check on their families to see if they had food, and then sneaked back.
Reuben was under direct command of General Robert E. Lee and was killed at the Siege of Richmond, Virginia. Every year, papa would take his vacation and we would drive through from Kansas City to Dothan in an open Baby Overland.
