Mr Smith's father rented a farm and Mr. Smith has been a farmer all his life. The Smith couple have been married sixty-four years. Mrs. Smith says, "and never a cross word exchanged. Mr. Smith and I had no children."
The room the writer was invited into was a combination bed-room and living room with a large heating stove in the centre of the small room. A bed on one side, a few chairs about the room. The floor was covered with an old patched rug. The only other room beside this room was a very small kitchen. The whole home was shabby and poor.
The only means of support the family has is a government old age pension which amounts to about fourteen dollars a month.
Their little shack is situated in the center of a large lot around which a very nice vegetable garden is planted. The property belongs to Mr. Harry Brazy, and the old couple does not pay rent or taxes and they may stay there as long as they live, "which is good enough for us," says Mrs. Smith.
As the writer was leaving Mrs. Smith said, "I like to talk and meet people. Come again."
Robert C. Irvin Noblesville, Ind. District #2
EX-SLAVE, LIFE STORY OF BARNEY STONE, FORMER SLAVE, HAMILTON CO.
This is the life story of Barney Stone, a highly respected colored gentleman of Noblesville, Hamilton County seat. Mr. Stone is near nintey-one years old, is in sound physical condition and still has a remarkable memory. He was a slave in the state of Kentucky for more than sixteen years and a soldier in the Union army for nearly two years. He educated himself and taught school to colored children four years following the Civil War. He studied in 1868, and has been a preacher in the Colored Baptist Faith for sixty nine years, having been instrumental in the building of seven churches in that time. Mr. Stone joined the K. of P. Lodge, the I.O.O.F. and Masonic Lodge and is still a member of the latter.
This fine old colored man has always worked hard for the uplift and advancement of the colored race and has accomplished much in this effort in the States of Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana. He, together with his preaching of the gospel, and his lecturing, has followed farming. He now has a field of sweet corn and a fine, large garden, which he plowed, planted and tended himself and not a weed can be found in either. He is the only ex-slave now living in Hamilton County, the others all deceased, and is one of three living members of Hamilton county G.A.R. the other two members being white.