*Interview with Mintie Wood,* *St. Louis, Missouri.*
The subject of this sketch is Mintie Gilbert Wood, 90 years old. She lives at 4321 West Belle Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri, with her widowed daughter, Emma Swift, 69 years old.
In the living room of a 10 room brick residence located in the better class section of the Negro district of the city, Mintie lives with her oldest daughter and two granddaughters. The old woman has been blind for 8 years. She is quite bent and shows the burden of her years. She is hard of hearing and her mind is no longer keen and alert. Her daughter claims a recent illness has caused the latter trouble. However, the ex-slave very feebly tells the following story.
"I was born down in Bethel, Giles County, Tennessee, September 9, 1847. Marse Carey Gilbert was my owner and I lived on his farm until 1892, when I moved to little Rock, Arkansas. Marse Carey was mighty nice to his slaves and he had a host of ’em. Can’t begin to say how many. My old uncle was de overseer of us younguns, about 50 young darkies, and he trained us up till we get a certain age, then they turn us over to the grown up lot, where the white overseer took charge of us. I don’t 'member every thing so good, but I do de best I can. I ’member when Marse Gilbert’s daughter Miss Rebecca married Marse Maples, they lived 'bout 8 or 10 miles from her daddy’s farm, and she use to come home ever so often to visit. She looked so fine de slaves working in de field see her coming dey all stop and rest on der hoe to look at her pass by on her way to see her mamma, and she would tell ’em, you niggers better pray my father never die. Cause if he died, I wouldn’t ’low none you niggers to lift your heads from de time you go to work till you quit. My niggers work and never stop. Marse Gilbert gave her 4 slaves as a wedding present, and they had a hard time, but her parents was mighty fine.
"Dey owned so much land, cattle, corn, sorghum, tobacco, millet, barley and everything the very finest kind and the wealth was handed down from one generation of the Gilberts to the other. Dey was so rich dey didn’t know how much dey was worth themselves, but dey was altogether different than most of dem slave owners. Dey was prosperous ’cause dey was better folks. When peace was declared everyone of Marse Gilbert’s slaves dat had sense enough and did stay wid him, got half of everything they earned turned in on land and stock to be independent right der on de same spot where we had been a slave. And he had so many of his family and darkies, too, he has his own graveyard where everyone of us black or white dat ever been in de Gilbert family can be buried without costing us a penny.