TUCKED AWAY in a corner of many gardens in Brooklyn was a small plot saved for an herb garden. This little plot was methodically and clearly kept out of cultivation because herbs were prized plants, and owners wanted to avoid losing their root stock as a result of too much digging around them. Herbs seem to multiply and grow best when they are left alone to grow in their own way.
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PEOPLE USUALLY GOT A BUCKET OF WATER in the morning, one at dinner time and then one at night. Water was a commodity that had to be conserved and stretched as far as possible because carrying buckets of water long distances was quite a task.
Women usually carried the water from the well for use on wash day, but occasionally, a boy was employed to do this job for them. I remember seeing strong women carry buckets of water balanced on their heads while also carrying buckets in each hand. They accomplished this feat without having much water slosh from any of the buckets.
IN THE NEXT BLOCK from our home lived a physician who was an important person in our early family life. During our father’s lifetime, Dr. George Williams was our family physician, and he remained so after my father’s death.
I remember our beloved friend as a large, good-looking man with an olive complexion and black curly hair. He had a jolly, infectious laugh. It was a big hearty laugh that called to you and let you know that he was near.
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THE GOLD DIGGER was an old man who moved painfully, methodically and slowly. He hobbled from place to place with the aid of an old gnarled stick that looked like a small tree branch.
His feeble frame was massive. His great shoulders were rather hunched and rounded, but one could readily see that he had once been a powerful man capable of doing laborious work.
MUCH OF THE Material in this book is information that was told to me by older people. Much of it is what I have remembered from my childhood experiences.
I have decided to write about the section of Charlotte, North Carolina, which was called Brooklyn because I think its development and the history of its colored citizenry should be recorded.
This area was small in land size, but the activities of its people give an intimate glimpse of life as it was centered in this segment of America many years ago.