One in Ten: Unchangeable

By Hazel Armstrong

I like nothing better than telling my life story to my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The humor and the hardship has given them faith and strength through generations.

I'm one of ten children born to the late Booker T. Washington and Georgia D. Kilpatrick Washington, their sixth child from Thebes,Arkansas. July 18, 1934 was the date of my birth. At the time Thebes had a population of 500 and was located in Ashley County.

Bayou Bartholomew has made a strong impact on my life. Hollering and screaming echoed across the plantation. Neighbors heard it for miles and came from all directions in wagons, on horseback, and foot.

Not knowing what to expect, they carried clubs, hoes, shovels and a few had shotguns. The whole countryside sounded like a warzone.

Beginning in 1879, Bayou Bartholomew changed the lives of the King,Gee, Kilpatrick, and Washington families.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 27, 2006
• ISBN: 9781465318220

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Copyright © 2006 by Hazel Armstrong.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGMENT

CHAPTER 1

LIFE ON THE PLANTATION

CHAPTER 2

PET ANIMALS

CHAPTER 3

DIRECT AFRICAN ANCESTOR SLAVE

CHAPTER 4

MY GRANDMOTHER (LADY)

CHAPTER 5

ABUSIVE FATHER

CHAPTER 6

MY FAVORITE SISTER AND FAVORITE AUNT

CHAPTER 7

EDUCATION FACILITY

CHAPTER 8

MEMORIES & CHRISTMAS TIME

CHAPTER 9

WHAT WAS DONE IN TIME OF SICKNESS

CHAPTER 10

UNCLE NATHAN

CHAPTER 11

ALMOST HOME

CHAPTER 12

RELOCATE

CHAPTER 13

TRUTH SPIRIT

CHAPTER 14

TODAY

CHAPTER 15

HOME IN THE CITY

CHAPTER 16

FATHER FIGURE

CHAPTER 17

PULLING UP STAKES

CHAPTER 18

CANCER SURVIVOR

CHAPTER 19

FROM ROSE TO HAZEL

INTRODUCTION

My name is Hazel Washington W. Armstrong. I am one of ten children born to the late Booker T. Washington and Georgia D. Kilpatrick Washington.

I was their sixth child, born in Thebes, Arkansas, on July 18, 1934. Thebes is a small country town in Ashley County. The population was about five hundred in the 30s.

Daddy was a sharecropper. We lived on a white man’s plantation. When Daddy plowed the fields we always found lots of arrowheads and a few of spearheads. Daddy said that the Indians once owned the whole territory.

Momma miscarried a lot of babies. When she was pregnant she still worked in the fields. Daddy had a special place in the corner of the garden where he buried the babies. Daddy finally took that garden for a graveyard for the babies.

This book was difficult for me to write. I am not a writer. This is my first time attempt. With each paragraph I am overcome with emotion.

PROLOGUE

Although over 60 years have passed, some would say I’m merely tormenting myself to put down onto paper those terrifying events, but I feel compelled to, not even knowing myself all the reasons and why of it. I suppose more than anything it’s a pulling at the back of my mind on something that had to be told. Writing this gives me closure and comfort.

Oh, how I could have used Momma’s help in growing up.

DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to dedicate this book with love to my three children: Donald Warren, Mahogany C. Armstrong, and Kim R. Warren Dixon and in loving memory of my parents, Booker T. Washington and Georgia D. Kilpatrick Washington.

Grateful acknowledgement is given to my Aunt, Fannie Kilpatrick, who celebrated her 91st birthday on May 6, 2005. Her support and encouragement was a great inspiration to me in completing this book.

Many thanks also to my typist, Sandra Fleming, for her editing and support.

CHAPTER 1

LIFE ON THE PLANTATION

We grew many crops on the farm where I was raised including cotton, corn, sorghum, watermelon, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, and whippoorwill peas; but our main crop was cotton. The farm was ten miles off the main road. I have walked that distance many times. Sometimes the dust was so hot on my bare feet I often walked in the grass. During the summer months, when I walked along the road, I would see where snakes had crawled in the dust. Sometime they slithered out of the grass and back onto the road.

We lived in the last house on that road with three other houses between ours and the main road. On the left side of the road leading to our house was the cotton field, while the Bayou Bartholomew was on the right. I remember one house in particular, a big log house with a breezeway down the middle dividing the house into two sections. It had a big stone water well in the front yard. Daddy said that house was the soldiers’ headquarters when the North fought the South.

I remember our house clearly. Our house sat on wood blocks about two feet off the ground. It had no running water, no electricity, or gas. The bare unpainted wood was gray from the weather. It had a tin roof, four rooms, four doors (two front and two back). The doors had wood latches with a card fastened to them so they could be raised from the outside. The house had a fireplace and it also had a front porch. The porch reached all the way across the front of the house. At one end of the porch was a shelf where the drinking water was kept. Our water bucket was made of wood and Momma made a dipper out of a gourd. At the other end of the porch was a swing. It hung up with two chains from the ceiling. That swing held many pleasant memories. I remember sitting on the front porch at night during the summer, talking and swatting mosquitoes after a long, hot day of working in the cotton field. Momma made a smoke fire out of old rags in a bucket to keep the mosquitoes away.

I can also recall Daddy and Momma sitting there talking and planning the future. Daddy was a different person when life went well. His old word was, I am sitting on top of the world with my feet hanging down. I remember Momma asking me to swing my baby sister to sleep while she cooked supper. Sometimes I would fall asleep with my sister. All of us would pile into the swing often and it would fall down. Daddy would punish us by not putting it up right away.

The bayou was only a few yards from the house. Momma was afraid that one of us children would fall in and drown.

When one of us had to go down to the bayou for water, Momma would walk to the edge