My Mother was a Servant in the South

I didn't realize a lot of things about the south, until I became adult and now somewhat of an angry adult sometimes.

We were sharecroppers and my mother worked in the owners house caring for their children, cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing. She also picked cotton when she wasn't working in the owners house.

The house that my mother worked in had three bedrooms, kitchen and a living room, we were not allowed in any place other than the kitchen while my mother was working. The landscape was immaculate, flowers and trees everywhere, the white picket fence, the dogs and a swing set for the children.

I used to dream of one day living in such a house. It was so exciting to be inside the kitchen of such a beautiful house, to me it looked like a mansion compared to our three room wooden house that sat on four piles of rocks for support.

The children my mother cared for called her by her first name, which was unheard of for us to do as black children. That was disrespectful and would call for a good whack. The husband and wife were expected to be address as Mrs. and Mr. and my mother as I said ,by her first name.

I guess that was better than many of the other hateful and rude names they used to call blacks. She even had to say yes maam and yes sir to them and other whites. To think of these things today really makes me sick and angry, but I must realized that this was doing the time of segregration. To me sharecropping was just a milder form of slavery.

In addition to all of the house work my mother was expected to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for the family that she worked for. She was told by the Mrs. everyday what to cook at each meal. This was my favorite memory, waiting for my mother to come home with the left over food.

We never ate the kinds of food they ate,. Our meals consisted basically of beans, corn, some part of the hog, chicken and vegetables from the garden. We never went hungry, but we never tasted so many different kinds food either. Sometimes my mother would make a little extra because she knew that Mrs. would give her the left over food to bring home.