The "Dog-goned Blacks"

“The Dog-goned Blacks”

An interview with Eva Black by Janet Black-Yznaga and Bernadine Black in August 1974 when Eva was 92.Eva Black was born July the 29th, 1882. Eva died in 1975.

Grandpa James Black came from Ireland. He was 17 at the time and the only member of his family to immigrate.
There were 3 Meehan men that Eva knew, Bill Meehan, James Meehan and Andy Meehan. Ed Meehan was Bill Meehan’s son. That is how Eva came to get acquainted with the “dog-goned” blacks, to get mixed up with them. Old Andy and Ed were bachelors. They lived together near Eau Galle not to far from Eva's grandmother. She used to work for her Grandmother so she knew of them. Eva also had a sister Nellie. Her sister Clara kept house for the Meehan’s and when Clara got married to Percy Persons, they needed a housekeeper and Clara referred them to Eva. She was 15 at the time and always helped her dad (Harrison was the only boy in the family and the youngest) so she didn’t know much about housekeeping. She knew how to make bread because she had to do it when she stayed with her Grandmother, so she told her mother to write down recipes for cake, pie and cookies She had little experience with cooking and that is how she started working out. She worked there for over two years and got $1.50 a week. She stumped them for a raise and she got 25 cents so she got $1.75 a week. That the best wages they paid. “SAKES ALIVE”. Now this old Ed, Andy’s brother, (Eva didn’t know what was wrong with him) but he was in bed. He died after Eva came-she went there in Feb. and he died the first day of April, so that just left old Andy there. “That's how I come to get acquainted with these Blacks. They were uncles, brother of Grandma Black. They used to be out there and of course I got acquainted with him (Jim) and we went together for two years and then got married.”


Where were you living then? Down on the old place. When we started we lived up here but when Grandpa Black died why a, we moved down there (where Cole lives). Grandma Black come up one day-Sam came back, he was out in California and he came back when his Dad died and he run the farm one year and that was enough for him. He wanted to keep saloon. He was sheriff in Durand. He lived and died in AZ. Anyway she comes up. Sam said, “you can do what you damn please with it”, he says. He went over town and bought a tavern or saloon they called them then and moved her over there. So we lived on the old place. That's how it all happened. She’d come back every Sunday for Sunday dinner. After church, they would go to church and back they’d come. I had company every Sunday. I had an old wood stove and big iron kittles. I'd put on one iron kittle full of meat and the other one full of potatoes and vegetables. She’d say, “I want to go back on the farm and git a farmer’s dinner. And she did. Every doggone Sunday! And she always give the Christmas too you know. So I took that over. I give a Christmas dinner for the “whole Black tribe” There’d been as high as 40. They all come with their kids, and I used to set three tables. Once, I set 3 tables the rest of the time it was always 2 big tables. Grandma Black left her big extension table. And I had one, and I had them full.

“Another thing I want to tell you before I forget it. I was 92 on my birthday this year and my birthday is on the 29th of July and it happened this year if you just reverse the date of my birthday you’d have my age. The 29th, you see, of July you reverse it to 92 and that will never happen again, I don’t think”!!

I was born in 1882. Were you born around here? I was born up on what they call Chase Hill up around (where Ray Black’s live), right in the same school district-school house was right across the road from us. The old school house was an old log school house that was down beyond there aways, but when they built the new school house, it was right across the road and I was always mad about that, I had to go home for dinner and the rest of them could always bring their dinner and then they could play, you know. And usually when I went home for dinner there was always some little thing I’d have to do. They had an old box heater for heat the schoolhouse. It was settin up on-they laid brick under it to set it on and it had legs about that high, a big long stove it would take I guess 3 or 4 ft. wood. A big, long box stove. And say, in the wintertime they would fetch their dinner pails and put them all around it so they wouldn’t freeze, you know. If they had them out in the entry they would freeze.

You know what we done in recesses in the summertime, that’s where I learned to dance. We danced, and that was a hell of a lot better than fighting, wasn’t it. Eva laughs! There were kids going to school there that could play the mouth organ, you know, them Apleidingers and they could call off, we danced square dances and waltzes. We danced so much, so much that the grass couldn’t grow. Pat, pat, pat, pat you know! I’ve thought of it so many times that now the kids are fighting all the time and gull darn, we was dancin’. Eva laughs! I never got no further than the eighth grade. I was big enough to work; I had to stay to home.
Birthdays! I’ve got my family wrote down. I was forgettin’ so I wrote them all down.

Eva talks about getting Cole’s birth certificate. “He can’t get no Social Security without he has a Birth Certificate”. He was born in 1913.
Cole’s name is Andrew Coleman but they call him Cole. “You know Jim wanted to name the first one Coleman. He said I want a Cole Black. I wouldn’t listen to it, but he kept right at it, and by gull finally I give in. That’s the verdict. I had it all hunted up and I was going to take it over to the courthouse in order to get the birth certificates

Do you have a bible with any history in? I’ve got Mother’s bible. I haven’t got a bible of my own. Mother’s bible, I wanted Dad’s bible but Nellie wanted that and you have to take what you can git. Dad’s bible was bigger print. I’ve gotten so now that I can’t read the paper. The fine print all goes into a blur. I can see to thread my needle. When Hattie was born I didn’t have any Dr. I just had a midwife and I never registered her birth. She is the only one that isn’t registered in the courthouse and I've got to go and swear to it that she was born.
When I typed this I tried to keep Eva’s language as much as I could. Jean Kannel