Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   00011
   
   [Life History?]
   
   FOLKLORE:
   
   Miss Effie Cowan, P.W.
   
   McLennan County, Texas,
   
   District 8.
   
   NO. of Words [1300?]
   
   File NO. 240.
   
   Page NO. 1.
   
   REFERENCE:
   
   Interview with Judge J. Faudie, Riesel Texas. (White pioneer)
   
   "I was born in Legelhurst, in Baden Germany on the first day of
   December 1851. My fathers name was [DEL: [?] :DEL] George Faudie, he
   was a farmer and raised wheat, barley, hemp. fruit and clover and had
   some cattle and horses. He worked oxen to the plow. He died when I was
   two years old and [DEL: [?] :DEL] my mother married again, she had
   four boys and one girl.
   
   "When I was in my 'teens I went to [DEL: rance :DEL] France and worked
   as a linden weaver until I was twenty years old. Then I had to serve
   in the army in Germany. We were supposed to serve three years. I
   served one year and received four cents a day and my board. This did
   not buy my clothes so after a year of service I got a furlough and
   went on a visit to my mother. When I reached home there was a couple
   going to America, and I told my mother that if I had the money I would
   go too.
   
   "She made some argements and gave me enough to pay my fare to the new
   country of America where we were told that we could have freedom to
   live our lives as we wished. My ship fare was about twenty dollars in
   money (American). We took an old merchant ship from France and changed
   to a steamer in Liverpool bound for America. It took us six weks to
   arrive at New Orleans, we arrived there the 9th, day of April 1873.
   When I reached New Orleans I found many strange sights.
   
     NOTE: C.12 - 2/[????]
     
   00022"The strangest sight that greeted me was the Negroes unloading
   the ships at the wharves. They seemed to be very happy as they worked,
   they would sing songs in a low tone, so different to the songs of my
   native land that I was thrilled by them. I remember one song that they
   sang which was somthing like this,"Happy darkies workin' on de
   levee,Happy darkies workin' on de levee,Happy darkies workin' on de
   levee,Waitin' for de steamboats to come down.What is dat I hear a
   whistlin' loud an' clear?O O--O-- O-- O-- O ah--a!I think hit is de
   Natchett or de Robert Lee.Come along an' jine our ban'An' how happy we
   will be.
   
   "Well [DEL: [?] :DEL] I did not join [DEL: [?] :DEL] their ban' but
   instead I got a job as ice man. My boss's name was Roths- [DEL: hild
   :DEL] child, he taught me the city and the ice route. When I took the
   ice into the stores and the saloons I had to take a drink with him,
   first he, and then myself would treat to the drinks. After [DEL: [?]
   :DEL] I learned the route it was turned over to me and so I kept this
   job until one of my friends from the old country came, on his way to
   Illinois to live with an uncle, so I went with him and worked for his
   uncle who owned a brick yard. I worked in his brick yard until I
   finally left and went down into Arkansas. 00033"When we went to
   Illinois we took a steamboat and went up the [DEL: [?] :DEL] Missippi
   River to Grandtower. It took us four days to make the trip and cost us
   three dollars each. We stayed on the deck and did not take a berth.
   [DEL: [?] :DEL] This was in the summer of 1834 and I married my boss
   daughter, her name was Elizabeth Erhardt. When we went to get the
   liscense we had to take my boss partner to prove that she was old
   enough to marry and that her parents gave their consent. She was only
   fifteen years old.
   
   "We were married by the County [DEL: udge :DEL] Judge in Murfreesboro
   Ill. We went home and her parents gave us a big wedding [DEL: su er
   :DEL] supper with all kinds of good things to eat and wine and beer to
   drink. This was in 1875 and we lived there two years. I had been
   working in a rock quarry and it went out of business and some friend
   moved to Arkansas and we decided to go with him. So we hitched up our
   teams to our wagon and drove down to Oceola Arkansas. It took me six
   weeks to make the trip, for the roads were rough and rocky and when we
   would have to go up a hill we would have to unload and carry our
   things in our arms some of the time. When we crossed the Arkansas
   River we had to [DEL: ord :DEL] ford it.
   
   "There [DEL: [?] :DEL] were so many hills that one of my horses got
   loose from us and could not be found. That left me with just two
   horses. When we reached Missippi County, Arkansa we rented some land
   from an Irishman. The next spring it rained [DEL: [?] :DEL] so hard
   that the whole country was under water and when I went [DEL: [?] :DEL]
   anywhere I had to go in boats for some time after the rains, had to
   haul our fuel, ( wood and coal ) in boats and had bad [DEL: [?] :DEL]
   times all that spring. So finally it was getting to be summer time.
   00044"When the summer came I took the malarial fever and so had to
   have negroes to finish my crop. You will remember that I had never
   seen any negroes to amount [DEL: t :DEL] to anything except when I
   reached New Orleans, and I was amused to hear them sing of their work
   as they did. I was told that before the war between the states that
   the burden of their song was freedom, but now after the war was over
   they would sing of their work and to me it was a source of amusment. I
   lay on my bed of illness and from my window I could hear their voices
   as they sang,"I'se goin' from de cotton field,I'se goin' from de
   cane,I'se goin' from de little log hutDat sets up in de lane.Dey tell
   me up in Kansas,So many miles away,Dey tell me up dere, honey,Dey're
   gettin' bettah pay.
   
   "Much as I loved the South I had to go back to Illinois to get well so
   in the year I farmed in Arkansas I had to go to the hospital in St
   Louis to get treated for the malaria and when the doctors told me to
   leave the malarial country I took my [DEL: [?] :DEL] wife and two
   children and went to Jacksonville and lived there until 1888. About
   this time there was a boom on in California and I [DEL: jo ned :DEL]
   joined a company of emigrants and went to this state and worked in a
   rock and stone quarry. 00055"Where the people use the negro labor in
   the south, in California they use the [DEL: [?] :DEL] Chinese. There
   were four white men who were foreman and each white man had from
   twenty to thirty chinamen working under him. The white men were paid
   $1.75 a day and the Chinese were paid a dollar a day. They were good
   workers but it was hard [DEL: t :DEL] to make them understand what we
   wanted them to do.
   
   "After the boom was over in California the people commenced to talk
   about [DEL: te s :DEL] Texas, there were men there boosting Texas so
   we decided, my family and myself, to come and see if Texas was what it
   was advertise to be, rich land, and plenty of it and cheap as well. So
   we came to Waco Texas on the train and I met a man by the name of
   Torrance on the square and rented a place from him near Axtell Texas,
   made a crop, but there was pasture land joining my place and the stock
   got into it and destroyed my crop, so I left this [DEL: lace :DEL]
   place and found one in the German settlment near Perry Texas.
   
   "It seemed that my bad luck had at last left me and I bought land in
   this community in 1895 and paid $20.00 an acre for it. We were in the
   Alexander school settlement, two miles from Perry, had two churches,
   the [DEL: [?] :DEL] Lutheran and the Methodist, Rev. Schuler was the
   Methodist preacher I believe at one time, and later lived in Waco.
   There was fine hunting and fishing up and down the Brazos bottom and
   plenty of wild game out on the prairie.
   
   "My wife died in 1904 and in 1905 I married Mrs Ernestine Hamburg.
   00066I had fourteen children, eight lived to be grown. [DEL: [??]
   :DEL] Two son's, Charlie and August went to the World War. Charlie
   died soon after he returned. August was in France, and was in the army
   of occupation after the war closed. They paid my debt for me to the
   old country, I never went back to serve my time in the army, for had I
   gone I might have been punished as well as had to serve it out.
   
   "I have become an American citizen long ago, and was glad that my boys
   could serve this country of my adoption when they crossed, to help pay
   the debt that the Americans owed to France, even if we were not here
   in those early days. In my wanderings in America have not found any
   place that has been equal to this central part of the state where I
   have lived ever since I came here in 1890.
   
   "As I understand it the German settlers assumed the duties and the
   responsibilities of American citizenship. They took part in the Texas
   [DEL: [?] :DEL] Revolution, the [DEL: ar :DEL] war against Mexico, the
   War Between the [DEL: tates :DEL] States The Spanish - American War
   and the World [DEL: ar :DEL] War, thus proving their loyalty to their
   adopted country.