Marion County Permission Slip: Fill & Download for Free

I am, with my own permission (since I wrote it) reproducing an article I wrote for my true-crime column in Mystery Readers Journal, which was later reprinted in my book Just the Facts - True Tales of Cops & Criminals:Final AppealMysteries South of the Mason-Dixon LineCatholic theology, the theology with which I’m most familiar after eight years with Franciscan nuns and four with the Jesuit priests, holds that a genuine miracle is an extraordinary event, perceptible to the physical senses, of manifestly supernatural origin. When a terminal cancer patient bathes in the waters of Lourdes and experiences a complete cure, it’s a miracle. When a cancer patient, undergoing surgery, chemotherapy, or some other standard medical regimen, later experiences a full and complete recovery, however remarkable that recovery may be, and however fervently the patient and others may have prayed for it, it’s not a miracle, because the return to health is not attributable solely to divine intervention.Church investigations into assertions of miraculous events are long, drawn-out affairs, usually taking years. And even then, the Church stops short of declaring absolutely that a miracle has occurred. It merely says that an apparent miracle is “worthy of belief.”The vast majority of potential miracles investigated by the Church don’t even get that carefully worded semi-endorsement, but are positively declared to be non-miraculous.On the other hand, the Church never says that God has nothing to do with those non-miraculous events. That an extraordinary event turns out to have had natural, rather than supernatural, origins doesn’t mean that the Almighty didn’t take a hand in things. Consider the case of Will Purvis, who, in 1893, was a 21-year-old farmer in Marion County, Mississippi.The Ku Klux Klan, which arose during the post-Civil War era ostensibly to curb Northern injustices during the years of occupation—and which almost immediately degraded into an organization of racial terrorists—had, with Reconstruction’s end, gone into a period of decline. It would not recover until well into the 20th century, when the publication of Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman (Doubleday, 1905), and the release of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film version, Birth of a Nation (Epoch Producing, 1915), would spark a regeneration.In the meantime, the Southern tradition of racial terrorism was carried on by a similar group known as the White Caps, who, like the Klan, rode out at night, dressed in flowing white sheets and masks, to intimidate blacks, poor whites, and anyone else they considered deviant.One such “deviant” was a black farm worker who had had the audacity to resign from the employ of a Marion County widow in order to accept a better-paying job with a farmer named Will Buckley. Some White Caps, taking offense at the idea of a black working man’s efforts to better himself, visited Buckley’s property, captured his new employee, and horsewhipped him. Buckley was not a man to be intimidated, and, enraged at his worker’s treatment, took the case to law. His testimony resulted in Grand Jury indictments of three White Cap leaders. This was certain to arouse the ire of the organization. According to some accounts, Will Buckley was a member of the group himself, which would have made his testimony not merely defiant, but, in the eyes of the masked night riders, traitorous. In either case, retribution would be swift and merciless.Immediately after the Grand Jury hearing, Buckley, in the company of his brother Jim and the black farm worker, rode home. As they crossed a small stream, they were fired upon by two ambushers hiding in some nearby brush. Will Buckley fell dead. His brother and employee managed to escape unharmedJim Buckley was absolutely certain that one of the murderers was Will Purvis. Within hours, local law officers, acting upon the sworn testimony of Jim Buckley, arrested Purvis for the crime. The identification was given credence by the widely-held belief that Purvis was a White Cap.At his trial, Purvis insisted that he was at home with his family at the time of the murder. Numerous friends and relatives supported this alibi. It was also shown that Purvis’s shotgun had not been fired, and, therefore, couldn’t have been the weapon used in the murder. But Jim Buckley’s testimony couldn’t be shaken, and in the end, he’s the one the jury believed. Purvis was convicted and sentenced to die.While his conviction was being appealed, Purvis drew solace from the regular visits of Reverend J. G. Sibley of the Columbia Methodist Church, who had become his spiritual advisor during his confinement. Sibley had become convinced that Purvis’s conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Every Wednesday he conducted prayer services at his church devoted solely to gaining a reprieve for Purvis. Hundreds of local residents had, like Sibley, come to believe in Purvis’s innocence and became regular attendees of those Wednesday night services.Despite the prayers, Purvis’s appeals were unsuccessful and, on February 7, 1894, he was led to a scaffold erected in Columbia’s courthouse square for the execution of sentence. Five thousand people, the vast majority of them unsympathetic, had gathered in the square to watch his execution. Public executions took on a circus atmosphere in those days. Picnic lunches, children’s games, peddlers and food vendors, and spontaneous revival meetings were all part of the picture.Purvis looked out at the crowd, hoping to see a relative or friend. “I can’t hardly see a friendly face,” he told his executioner.Some of the crowd began to urge the hangman to proceed and get the thing over with. One woman yelled up at Purvis to confess before he died “for the sake of your immortal soul.” In seconds, the woman’s call for an admission from Purvis had become a chant that the whole crowd seemed to take up. “Confess! Confess! Confess!”Just before the hangman placed the noose over his neck, Purvis responded to the crowd’s demand for a final confession. In a voice surprisingly calm he said, “You are taking the life of an innocent man. There are people here who know who did commit the crime and, if they will come forward and confess, I will go free. I didn’t do it. I am innocent.”Most of the crowd remained unsympathetic when no one else came forward to claim responsibility for the murder. Still there were some in the crowd who believed in Purvis’s innocence, including Reverend Sibley and his congregation. On the eve of the execution, Sibley and his parishioners had met by the gallows in the courthouse square and prayed that somehow the execution would be prevented. Now, with only seconds to go before Purvis made the final drop, they prayed more fervently than ever.As the noose was placed over Purvis’s neck, the hood over his head, and his ankles were tied, Sibley stood at the foot of the gallows and prayed in a loud, deep voice, “Almighty God, if it be Thy will, stay the hand of the executioner.”The sheriff, supervising the execution, placed his hand on Purvis’s shoulder in a friendly manner and said, “God help you, Will Purvis.” Then the stay rope holding the trap door closed was chopped loose.The trap door opened.Purvis dropped through.*The noose began to tighten around his neck. In less time than it takes to snap one’s fingers, the rope would reach its full length and the weight of Purvis’s body would cause the knot to break his neck cleanly, killing him instantly.But, incredibly, the rope did not check Purvis’s fall. Instead of cleanly breaking his neck, the knot mysteriously came undone. The rope slipped away, causing a burn but otherwise leaving him unharmed. Purvis landed on the ground, unconscious, but very much alive.As Purvis put it later, “I heard the door creak. My body lunged down and all went black. When I regained consciousness I heard someone say, ‘Well, Bill, we’ve got to do it all over again.’”What had happened? Had the hangman’s noose been incorrectly tied? No, only minutes before the execution, a committee had examined the scaffold, the rope, and the knot and found everything in order.Purvis got to his feet. The hood fell off his head. He turned to one of the deputy sheriffs who had reached him and said, “Let’s get this over with.”As far as a lot of the spectators were concerned, it already was over with. Purvis’s survival was a sign of his innocence and they weren’t about to let him be hanged again. An almost equal number of spectators were just as convinced that Purvis’s survival had been an accident and nothing more.One of the officials leaned over the railing of the gallows and shouted down to a member of the crowd, Dr. W. Ford, to toss the rope back up. Ford, a vocal critic of the White Caps, who had been convinced of Purvis’s guilt, and who had publicly spoken against him during the trial, replied, “I won’t do any such damned thing! That boy’s been hung once too many times now!”As the crowd started to divide into pro-Purvis and anti-Purvis factions, and deputies assisted the hapless young farmer back up the scaffold, Sibley rushed past them to the top of the gallows, and, standing on top of the trap door himself so Purvis couldn’t be positioned on it, addressed the crowd.Sibley was on all occasions a powerful preacher, and this time the Spirit was really on him. Every ounce of his oratorical talent was brought to bear.“People of Marion County,” his voice boomed, “The Hand of Providence has slipped the noose! Heaven has heard our prayers! All those who want to see this boy hang a second time hold up their hands!”Not a single hand was raised.Reverend Sibley continued, “All those who are opposed to hanging Will Purvis a second time hold up your hands!”Every spectator’s hand shot up. One witness later remarked later that it appeared as if each hand had been “magically raised by a universal lever.” The force of Reverend Sibley’s heartfelt eloquence had persuaded the entire crowd.“What are we going to do, Sheriff?” said one of the deputies to his boss.The Sheriff was not an irreligious man, but he had a sworn duty to carry out the court’s sentence, and that sentence was “hung by the neck until dead.” Purvis may have fulfilled the first part of the sentence, but the second part remained uncompleted.To be sure of his legal ground, the Sheriff consulted with a lawyer who’d pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Purvis and Sibley stood to the side, their heads bent in silent prayer. Dr. Ford remained at the foot of the scaffold.The attorney insisted that the letter of the law demanded that Purvis be executed.The Sheriff nodded reluctantly and began to mount the scaffold to supervise a second attempt to carry out the sentence. At this point Dr. Ford, standing at the base of the scaffold turned to the young attorney.“I don’t agree with you,” he said. Then to the Sheriff, he shouted, “If I go up on that scaffold and ask three hundred men to stand by me and prevent the hanging, what are you going to do about it?” As he spoke scores of men gathered around him, ready to back up the doctor’s threat.Slowly they started up the stairs, Dr. Ford in the lead. “I’m ready to do it, too,” he told the Sheriff as he approached.The Sheriff was dutiful man, but standing against the doctor, the preacher, the crowd, and, it appeared, the Creator Himself was more than he was prepared to do for the sake of duty. He walked over to Purvis and cut him loose from the ropes that were binding him.“I ain’t one to go against five thousand folks and God, too,” he said later.Purvis was escorted back to his jail cell until his fate could be decided in a less heated venue. In the meantime an investigating commission attempted to find out exactly what had caused the noose to fail in the first place.One of the staff executioners, Henry Banks, suggested that the problem was with the rope itself. “[It] was too thick,” he said. “It was made of new grass and very springy. After the first man tied the noose he let the free end hang out. It was this way when the tests were made, but when it came to placing this knot around Purvis’s neck it looked untidy. The hangman didn’t want to be accredited with this kind of a job, so he cut the loose end off so that the rope was flush with the noose knot. It looked neater, but when the weight of Purvis’s body was thrown against it, the rope slipped and the knot became untied.”Banks’s published statement was very likely the correct explanation, but the investigating commission didn’t give it an official endorsement, and adjourned without coming to any conclusion. Not that it mattered to the average Marion County resident.They knew exactly why Purvis had been spared.He’d been spared because God had spared him.Over the next two years, a new round of legal briefs were filed on Purvis’s behalf, but the governor refused to commute the sentence, and the State Supreme Court denied two separate appeals. Purvis’s execution was rescheduled for December 12, 1895.Public opinion in Marion County, on the other hand, was nearly 100% in favor of Purvis. The Sheriff, as has already been pointed out, was a dutiful man. But he was also an elected official.A few weeks before his execution, Purvis was moved from the secure facility at the county seat to a small, dilapidated jail structure closer to his home town, where, the sheriff said, “he could be near relatives and friends in the last few weeks of his life.”During Purvis’s stay in the run-down structure, a few of those relatives and friends came to visit. When they left, they took Purvis with them. Reportedly, very little resistance was put up by members of the Sheriff’s Office.Over the next few years, Purvis lived in hiding. In 1897, Jim Buckley, who had been so certain of his identification at Purvis’s trial, recanted. He was no longer sure that he had named the correct man.A new governor, who had been elected partly on a campaign promise that he would commute Purvis’s sentence if he won the office, was as good as his word. Soon after his inauguration, he announced that, if Purvis turned himself in, his sentence would be reduced to life imprisonment. Purvis presented himself to the Sheriff in Columbia as soon as he heard the news.Almost as soon as Purvis began serving his sentence in the state penitentiary, a campaign to free him began. A petition signed by thousands was presented to the governor begging for the young farmer’s release. One of the signatures on the petition was that of the District Attorney who had prosecuted Purvis. On December 19, 1898, just two months short of five years since the botched execution, Purvis was granted a full pardon and walked out of prison a free man.That still left the question of who shot Will Buckley unanswered. Was it actually Purvis? Had the young farmer been saved from just punishment because a chain of coincidence had generated a wave of public sympathy? Or had his assertion of innocence been the simple truth?The answer finally came nearly two decades later. In the spring of 1918 an elderly reprobate named Joe Beard staggered into a midnight church service. At first he sat silent in one of the back pews. Then he arose, walked up to the pulpit, and began the most startling confession any of the congregants had ever heard. It was Beard, acting in concert with another White Capper named Louis Thornhill, long since dead and gone, who’d ambushed Will Buckley back in 1893. In his youth Beard had closely resembled Will Purvis, and, when the mistaken identification was made by the victim’s brother, he’d just taken it as a stroke of amazing good luck.After completing his story, Beard collapsed. He was carried to a sickbed, where, before passing quietly away, he repeated the confession in front of official stenographers and a group of witnesses. Supplying details that could be known only by one of the actual perpetrators, his final act cleared Purvis’s name from any hint of suspicion.In the wake of that final confession, the Mississippi State Legislature made Purvis’s innocence official, awarding him $5,000 as compensation for his years of wrongful imprisonment and passing a resolution “removing all stain and dishonor” from his name.In the years between his pardon and Beard’s deathbed statement, Purvis had lived a remarkably happy life, falling in love with, and marrying, a clergyman’s daughter, with whom he would eventually raise 11 children. He lived for another 25 years after the legislature’s endorsement of his innocence. Just before his 1943 death, at the age of 71,Purvis, who still bore the scar of the rope burn around his neck, spoke one last time about his brush with the hangman back in 1894, when every legal appeal had been exhausted and there was only one Judge left to hear his plea.“God heard our prayers,” he said simply. “He saved my life because I was an innocent man.”The story of the failure of the hanging rope has never been examined by the Vatican, and, if, at some future date, it ever was, it’s almost certain that it would never pass muster as a genuine miracle.But miracles aren’t the only way God has of answering prayers.FURTHER READINGAs far as I’ve been able to determine, there’s never been a book devoted solely to the Purvis case. However, many books dealing generally with the pros and cons of capital punishment, or the history of the practice, refer to the case, often at length.Accounts of the failed execution of Will Purvis, and its aftermath, can be found in Edwin Borchard’s Convicting the Innocent (Yale University, 1932), August Mencken’s By the Neck (Hastings, 1942), Justin Atholl’s Shadow of the Gallows (Long, 1954), George V. Bishop’s Executions (Sherbourne, 1965), and Frederick Drimmer’s Until You Are Dead (Citadel, 1990).“THE FUGITIVE” CONNECTION?I know of no novel, story, or drama specifically fictionalizing the Purvis case, so what follows is pure speculation.When Roy Huggins created the television series The Fugitive in 1964, most people assumed that the central situation of a Midwestern physician accused of murdering his wife derived from the famous Dr. Sam Sheppard case in Ohio. The additional conflict between the hero and the relentless police officer obsessed with recapturing him, Huggins admitted, had been lifted from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.But the whole notion of a falsely accused man, unable to prove his innocence legally, facing execution until a twist of fate saves him, then remaining on the run for several years, suggests that Huggins might have had more than a passing familiarity with the Purvis case. Of course a train wreck was substituted for a badly tied hangman’s noose, and, while Purvis was technically a fugitive for several years, it doesn’t appear as though any members of official law enforcement were trying all that hard to track him down during the years he spent in hiding. Still, the parallels between the fictional predicament of Dr. Richard Kimble and the real-life one of Will Purvis seem almost deliberately resonant.Maybe it was a coincidence. Or maybe Huggins, in addition to relying on Dr. Sheppard’s trial and Victor Hugo’s novel for source material, took some inspiration from the Purvis case as well.

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.By June 1965, Sylvia and Jenny Likens resided with their parents in Indianapolis. On July 3, their mother was arrested and subsequently jailed for shoplifting. Shortly thereafter, Lester Likens arranged for his daughters to board with Gertrude Baniszewski, the mother of two girls with whom the sisters had recently become acquainted while studying at Arsenal Technical High School, Paula and Stephanie Baniszewski. At the time of this boarding agreement, Gertrude assured Lester she would care for his daughters until his return as if they were her own children.[28][n 3]Shortly after the July 4 holiday, the sisters moved into 3850 East New York Street in order for their father and, later, their mother to travel to the East Coast with the carnival,[n 4] with the understanding that Gertrude would receive weekly boarding fees of $20 to care for their daughters until they returned to collect Sylvia and Jenny in November of that year.[16]During the initial weeks in which Sylvia and Jenny resided at the Baniszewski household, the sisters were subjected to very little discipline or abuse. Likens regularly sang along to pop records with Stephanie,[30] and she willingly participated in housework at the Baniszewski residence.[31] Both girls also regularly attended Sunday school with the Baniszewski children.[31]AbuseEditAlthough Lester Likens had agreed to pay Gertrude Baniszewski $20 a week in exchange for the care of his daughters, these weekly payments gradually failed to arrive exactly upon the prearranged dates, occasionally arriving one or two days late. In response, Gertrude began venting her frustration at this fact upon the sisters by beating their bare buttocks with various instruments, such as a one-quarter-inch-thick (6.4 mm) paddle, making statements such as, "Well, I took care of you two little bitches for a week for nothing!"[32] On one occasion, in late-August, both girls were beaten approximately 15 times on the back with the aforementioned paddle, after Paula had accused the sisters of eating too much food at a church supper the household children had attended.[33]By mid-August 1965, Gertrude Baniszewski had begun to focus her abuse almost exclusively upon Sylvia, with her primary motivation likely being jealousy of her physical appearance and potential in life.[34] According to subsequent trial testimony, this abuse was initially inflicted upon Sylvia, after she and Jenny had returned to the Baniszewski residence from Arsenal Technical High School, as well as on weekends. This initial abuse included subjecting Likens to beatings and being refused sufficient food (which would gradually lead to Likens eating leftovers or spoiled food out of garbage cans).[35] On one occasion, Likens was accused of stealing candy she had actually purchased.[36]On another occasion, in late-August, Likens was subjected to humiliation when she claimed to have a boyfriend in Long Beach, whom she had met in the spring of 1965 when her family lived in California. In response to hearing this, Gertrude asked if she had "ever done anything with a boy" to which Likens—unsure of her meaning—replied, "I guess so" and offered that she had gone skating with boys there, and once went to a park on the beach with them and Jenny. Continuing the conversation with Stephanie Baniszewski and Jenny, Likens mentioned that she had once lain under the covers with her boyfriend. Upon hearing this, Gertrude asked, "Why did you do that, Sylvia?" Likens replied, "I don't know," and shrugged. Several days later, Gertrude returned to the subject with Likens, telling her, "You're certainly getting big in the stomach, Sylvia. It looks like you're going to have a baby." Likens thought Gertrude was kidding with her and said, "Yeah, it sure is getting big. I'm just going to have to go on a diet."However, Gertrude then informed her, and the other girls in the house, that whenever they "did something" with a boy, they would be sure to have a baby. She then kicked Likens in the genitals. Paula—herself overweight, three months pregnant and also jealous of her physical appearance—then participated in attacking Likens; knocking her off her chair onto the kitchen floor, shouting, "You ain't fit to sit in a chair!"[37] On another occasion—as the family ate supper—Gertrude, Paula, and a neighborhood boy named Randy Gordon Lepper, force-fed Likens a hot dog overloaded with condiments, including mustard, ketchup and spices. Likens vomited as a result, and was later forced to consume what she had regurgitated.[38][39]In what would be Likens' only act of retaliation, she spread a rumor at Arsenal Technical High School that Stephanie and Paula Baniszewski were prostitutes. She did this because she was upset with the household singling her out for similar accusations.While at school, Stephanie was jokingly propositioned by a boy who told her that Likens had started the rumor about her. Upon returning home that day, Stephanie questioned Likens about the rumor and she admitted to starting it. Stephanie punched her in response, but Likens apologized to her, in tears, and Stephanie then also began to cry. However, when Stephanie's boyfriend—15-year-old Coy Randolph Hubbard[40] heard this rumor, he brutally attacked Likens; slapping her, banging her head against the wall and flipping her backwards onto the floor. When Gertrude found out, she used the paddle to beat Likens.[41]On another occasion, Paula beat Likens about the face with such force that she broke her own wrist, having primarily focused her blows upon Likens' teeth and eyes.[42] Later, Paula used the cast on her wrist to further beat Likens.[43][44] Gertrude repeatedly falsely accused Likens of promiscuity and of engaging in prostitution, delivering rants to Likens regarding the filthiness of prostitution and of women in general. Gertrude would later occasionally force Jenny to strike her own sister, beating Jenny if she did not comply.[45]Coy Hubbard and several of his classmates frequently visited the Baniszewski residence to both physically and verbally torment Likens, often collaborating with Baniszewski's children and Gertrude herself.[46] With the active encouragement of Gertrude, these neighborhood children routinely beat Likens,[47] sometimes using her as a practice dummy in violent judo sessions,[48] lacerating her body, burning her skin with lit cigarettes in excess of 100 times,[49] and severely injuring her genitals.[50] To entertain Gertrude and her teenage accomplices, Likens was forced at one point to strip naked in the family living room and masturbate with a glass Pepsi-Cola bottle in their presence,[13][51][52] with Gertrude stating to all present this act of humiliation being for Sylvia to "prove to Jenny what kind of a girl you are."[53]Gertrude Baniszewski eventually forbade Likens from attending school after she confessed to having stolen a gym suit from the school, after Gertrude had refused to purchase the clothing for her.[54] For this act of theft, Gertrude whipped Likens with a three-inch-wide (7.6 cm) police belt. Gertrude then switched her conversation to the "evils" of premarital sex before repeatedly kicking Likens in the genitals as Stephanie rallied to Likens' defense, shouting, "She didn't do anything!"[55][n 5] Gertrude then burned Likens' fingertips with matches before further whipping her.[57] A few days later, Gertrude repeatedly whipped Jenny with the police belt after she reportedly stole a single tennis shoe from the school to wear on her strong foot.[58]TurmoilEditThe Likens sisters were fearful of notifying either family members or adults at their school of the increasing incidents of abuse and neglect they were enduring, as both were afraid that doing so would only worsen their predicament.[59] Jenny, in particular, struggled against the urge to notify family members, as she had been threatened by Gertrude that she would herself be abused and tortured to the same degree as her sister, if she did so. Jenny was also subjected to bullying by girls in her neighborhood, in addition to occasionally being ridiculed or beaten whenever she alluded to Sylvia's situation.[60]In July and August, both Lester and Elizabeth Likens would occasionally return to Indianapolis to visit their daughters, whenever their travel schedule afforded them the opportunity. The last occasion Lester and Elizabeth visited their daughters was in late-August. On this occasion, neither girl exhibited any visible sign of distress about their mistreatment to their parents—likely because both were in the presence of Gertrude and her children. Almost immediately after Lester and Elizabeth had left the Baniszewski household on their final visit, Gertrude turned to face Likens and stated: "What are you going to do now, Sylvia? Now they're gone?"[61]On one occasion, in September, the girls encountered their older sister, Dianna Shoemaker, at a local park. Both Jenny and Sylvia informed Dianna as to the abuse they were enduring at the hands of their caregiver on this occasion, adding that Sylvia was being specifically targeted for physical abuse—almost always for things she had neither said nor done. Neither sister mentioned the actual address where they resided and, initially, Dianna believed her sisters must be exaggerating their claims regarding the scope of their mistreatment.[62][n 6]Several weeks prior to this occasion, Sylvia and Jenny had encountered Dianna in the same park while in the company of 11-year-old Marie Baniszewski and Sylvia had been given a sandwich to eat when she had mentioned to her sister she was hungry.[63] Likens remained silent about the matter, although Marie revealed this fact to her family in late September. In response, Gertrude accused Likens of engaging in gluttony before she and Paula choked and bludgeoned her. The pair then subjected Likens to a scalding bath to "cleanse her of sin," with Gertrude grabbing Likens' hair and repeatedly banging her head against the bath to revive her when she fainted.[27][57]Shortly after this incident, the father of a neighborhood boy named Michael John Monroe[53] phoned Arsenal Technical High School to anonymously report that a girl with open sores across her entire body was living at the Baniszewski household. As Likens had not attended school for several days, a school nurse visited 3850 East New York Street to investigate these claims. Gertrude claimed to the nurse that Likens had run away from her home the previous week and that she was unaware of her actual whereabouts, adding that Likens was "out of control" and that her open sores were a result of Likens' refusal to maintain decent personal hygiene.[53] Gertrude further claimed that Likens was a bad influence on both her own children and her sister.[64] The school made no further investigations in relation to Likens' welfare.[65]The immediate neighbors of the Baniszewski family were a middle-aged couple named Raymond and Phyllis Vermillion. Both initially viewed Gertrude as an ideal caregiver for the Likens sisters and both had visited the Baniszewski residence on two occasions when the girls had been under Gertrude's care. On both occasions, the Vermillions witnessed Paula physically abusing Likens—who on both occasions had a black eye—and openly boasting about her mistreatment of the child to them.[66] Upon their second visit to the Baniszewski household, both observed Likens to appear extremely meek and somewhat "zombified" in nature.[66] Nevertheless, the Vermillions never reported Likens' evident mistreatment to the authorities.[67]On or about October 1, Dianna Shoemaker discovered that her sisters were temporarily residing at the Baniszewski residence. She visited the property in an attempt to initiate regular contact. Gertrude, however, refused Dianna entrance to her property, stating that she had "[received] permission" from their parents not to allow either girl to see her. She then ordered Dianna off her property.[68] Approximately two weeks later, Dianna encountered Jenny, by chance, close to 3850 East New York Street and inquired as to Sylvia's welfare. She was informed, "I can't tell you or I'll get into trouble."[29]EscalationEditDue to the increase in the frequency and brutality of the torture and mistreatment she was subjected to, Likens gradually became incontinent.[60] She was denied any access to the bathroom, being forced to wet herself. As a form of punishment for her incontinence, on October 6, Gertrude threw Likens into the basement and tied her up. Here, Likens was often kept naked, rarely fed, and frequently deprived of water.[69] Occasionally, she was tied to the railing of the basement stairs with her feet barely touching the ground.[70]In the weeks prior to locking Likens in the family basement, Gertrude had increasingly abused and tormented Likens. She would occasionally falsely claim to the children in her household that either she herself or one of them had been the recipient of direct insults from Likens in the hope this would goad them into belittling or attacking her.[71] On one occasion, Gertrude held a knife aloft and challenged Likens to "fight me back", to which Likens replied she did not know how to fight.[72] In response, Gertrude inflicted a light scour wound to Likens' leg.Physical and mental torment such as this was occasionally ceased by the Baniszewskis to watch their favorite television shows.[73] Neighborhood children were also occasionally charged five cents apiece to see the "display" of Likens' body and to humiliate, beat, scald,[74] burn, and—ultimately—mutilate her. Throughout the period of Likens' captivity in the basement, Gertrude frequently—with the assistance of her children and neighborhood children—restrained Likens before placing her in a bathtub filled with scalding water before proceeding to rub salt into her wounds.[75] In order to muffle Likens' screams, her tormentors would regularly place a cloth gag in her mouth as they tortured her.[20]On one occasion, Gertrude and her twelve-year-old son, John Jr., rubbed urine and feces from Gertrude's one-year-old son's diaper into Likens' mouth[76] before giving her a cup half filled with water and stating the water was all she would receive for the remainder of the day.[38]On October 22, John Baniszewski Jr. tormented Likens by offering to allow her to eat a bowl of soup with her fingers and then quickly taking away the bowl when Likens—by this stage suffering from extreme malnourishment—attempted to eat the food. Gertrude Baniszewski eventually allowed Likens to sleep upstairs, on the condition that she learned not to wet herself. That night, Sylvia whispered to Jenny to secretly give her a glass of water before falling asleep.[77]The following morning, Gertrude discovered that Likens had urinated herself. As a punishment, Likens was forced to insert an empty glass Coca-Cola bottle into her vagina in the presence of the Baniszewski children before Gertrude ordered her into the basement."Gertrude called [Sylvia] upstairs to the kitchen. Somehow, the conversation got around to tattooing. Gertrude asked Sylvia whether she knew what a tattoo was ... she said: 'You branded my children so now I'm going to brand you.' "--Richard Hobbs, testifying as to Gertrude Baniszewski's decision to carve an insult into Likens' abdomen on October 23, 1965.[7]Shortly thereafter, Gertrude shouted for Likens to return to the kitchen, then ordered her to strip naked before proclaiming to her: "You have branded my daughters; now I am going to brand you." She began carving the words "I'M A PROSTITUTE AND PROUD OF IT" onto Likens' abdomen with a heated needle.[78][79]When Gertrude was unable to finish the branding, she instructed one of the neighborhood children present, 14-year-old Richard Dean Hobbs,[80] to finish etching the words into Likens' flesh as she took Jenny to a nearby grocery store. In what Hobbs would later insist were "short, light" etchings, he continued to brand the text into Likens' abdomen as she clenched her teeth and moaned.[81] Both Hobbs and 10-year-old Shirley Baniszewski then led Likens into the basement where each proceeded to use an anchor bolt in an attempt to burn the letter "S" beneath Likens' left breast, although they applied one section of the loop backwards, and this deep burn scar would resemble the numeral "3".[69]Gertrude later taunted Likens by claiming she would never be able to marry due to the words carved on her stomach, stating: "Sylvia, what are you going to do now? You can't get married now. What are you going to do?"[82] Weeping, Likens replied, "I guess there's nothing I can do."[83] She was then carried back to the basement by Coy Hubbard. Later that day, Likens was forced to display the carving to neighborhood children, with Gertrude claiming she had received the inscription at a sex party.[84]That night, Sylvia confided to her sister: "Jenny, I know you don't want me to die, but I'm going to die. I can tell it."[85]The following day, Gertrude Baniszewski woke Likens, then forced her to write a letter as she dictated the contents, which were intended to mislead her parents into believing their daughter had run away from the Baniszewski residence. The content of this letter was intended to frame a group of anonymous local boys for extensively abusing and mutilating Likens after she had initially agreed to engage in sexual relations with them before they inflicted the extreme abuse and torture upon her body.[86] After Likens had written this letter, Gertrude finished formulating her plan to have John Jr. and Jenny blindfold Sylvia, then take her to a nearby wooded area known as Jimmy's Forest and leave her there to die.[69]After she had finished writing the letter, Likens was then again tied to the stair railing and offered crackers to eat, although she refused them, saying: "Give it to the dog, I don't want it." In response, Gertrude forced the crackers into Likens' mouth before she and John Baniszewski beat her—particularly around the stomach.[87]October 25–26EditOn October 25, Likens attempted to escape from the basement after overhearing a conversation between Gertrude and John Baniszewski Jr. pertaining to the family's plan to abandon her to die.[88] She attempted to flee to the front door, however, due to her extensive injuries and general weakness, Gertrude caught her before she could escape the property. Likens was then given toast to eat but was unable to consume the food due to her extreme state of dehydration. Gertrude forced the toast into her mouth before repeatedly striking her face with a curtain rod until sections of the instrument were bent into right angles. Coy Hubbard then took the curtain rod from Gertrude and struck Likens one further time, rendering her unconscious. Gertrude then dragged Likens into the basement.[89]That evening, Likens desperately attempted to alert neighbors by screaming for help and hitting the walls of the basement with a spade. One immediate neighbor of the Baniszewskis would later inform police she had heard the desperate commotion and that she had identified the source as emanating from the basement of 3850 East New York Street, but that as the noise had suddenly ceased at approximately 3:00 a.m., she decided not to inform police about the disturbance.[29]DeathEditBy the morning of October 26, Likens was unable to either speak intelligibly or to correctly coordinate the movement of her limbs. Gertrude did move Likens into the kitchen and—having propped her back against a wall—attempt to feed her a doughnut and a glass of milk, although she threw Likens to the floor in frustration when Likens was unable to correctly move the glass of milk to her lips. She was then returned to the basement.[90]Shortly thereafter, Likens became delirious, repeatedly moaning and mumbling. When Paula asked her to recite the English alphabet, Likens was unable to recite anything beyond the first four letters, or to raise herself off the ground. In response, Paula verbally threatened her to stand up or she would herself inflict a long jump upon her. Gertrude then ordered Likens—who had defecated—to clean herself.[91]That afternoon, several of Likens' other tormentors gathered in the basement. Likens jerkingly moved her arms in an apparent attempt to point at the faces of the tormentors she could recognize, making statements such as, "You're... Ricky" and "You're Gertie" before Gertrude tersely shouted, "Shut up! You know who I am!" Minutes later, Likens unsuccessfully attempted to bite into a rotten pear she had been given to eat, stating she could feel the looseness in her teeth.[92] Upon hearing this, Jenny replied: "Don't you remember, Sylvia? Your front tooth was knocked out when you were seven." Jenny then left Sylvia in the basement to perform gardening chores for neighbors in the hope of earning spending money.[93]In an attempt to wash Likens, a laughing John Baniszewski Jr. sprayed her with a garden hose brought to the house that afternoon by Randy Lepper at Gertrude's request.[84] Likens again desperately attempted to exit the basement but collapsed before she could reach the stairs. In response to this effort, Gertrude stamped upon Likens' head before standing and staring at her for several moments. Stephanie then decided to give Likens a warm, soapy bath,[92] although Likens ceased breathing before she could be carried out of the basement.[94] She was 16 years old.[86] When Stephanie realized that Likens was not breathing, she attempted to apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as Gertrude repeatedly shouted her belief to the children and teenagers present in her house that Likens was faking her death.[95][13]Shortly after 5:30 p.m., Richard Hobbs returned to the Baniszewski residence and immediately proceeded to the basement. He slipped on the wet basement stairs and fell heavily to the floor of the basement to be confronted with the sight of Stephanie crying and cuddling Likens' emaciated and lacerated body.[94]ArrestEditGertrude Baniszewski initially accused Likens of feigning death. She struck her body with a book, shouting "Faker! Faker!" to rouse her,[7] then, panicking, instructed Richard Hobbs to call the police from a nearby payphone. When police arrived at her address at approximately 6:30 p.m.,[96] Gertrude led the officers to Likens' emaciated,[97] extensively bludgeoned, and mutilated body lying upon a soiled mattress in one of the bedrooms[82] before handing them the letter she had forced Likens to previously write to her dictation, also claiming she had been "doctoring" the child for an hour or more prior to her death, having applied rubbing alcohol to Likens' wounds in a futile attempt at first aid before she had died. She added that Likens had earlier run away from her home with several teenage boys before returning to her house earlier that afternoon, bare-breasted and clutching the note.[98]Clutching a Bible,[99] Paula Baniszewski—having stated to all present in the household that Likens' death was "meant to happen"— then glanced in Jenny's direction and calmly stated: "If you want to live with us, Jenny, we'll treat you like our own sister."[100]As previously instructed by Gertrude, Jenny Likens recited the rehearsed version of events leading to Likens' death shortly after 5:30 p.m. that afternoon to police, before whispering to the officers: "You get me out of here and I'll tell you everything."[101][100]The formal statement provided by Jenny Likens prompted officers to arrest Gertrude, Paula, Stephanie, and John Baniszewski Jr. on suspicion of Likens' murder within hours of the discovery of her body. The same day, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs were also arrested and charged with the same offenses.[102] The three eldest Baniszewski children, plus Coy Hubbard, were placed in the custody of a nearby juvenile detention center; the younger Baniszewski children and Richard Hobbs were detained at the Indianapolis Children's Guardians Home. All were held without bail pending trial.[20]Initially, Gertrude denied any involvement in Likens' death, although by October 27 she had confessed to having known "the kids"—particularly her daughter Paula and Coy Hubbard—had physically and emotionally abused Likens, stating that "Paula did most of the damage", and that "Coy Hubbard did a lot of the beating".[103] Gertrude further admitted to having forced the girl to sleep in the basement on approximately three occasions when she had wet the bed. She became evasive when one officer stated the likely reasons Likens had become incontinent were her mental distress and injury to her kidneys.[104]Lacking any remorse, Paula signed a statement admitting having repeatedly beaten Sylvia about the backside with her mother's police belt, also once breaking her wrist on Sylvia's jaw, and inflicting other acts of brutality including pushing her down the stairs into the basement "two or three times", and inflicting a black eye. John Jr. admitted to having "spanked" Sylvia on one occasion, adding that "most of the time, I used my fists" to abuse her. He admitted to having burned Sylvia with matches on several occasions, adding that his mother had repeatedly burned the child with cigarettes.[105]Richard Hobbs and Gertrude Beniszewski at a hearing before Marion County, Judge Harry Zaklan November 1, 1965. Both were formally charged with murder on this date.Five other neighborhood children who had participated in Likens' abuse—Michael Monroe, Randy Lepper, Darlene McGuire, Judy Duke, and Anna Siscoe—had also been arrested by October 29.[106] All were charged with causing injury to person and each was subsequently released into the custody of their parents under subpoena to appear as witnesses at the upcoming trial.[107]AutopsyEditThe autopsy of Likens' body revealed she had suffered in excess of 150 separate wounds across her entire body in addition to being extremely emaciated at the time of her death.[7] The wounds themselves varied in location, nature, severity, and the actual stage of healing. Her injuries included burns, severe bruising, and extensive muscle and nerve damage. Her vaginal cavity was almost swollen shut, although an examination of the canal determined that her hymen was still intact, discrediting Gertrude's assertions Likens had been three months pregnant,[108] a prostitute, and promiscuous. Moreover, all of Likens' fingernails were broken backwards[n 7] and most of the external layers of skin upon the child's face, breasts, neck, and right knee had peeled or receded. In her death throes, Likens had evidently bitten through her lips, partially severing sections of them from her face.[109][70]The official cause of Likens' death was listed by coroner Dr. Arthur Kebel as a subdural hematoma due to her receiving a severe blow to her right temple.[110] Both the shock she had primarily suffered due to the severe and prolonged damage inflicted to her skin and subcutaneous tissues, plus the severe malnutrition,[111] were listed as contributory factors to her death. Rigor mortis had fully developed at the time of the discovery of her body, indicating Likens may have been deceased for up to eight hours before she was found, although Dr. Kebel did note Likens had been recently bathed—possibly after death—and that this act could have hastened the loss of body temperature and thus speeding the onset of rigor mortis.[110]FuneralEditThe funeral service for Sylvia Likens was conducted at the Russell & Hitch Funeral Home in Lebanon on the afternoon of October 29. The service was officiated by the Reverend Louis Gibson, with more than 100 mourners in attendance. Likens' gray casket remained open throughout the ceremony, with a portrait of her taken prior to July 1965 adorning her coffin.[112]In his eulogy, the Reverend Gibson stated: "We all have our time (of passing), but we won't suffer like our little sister suffered during the last days of her life."[17] The Reverend Gibson then strode towards Likens' casket before adding, "She has gone to eternity."[112]Following this service, Likens' casket was placed by pallbearers in a hearse and driven to the Oak Hill Cemetery to be interred. This hearse was one of a 14-vehicle procession to drive to the cemetery for Likens' burial.[112] Her headstone is inscribed with the words: "Our Darling Daughter."Source: WikipediaRIP LITTLE ANGEL 🙏🏼 💔 😭Picture of Sylvia Likens.

The South has no more problems than the North in this regard. Each side has its preferences, delusions, myths and blind spots.There is still today much ignorance about real life in the antebellum South, as the abolitionist view was skewed to magnify the horrors of slavery and laud Emancipation. The true horrors of slavery serve modern political ends, too. The abolitionists and U.S. Government as of April, 1865 had zero realistic plans to deal with Emancipation, law enforcement in the South or any of the practical problems of Reconstruction.Former slaves in their recorded narratives noted very frequently two things:(1) the mean and thieving Yankees that liberated them were very harmful, took all the food and valuables, raped slave women, burned buildings down and were often hated by the slaves and ex-slaves; and(2) the federal government was unprepared to set 4 million people free at one time; many former slaves died in the aftermath of Emancipation as they turned into refugees insofar as food, clothing, shelter and healthcare were concerned. See book Sick from Freedom:Those liberated slaves repeatedly verified the above two statements right here: About this Collection - Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. noted that the North was delusional on the subject of Emancipation.Why does the North have trouble reconciling with the misery their troops caused to black and white Southerners? Why does the North have trouble recognizing that their Emancipation turned into a black holocaust? Take a good look at the census data, which shows many African Americans died after the war. About 25% of the slaves who followed the Union armies died.Here’s a subparagraph and other excerpts, quoted with permission from the author, from Prison & Slavery - A Surprising Comparison: John Dewar Gleissner: 9781432753832: Amazon.com: Books*:“The Yankees. The conventional wisdom is that slaves welcomed the Union troops as liberators, and many did, but the overwhelming memory of the ex-slaves is not flattering to the Yankees. “The slaves hated the Yankees,” according to ex-slave Josephine Ann Barnett, because, “They treated them mean.” The Yankees took the food of the planters and the slaves both. Southerners of both races cooperated to hide valuables, livestock, wagons and food from the thieving Yankees. A hungry liberation was the immediate gift of the Yankees, and ex-slave after ex-slave remembered it. “The Yankees starved out more black faces than white at their stealing,” according to Spencer Barnett. In the Slave Narratives, the image of the thieving Yankee is far more prominent than the Yankee as Liberator. As Frank Menefee observed, “The Yankees did plenty of harm.” The supposition that slaves were miserable before Emancipation is refuted by Eliza Evans, who candidly remembered, “They was good times. We didn’t want to be freed. We hated the Yankee soldiers.”The Yankees were on the march and tended to stay for just a day or two. Slaves described most Yankees as awful, impolite, and the ruination of the plantation. “We didn’t know anything ‘bout dem fighting to free us,” Polly Colbert said about thieving Yankees who angered her and the other slaves, and “We didn’t specially want to be free dat I knows of.” The Union Armies lived off the land, and that meant privation for the people who ordinarily consumed locally grown crops and livestock. The Yankees raped many slave women, and thousands of slaves died in what amounted to concentration camps. Rape by Union soldiers was worse than antebellum sexual violations, because it included gang rapes, murder, and the subsequent disappearance of the armed rapists. Union soldiers left a trail of violence among African-American women and their protectors. Hungry Confederate troops were in a bad mood when the War turned against the South and perpetrated their own atrocities against African-Americans, whose lives they valued less as the War ended.”Julia Williams said, “I didn suffer for anything befoh Yankees come. . . .We had church an had to be dere every single Sunday. We read the Bible. . . . I nevah seed much trouble between de whites and blacks when I live dare. . . . When de Yankees were a comin through dem fiels, dey sho was awful. Dey take everythin and destroy what ever they could not take. . . .The Yankees were bad! . . .” Adeline Jackson remembered that “. . De Yankees dat I ‘members was not gentlefolks. They stole everything . . . and de meanest thing I ever see . . .” Henry D. Jenkins said “ … When de Yankees come, what they do? They did them things they ought not to have done and they left undone de things they ought to have done. . . Marse General Sherman said war was hell. It sho’ was. Mebbe it was hell for some of them Yankees when they come to die and give account of de deeds they done in Sumter and Richland Counties.”*Names of slaves and former slaves in bold; footnotes omitted from this excerpt in Quora; much of book can be viewed for free on Look Inside feature; no part of this book is intended to praise slavery compared to freedom, but instead to compare two forms of slavery: antebellum slavery versus modern mass incarceration, New Age Slavery.The following South Carolina Slave Narratives excerpts come from one of the four South Carolina Slave Narratives volumes:Adeline Jackson. “Marster John got ‘ligion and went all de way lak de jailer in de Bible. All de house jined wid him and mos’ of de slaves. . . . Doctor Henry Gibson was our doctor. . . . I has eat many pieces of deer. Good? I wouldn’t fool you, taste it and you’ll hunger for it ever afterward. . . .Marster never sold a slave but swaps were made wid kin people to advantage, slaves’ wives and husbands sometimes. . . . When farm work was not pressing, we got all of Saturday to clean up . . . Everything lively at Christmas time . . . De Yankees dat I ‘members was not gentlefolks. They stole everything . . . and de meanest thing I ever see . . . My mistress was a good Christian woman, she give me a big supper when I was married. . . Marster Edward bought a slave in Tennessee just ‘cause he could play de fiddle. . . he played ‘long wid Ben Murray, another fiddler. . . I was much happier them days than now.” (1-4).Cordelia Anderson Jackson. “Ever since I a child I is liked white folks. Dey’s good . . . I got a heap mo’ in slavery dan I does now; was sorry when Freedom got here.” (5).Fred James. “I think slavery was good in some ways and bad in others. I was better off den dan I am now.” (16).Isiah Jefferies. “Everything was give you on de plantation and you did not need much money. . . We had good things to eat den; more dan my chillums has dese times. . . All the slaves had dere gardens . . .dey liked it. . . Dere was a lot of slaves and dey all loved de white folks. . . Dere was no jail fer us; de Patter-rollers kept us straight. . . . De white folks stayed and saw us baptize our folks, and dey liked our singing.” (17-19).Henry D. Jenkins. “Henry D. Jenkins lives in a four-room house, which he owns . . . on a tract of land containing four hundred and eighty (480) acres, which Henry also owns. . . .“Yes sir, I doesn’t deny it, I got many whuppins. Dere’s not much to a boy, white or black, dat don’t need a whuppin’ sometime on de way up. When you break a wild spirited colt, they make de best hoss or mule. I can do more work today, than most of dese triflin’, cigaret young mens. . . You bet yo’ life, my white folks was de bestest in de land. . . . Ours was a fine body of slaves and loyal to de mistress and her chillum. . . When de Yankees come, what they do? They did them things they ought not to have done and they left undone de things they ought to have done. . . Marse General Sherman said war was hell. It sho’ was. Mebbe it was hell for some of them Yankees when they come to die and give account of de deeds they done in Sumter and Richland Counties.” (23-26).Paul Jenkins. “My daddy learn to read, write, and cipher while he was a slave. The Jenkins family help him, he say, ‘cause he always keep the peace, and work as he was told to do. When he’s free, that white family help him get settled and loaned him books.” (32).“Aunt” Emma Jeter. “Lordy, Honey, I sho was born in slavery and I is proud o’ it, too.” (33).Adeline Johnson alias Adeline Hall. “In slavery, us have all de clothes us need, all de food us want, and work all de harder ‘cause us love de white folks dat cared for us. No sir-ree, none of our slaves ever run ‘way. Us have a week off, Christmas. . . . I wants to be in hebben wid all my white folks, just to wait on them, and love them and serve them, sorta lak I did in slavery time. Dat will be ‘nough hebben for Adeline.” (38-39).James Johnson – The Cotton Man. “My mammy and daddy b’long to Mr. Andrew Johnson of Orangeburg County, of dis State. They said dat they was treated mighty good by deir marster all de time they was slaves.” (44).Rev. James H. Johnson. “I noticed a crowd of soldiers at the Brevort home. I ran there, and told the troops, please, to do no damage to the premises, as the mistress, then in charge, was the best friend my mother and I ever had. They left soon afterward, showing no animus toward the Brevort family and taking nothing away.” (46).Jane Johnson. “Not very long after de Yankees come, us was told dat de niggers was free. You might think dat was a happy day for us slaves, but I didn’t think lak dat. I was kinda lonesome and sad lak. Us slaves was lost, didn’t know what to do or where to go. Don’t you think dat was a sad time?” (49).“Uncle” Jimmie Johnson. “My old Masser was as good and kind to me as he could be, so was my Missus. My mother died when I was ten years old, and Missus was just like a mother to me all the time. . . Miss Mary Legg was my [Sunday School] teacher, and she was a saintly woman. She was a niece of old Masser. Old Missus used to come to the house where I lived and teach me the alphabet. . . I would study those books and Masser would tell me how to pronounce the hard words. That is the way I got my education. . . . Missus would let me practice on her organ or her piano in the house. I got pretty good on these . . . I told Missus I wasn’t going to let any of the soldiers hurt her. The Yankee soldiers did not bother me. . . . Missus told me that I was free, but I told her I was going to stay on where I was and protect her until I died. And when Masser died, I grieved and grieved about him. I loved him dearly and I know he loved me. He was good and kind to me always. He never whipped me, not once. I grieve about my Masser to this day. He was a kind gentleman. . . . I adopted four children. I taught them music and we got on pretty well after Missus died. I stayed with her until she died.” (53-54).Mary Johnson. “I was a slave of John Johnson and his sife, Polly (Dorroh) Johnson. They was good to dere slaves. . . . Marse John’s youngest son got to be a doctor. He was a good man and helped us when we was sick. . . When freedom come, we left the place, ‘cause Marse Johnson and some of his folks went to Mississippi. . . . De Ku Klux was not a bother. Dey jus marched sometimes at night . . . I think Abe Lincoln was a fine man, and Jeff Davis was good too. Slaver did good to nigger, made him careful and know how to work.” (56-57).Richard Jones (“Dick Look-up”). “Marse Jim sho was a good man to his darkies. . . All de chillums in de Quarter was well fed, clothed, housed and doctored until dey was strong . . . I ‘member my Granny from Africa . . . in Africa dey had very few pretty things . . . no cloth at all. . . .den dey was let loose to walk about ‘cause dey couldn’t jump overboard. On de ship dey had many strange things to eat, and dey liked dat. Dey was give enough red flannel to wrap around demselves. She liked it on de boat. . . . No, I ain’t never had no desire to go to Africa, kaise I gwine to stay whar I is.” (63-65).Wesley Jones. “At de Sardis sto’ dey used to give big barbecues. Dem days barbecues was de mos’ source of amusement fer ev’ybody, all de white folks and de darkies de whole day long. All de fiddlers from ev’ywhars come to Sardis and fiddle fer de dances at de barbecues. Dey had a platform built not fer from de barbecue table to dance on. Any darky dat could cut de buck and de pigeon wing was called up to de platform to perform fer ev’ybody.” (72-73).Ella Kelly. “I had a good marster and mistress. When de slaves git sick, they ‘tend to them same as one of their own chillum. Doctor come quick. They set up and fan you and keep de flies off. They wouldn’t let de slaves do dis, ‘cause certain times you got to take medicine ‘cordin’ to doctors orders, and a slave might make a mistake. Oh, they was ‘ticular ‘bout sickness.” (79-80).Govan Littlejohn. “Marse was one good man and he love his darkies. He never had no overseer, because he had only ‘bout 80 slaves as I remembers.”(105).Uncle Gable Locklier. “My Massa was good to his slaves all de time. . . .De slaves what belong to my white folks have frolicsome days all through de year. Go to frolic on Saturday en go to white folks church on Sunday . . . ” (113, 115).Walter Long. “Me and all my folks was slaves and b’longs to Master John Long, and his wife, Betsy Long. . . .Master West and Mid served as overseers on de plantation. Dese boys being de overseers, was de whole reason us slaves was treated good and kind. They knowed us slave would b’long to them some day . . . De slaves never worked hard, and they was give every Saturday and Sunday to rest. . . Our food in slavery time was good and a lot of it. . . . De houses . . inside and out wid plank . . . Us slaves ‘sorbed all de good us had in us from our mistress, I really believes. She was so kind and gentle, she moved ‘mong us a livin’ benediction. Many was de blessings dat fell from her hands for de sick and ‘flicted. . . Us was ‘bliged to love her, ‘cause she knowed us more better than we knowed ourselves. More than dat, she and her son’s wives teached us how to read, write and figure, ‘nough to help us in small business. . . . After de war de most of us slaves stayed on de plantation and worked right on just like nothin’ had happened. . . Old master and mistress died soon after the war and then my family went to live wid young Master Mid on his plantation on de other side of Saluda River.” (118-119).Nellie Loyd. “I belonged to Mr. George Buchanan. He went to the war and got his right arm shot off. . . . He was good to his slaves, and never allowed any Negro under 12 years of age to work in the fields. . . I believe he never whipped any slaves, for I never did hear of it if he did, and he never allowed anybody else to whip dem either.” (126-127).Amie Lumpkin. “One big black man, who tried to steal a boat ride from Charleston . . . he was caught up with . . . ‘Sho’, I try to git away from this sort of thing. I was goin’ to Massachusetts, and hire out ‘til I git ‘nough to carry me to my home in Africa.’ It was de rule when a trial bein’ held lak this, for all de bosses and sometimes de Missus to be there to listen and to ask the run’way slave some questions. After this one talked, it was Missus Mobley herself who said: ‘Put yourself in this slave’s shoes, and what would you do? Just such as he has. The best way to treat such a slave is to be so kind and patient with him, that he will forget his old home.’ . . . I never did hear if he was whipped. . . He was de first one to pick up his hat and laugh loud, when President Lincoln set all slaves free in January, 1863; He say: ‘Now I go, thank de Lord, and he strike right out, but he not git much beyond de barn, when he turn and come back. He walked in de yard of de big house, and he see Missus Mobley lookin’ out at him. He take off his hat and bow low and say: ‘Missus, I so happy to be free, that I forgets myself but I not go ‘til you say so. I not leave you when you needs a hand, ‘less de master and all de white folks gits home to look after you.’ De missus look down at her feet and she see de black man, so big and strong, sheddin’ tears. She say to him: ‘You is a good nigger and you has suffered much; make yourself at home, just as you have been doin’ and when you want to go far away, come to me and I’ll see that you git ‘nough money to pay your way to Boston and maybe to Africa.’ And that is what happen’ a year or two later.” (130-131).Ed McCrorey. “Well, all Marster Ed Mobley’s niggers lak to stay wid him after freedom. They just stay on widout de whippin’s. ‘Stead of whippin’s they just got cussin’s, good ones, too. . . Some time I sorry I’s free. I have a hard time now. If it was slavery time, I’d be better off in my body and easy in my mind. . . My old marster, Wateree Jim, is de bestest white man I has ever knowed. My race has never been very good to me.” (149-150).Richard Mack. “Richard Mack, a happy philosopher, 104 years old, in perfect mental and physical condition, is still working . . . Missis, I never had a stripe put on me. I had a privilege of being among all people. . . Tony was my father .. . . he was a musician – played the violin . . . My mother was a good woman . . . I loved dem days, I loved dem people. We lived better – we had no money – we had nothing to worry about – just do your task. . . .if people lazy and won’t do, they got to be made to do; if children bad they get whipped – if nigger bad, they get a whipping. . . . In the War I was with my master, Capt. Cherry, and Dr. Knox, Captain in the Civil War, and Capt. Dick McMichael – all those fine gentlemen. . . . I saw Gen. Lee many times; I knew him; he had his close beard around his face; he looked fine and sat his horse so splendid. . . placing of the dead and wounded on the stretchers and bearing them away . . . made the balloon flight . . . I had thousands of dollars in Confederate money when the War broke up. If we had won I would be rich. . . . After the War period: The time Capt. Wade Hampton was stumping I followed him all over the State; I led 500 head . . . (150-156).Jake McLeod. “My white folks, dey didn’ sell en buy slaves . . . De McLeods, dey was good people. Believe in plenty work, eat en wear all de time, but work us very reasonable. . . . I recollect my boss unmercifully whipped man I thought, but I found out dat it was reasonable. He (the slave) beat up my uncle (a slave) en my old boss put it to him. . . .Dey didn’ have no jails in dem days . . . Dey didn’ give us no money but had plenty to eat every day. . . I tellin you my boss was a good man . . . De overseer name Dennis . . . he was a good man to us. . . My old Miss en Massa, dey always look after dey slaves when dey get sick. . . (157-162).Andy Marion. “Yes, sir, I was born befo’ de war ‘tween de white folks, on account of us niggers. They was powerful concerned ‘bout it and we was not. . . . My marster was not a Ku Klux. They killed some obstreppary (obstreperous) niggers in them times. . . There wasn’t as much sin in slavery time, not as much sufferin’, not as much sickness and eye-sore poverty. Dere was no peniten’try and chain gangs ‘cause dere was no need for them. Cuttin’ out de brutishness on some places, it was a good thing for de race.” (167-171).Milton Marshall. “When freedom come, de slaves was notified . . . Den Marse said, while he was crying, ‘You stay on wid me and I’ll give you food and clothes and 1/3 of what you make. . . De carpetbaggers dat come to our place tried to make me believe dat de white man was our enemy, but I found out better.” (172-175).Charlie Meadow. “Slavery, us wore thin home-made clothes and dey sho’ was better dan what I has now . . . Ain’t never seed no garments as strong as dem we wore back dar. . . Grandma Julie grab me and say, ‘Boy, you is free; you is free; clap your hands.’ Dat never meant much to me and atter us got in de wagon to go home, grandma ‘low dat she sorry she so free and footloose. Next day us went to work as usual. Some strange folks and trashy niggers and po’ white folks dat ain’t never had nothing, would come to see us and tell us to stop work, but dat never meant nothing to us. Us stayed on and gathered crops. . . All de darkies on de plantation lived a good life. . . plenty of food, clothes, a good house and good clean bed. . . De barns was always full and so was de smokehouse.” (176-181).Albert Means. “Marse’ Ben nebber’ low’ much whippin’, and he wuz as good a man as anybody has ever seed’. But one day us nigger’ boys hopped into a fight. Marse’ Ben done his own whippin’ den’. And dats’ de onliest’ time dat’ I is ever knowed’ of anybody on all dem’ plantations to be whipped. . . Marse Ben let me eat from his table after his sister went to ‘Cedar Grove.’, kaze’ wad’n nobody dar’ in the house wid’ him. . . .Dem’ wuz good times, Caze’ Marse had us plenty to eat, good clothes to wear, and he gave us a new log house to live in.” (182-184).“After de war was over, freedom come, and with it de excitement of white folks comin’ down here and havin’ us believe us just as good as white folks. I have lived to see it was all a mistake. Then come de Ku Klux and scared some sense into my color. . . (194-196).“My mudder died w’en I was almost uh baby; she was de tailor and seamstress for our people. De missus promise my ma to tek care of me, and she sho’ did. I was raise just like a pet. . . . I hardly miss my ma, no mudder couldn’t treat me better dan I treat. . .. (197).Charity Moore. “I lak my Maussa and I guess he was as good to his slave as he could be, but I ruther (rather) be free. . . . I’s livin’ wid my young marster, Thomas, now. He took good care of my pa, when he got so old and feeble he couldn’t work no more. God’ll bless Marse Tommie for all his goodness.” (204, 207).Sena Moore. “I never mind white chillum callin’ me ‘nigger’. Dat was a nickname they call me.” (210).George Patterson. “He said his master did not allow his slaves to be whipped . . . People don’t work like they used to . . ” (226-229).Sallie Paul. “My white folks, dey was de Williamsons dere in North Carolina. Yes, ma’am, dey was good to dey colored people. . . . Child, dere sho been more to eat in slavery time den dere be now en I know dat all right. Dere been more sheep en hogs en cows en goats. . . . Massa would slip off wid de colored boys on a Sunday . . . en would learn dem to read. . . My father could read, but he couldn’t write. . . . Oh, de white folks be right dere to look after dey colored people if dey get sick. . . . Heap of dem was cared for more better in slavery time den dey is now cause dey had somebody dat had to care for dem or lose dem one. . . . Well, it like I telling you, everybody didn’ hate dey white folks. Dat how-come some niggers stayed right no dere wid dey white people after freedom en farmed for half what dey made on de crop. . . I couldn’ exactly tell you which de better times dese days or in slavery time. I know heap of de colored people fared better when dey belonged to de white folks cause dey had good owners. Didn’ have to worry bout huntin dey clothes en something to eat in dat day en time. Just had to work. Now dey have to hunt it en get it together de best way dey can. Oh, honey, peoples has so much worraytions dese days. Dat how-come dey ain’ live a long time like dey used to. . . . Dere was abundance of meat en bread en milk all de time. . . Hear tell dat some of de white folks would be mean to dey colored people, but never did see nothing of dat kind bout my white folks’ plantation. . . . You see, people was more mindful to bless one another in dat day den dey be dese days. Yes, ma’am, neighbor been please to turn good hand to neighbor den. . . dey had de finest kind of enjoyments in dem days. It was sho a time . . .quiltings. . .dance en play . . frolic en play en dance dere till late up in de night. . . knock bones together dat would make good music as anybody would want to dance by. . . ” (231-247).John Petty. “When I done come up nigh 18 or something like that, the big freedom come ‘round. Marse Jim say us could all go and see the world as we’uns was free niggers. Us jump up and shout Glory and sing, but us never sassed our white folks like it ‘pears to be the knowledge up North. I’d done been there and they thinks us turned our backs on our white folks, but I never seed nothing but scalawag niggers and poor white trash a-doing that, that I ain’t. . . . Long afore I ‘rive at home, I knowed that I done been a fool to ever leave the plantation. . . .I goes to old Marse and hires myself out and I never left him no more till the Lawd took him away. God knows that the slaves fared better than these free niggers is.” (263-267).Sarah Poindexter. “De Poindexter plantation was on big place of excitement them days. De slaves work some, all durin’ de war, sometimes I now ‘spects it was for de sake of de missus. All of us loved her, ‘cause she was so kind and good to us.” (268-270).William Pratt. “I think Abraham Lincoln didn’t do just right, ‘cause he threw all the negroes on the world without any way of getting along. They was helpless. He ought to have done it gradually and give them a chance to get on their own.” (279).Henry Pristell. “After de war, we stay dere on de place. Stay dere for years.” (280-282).Junius Quattlebaum. “Well, sir, you want to talk to me ‘bout them good old days back yonder in slavery time, does you? I call them good old days, ‘cause I has never had as much since. I has worked harder since de war betwixt de North and de South than I ever worked under my marster and missus. . . My marster wouldn’t have no overseer, ‘cause he say overseers would whip his niggers and he didn’t ‘low nobody, white or black, to do dat. . . . Mammy said many times dat de Missus didn’t lak dat whiskey drinkin’ business in nobody. She was a pure and ‘ligious woman if dere eer was in dis world. . . . Mammy say de onliest way for both white and black to keep from lovin’ Miss Martha, was to git away from her and not be so you could see her. Dis is de way our marsters treated deir slaves. I don’t care what de world does write and say ‘bout slave owners; I knows dis. Us slaves dat b’long on Marster’s plantation had de best folks to live and work wid I has ever seen or knowed. Dere is no sich kindness dese days betwixt de boss and them dat does de work. . . They worked wid light and happy hearts, ‘cause they knowed dat marster would take good care of them; give them a plenty of good vittles, warm clothes, and warm houses to sleep in . . .They sho’ had nothin’ to worry ‘bout and no overseer to drive them to work . . .[Missus] tried as hard to make de slaves happy as she did to make her own white friends happy, it seem lak to me. . . . After all de presents was give out, missus would stand in de middle of de ring and raise her hand and bow her head in silent thanks to God. All de slaves done lak her done. Go ‘way from here . . . Don’t tell me dat wasn’t de next step to heaven to de slaves on our plantation. I sees and dreams ‘bout them good old times, back yonder, to dis day.” (283-286).