The interviewer provided only a summary of Julia Bowman’s narrative. Julia was born in Woodford County, Kentucky, in 1859. She said that her owner, Joel W. Twyman, had many slaves and was kind and generous to all of them. All of his slaves worked hard on a large farm, on which all kinds of crops were raised. The slaves were given some of everything that was raised on the farm. Julia said she never knew want in slave times as she had known it during the Depression.
Twyman had his own slaves, and his wife had her own slaves. At the age of six, Julia was taken into the Twyman “big house” to help Mrs. Twyman in any way she could. She stayed in the house until slavery was abolished.
The Twyman slaves were always referred to as Twyman “kinfolks.” After the slaves were freed, old Twyman was taken very sick, and some of the former slaves were sent for, as he wanted some of his “kinfolks” around him when he died. Julia was given the Twyman family Bible, in which her birth was recorded with the rest of the Twyman family. She showed it with pride to the fieldworker.