When interviewed, Henrietta Jackson was living in Fort Wayne with her daughter, who operated a restaurant. She had come to live with her daughter in 1917. According to the announcement of her funeral in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (April 30, 1940), they lived at 1220 S. Lafayette Street. Henrietta did not know exactly how old she was, but she thought she was about 105, though she looked much younger. Still, Henrietta was active and helped her daughter do some of the lighter work around the restaurant. At the time of the interview, on an August afternoon of over ninety degrees, Henrietta was busy sweeping the floor. Rather stooped, she moved slowly but without the aid of a cane or other support. She wore a long, dark cotton dress and a bandanna over her quite gray hair. She was intelligent, alert, cordial, and very much interested in everything going on around her. Her husband, Levy Jackson, had been dead fifty years. They had nine children, two of whom were twins. Her youngest child was seventy-three, and only two were still living.
Born a slave in Virginia, Henrietta could not remember her father, for he was sold soon after her birth. When still a child she was taken from her mother and sold. She remembered the auction block and said that she brought a good price, for she was strong and healthy. Her new owner, Tom Robinson, treated her well and never beat her. At first she was a plowhand, working in the cotton fields, but then she was taken into the house to work as a maid. While she was there, the Civil War broke out, and Henrietta remembered the excitement.
Gradually the family lost its wealth, and the home was broken up. Everything was destroyed by the armies. When freedom came for the slaves, Henrietta stayed on with the master for a while. She then went to Alabama, where she obtained work in a laundry “ironing white folks’ collars and cuffs.” Henrietta said that she sometimes longed for her old home in Alabama, where her friends lived, but for the most part she was happy in Fort Wayne.