Elizabeth “Bettie” Alvis Jones was living at 429 Oak Street, Evansville, Indiana, when interviewed. Quite elderly, according to the fieldworker, she had been cared for by her unmarried daughter since her husband’s death. Often alone because her daughter cleaned houses to provide for them, Bettie was happy to talk to the fieldworker. Her obituary appeared in the Evansville Courier on July 25, 1946 (p. 12), under the heading “Negro Deaths”:
Mrs. Bettie Jones, 89, Negro, 429 Oak street, died yesterday at her residence.
She is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Arnetta Letcher and Mrs. Gertrude Fagan, Evansville; a son, Horace, Evansville; six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
The body is at the Gaines funeral home. Funeral arrangements have not been completed.
The fieldworker paraphrased most of Bettie’s narrative:
“Yes, Honey, I was a slave. I was born at Henderson, Kentucky, and my mother was born there. We were held by old John Alvis. Our home was on Alvis’s Hill, and a long plank walk had been built from the bank of the Ohio River to the Alvis home. We all liked the long plank walk, and the big house on top of the hill was a pretty place.”
Bettie said her master was a rich man who made his money by raising and selling slaves. She lived with her parents in a cabin near her master’s home on the hill. She recalled no unkind treatment. “Our only sorrow was when a crowd of our slave friends would be sold off; then the mothers, brothers, sisters, and friends always cried a lot, and we children would grieve to see the grief of our parents.”
Bettie’s mother was a slave of John Alvis and married another slave of the same owner. The family lived at the slave quarters and never parted. “Mother kept us all together until we got set free after the war.” Even then, many of the Alvis ex-slaves decided to make their homes at Henderson, Kentucky, since “It was a nice town, and work was plentiful.”
Bettie was brought to Evansville by her parents; however, the climate did not agree with her mother, so she went to Princeton, Kentucky, to live with a married daughter and died there. In Evansville, Bettie married John R. Jones, a former slave of a Tennessee planter, John Jones. Her husband had been dead twelve years when Bettie was interviewed.
Bettie remembered when Evansville was a small town. She recalled when streetcars were mule-drawn and people rode on them for pleasure. “When boats came in at Evansville, all the girls used to go down to the bank wearing pretty ruffled dresses, and everybody would wave to the boatmen and stay down at the river’s edge until the boat was out of sight.” Bettie remembered when the new courthouse was started, and how glad the men of the city were to work on the building. She also recalled when the old frame buildings used for church services were razed and new structures were erected.
Bettie did not believe in evil spirits, ghosts, or charms, but she remembered hearing her friends express superstitions concerning black cats. Some former slaves believed that building a new kitchen onto a house was always followed by the death of a member of the immediate family, and if a bird flew into a window, some member of the family would die.
Bettie had not been scared when a recent flood came to within a block of her door, for she had lived through a flood while living at Lawrence Station in Marion County, Indiana. “We was all marooned in our homes for two weeks, and all the food we had was brought to our door by boats. White River was flooded then, and our home was in the White River flats. What God wills must happen to us, and we do not save ourselves by trying to run away. Just as well stay and face it as to try to get away. Of course, I’m a Christian. I’m a religious woman and hope to meet my friends in Heaven.”
“I would like to go back to Henderson, Kentucky, once more, for I have not been there for more than twenty years. I’d like to walk the old plank walk again up to Mr. Alvis’s home, but I’m afraid I’ll never get to go. It costs too much.”