Maria Love was living at 210 Geisendorff Street in Indianapolis when she was interviewed. The fieldworker said that Maria was living “in a little old worn shack, not very neat. She is very pleasant, with a sincere, open face, seeming quite out of place in her surroundings.” Maria said that her mother, Elmira Polk, was a slave on the farm of Armstead Polk in Carters Creek, Tennessee. There her mother had to work very hard, “just like a man,” plowing and working the crops in the fields from morning until night. After her mother’s death, Maria was sent to her master’s daughter in Alabama, where she lived until she was set free.