When interviewed, Amy Elizabeth Patterson lived with her daughter, Lula B. Morton, at 512 South Linwood Avenue near Cherry Street in Evansville. She was born on July 12, 1850, at Cadiz, Trigg County, Kentucky. In spite of her eighty-seven years, fifteen of which had been passed in slavery, she remained helpful in her daughter’s home. The fieldworker said that Amy was a refined woman, gracious to every person she encountered and loved by her children and grandchildren. Amy hoped for better opportunities for blacks.
Amy’s mother, Louisa Street, was held by John Street, a merchant of Cadiz. Louisa worked as a housemaid in the Street home, and Amy, her firstborn, was fair with gold-brown hair and amber eyes. John Street’s wife knew that Amy was her husband’s daughter, but she respected Louisa and her child, according to Amy. The Streets promised Louisa they would never sell her, since they did not want to part with Amy, so Louisa was given a small cabin near the big house. The Streets had a child near Amy’s age, and Louisa was wet nurse to both children in addition to her duties as Mrs. Street’s maid.
Amy said that “John Street was never unkind to his slaves. Our sorrow began when slave traders came to Cadiz and bought any slaves they took a fancy to and separated us from our families.” Separation from her mother and sisters at a slave auction was among Amy’s earliest memories. John Street became wealthy dealing in slaves. He bought slaves and sold them yearly to other slave traders. Those he did not sell he hired out to other families. Some slaves were hired or indentured to farmers, stock raisers, merchants, and boat captains. Two years after the birth of Amy, Louisa gave birth to twin daughters, Fannie and Martha. About that time, John Street decided to sell all his slaves, as he was planning to move to another territory. His slaves were auctioned to the highest bidder, and Louisa and the twins were bought by a man living near Cadiz. Street, however, refused to sell Amy, for she showed promise of becoming an excellent housemaid and seamstress and was half-sister, playmate, and nurse to Street’s son and daughter. Louisa grieved so much from the loss of her child that she was unable to perform her tasks, and Amy cried continually, so Street sold Amy to her mother’s new owner.
Louisa gave birth to seventeen children, three almost white. Amy said, “That was the greatest crime ever visited on the United States. It was worse than the cruelty of the overseers, worse than hunger, for many slaves were well fed and well cared for; but when a father can sell his own child, humiliate his own daughter by auctioning her on the slave block, what good could be expected where such practices were allowed? Yes, slavery was a curse to this nation, a curse that still shows itself in hundreds of homes where mulatto faces are evidence of a heinous sin and proof that there has been a time when American fathers sold their children at the slave marts of America.” She said she was glad the curse had been erased, even if by bloodshed.
Amy remembered superstitions of slavery days and recalled that many slaves were afraid of ghosts and evil spirits; however, she never believed in supernatural appearances until three years before the interview, when, through a medium, she received a message “from the spirit land.” After that, she became a firm believer in communication with departed ones “who still love and long to protect those who remain on earth” but said that she did not believe in “ghosts and evil visitations.”
Several years before the interview, her young grandson, Stokes Morton, had drowned. A good student, Stokes was well liked by his teachers and fellow students. After his death, his mother, Lula B. Morton, and Amy grieved so much that both declined in health and could not perform their regular duties. Suffering from a dental ailment, Amy had to visit a dental surgeon, who suggested that she visit a medium to seek some comforting message from the drowned child. At once she visited a medium and received a message. According to Amy, “Stokes answered me. In fact, he was waiting to communicate with us. He said, ‘Grandmother, you and Mother must stop staying at the cemetery and grieving for me. Send the flowers to your sick friends, and put in more time with the other children. I am happy here; I am in a beautiful field. The sky is blue, and the field is full of beautiful white lambs that play with me.’“ The message comforted Amy, and she began spending more time with other members of her family and again visited her neighbors. Two years later she “felt a call” and again consulted the medium. That time she received a message from the child, his father, and a little girl who had died in infancy. Amy said she would not call again on the ones who had gone on to the land of promise. She said she was a Christian and a believer in the word of God. She admonished younger relatives to live in the fear and love of the Lord so that no evil would overtake them.