When interviewed, Amanda Elizabeth (Lizzie) Samuels was living at 1721 [North?] Park Avenue in Indianapolis. The fieldworker said that Lizzie was “an amusing little woman” who must have been about eighty years old, but “holds to the age of sixty. Had she given her right age, the people for whom she works would have helped her to get her pension. They are amused, yet provoked, because Lizzie wants to be younger than she really is.”
As a child, Lizzie lived in the home of the McMurrys, farmers in Robertson County, Tennessee. Her mother, a slave, worked on the McMurry farm until young Robert McMurry was married, and she was then sold to the Reverend Carter Plaster and taken to Logan County, Kentucky. Lizzie was given to young Robert McMurry, and she lived in the big house and helped his wife, who was not very kind to her. Lizzie was forced to eat chicken heads, fish heads, pig tails, and parsnips, which she very much disliked.
Although Lizzie was very unhappy living with the young McMurrys, she liked living with the old master because he treated the slave children just like his own children. They had plenty of good, substantial food and were protected in every way. The old master felt they were the hands of the next generation, and if they were strong and healthy, they would bring in a larger amount of money when sold. Lizzie’s hardships did not last long, however, as the slaves were set free soon after young McMurry’s marriage. Then the young master took her in a wagon to Keysburg, Kentucky, to be with her mother. Lizzie said she learned the following song from soldiers:
Old Saul Crawford is dead,
And the last word is said.
They were fond of looking back,
Till they heard the bushes crack,
And sent them to their happy home
In Canaan.
Some wears worsted,
Some wears lawn.
What they gonna do,
When that’s all gone?