Commentary by Vera Hall on her family (I)

Note: Vera Hall talks about how her sister Estelle was a better helper to her mother than she was. Alan asks whether Vera thinks boys and girls love their fathers or mothers better. Vera thinks girls tend to love their fathers more. Vera looks exactly like her mother. Vera learned most of her songs from her mother. Her father didn't sing too much. He whistled songs when he worked. He looked mad all the time. He didn't talk much and people were a little scared of him. He was a kind man though. He had a hard time as a boy. He was a mischevious boy. He would fight a lot. When he was 18 or 19 he played a long day of baseball and came home to eat his dinner. He ate so many dumplings that he layed on the bed and had a vision of three heads coming through the cracks in the roof of the house. Then he felt something heavy land on his chest and he was screaming and struggling, then he grabbed the door and bit at one of the creatures in his room and spit out a piece of it on the floor. He thinks they were some kind of aliens. Vera Hall's grandfather was a slave and was sold into the county where he lived and worked. Her father was brought up working on the land where they lived. At Christmas time the white landowner would give them 5 dollars to buy clothes and shoes for the children. When her father was grown, he left, got married to Vera's mother and rented land from another plantation. Then he was working for himself and that is where Vera grew up. Her father was a very hard worker. He harvested and plowed all spring and summer and cut wood and sold it in the winter time. He had his own wagon and mules.