Brattonsville to the bricks lining the floor of the kitchen at Rosedale. With a beautiful arbor in the garden and and the boxwood lining the area, this is a popular spot for weddings and also for photographers. With so many blooming shrubs, trees and plants, it is spectacular in the spring but still beautiful in the hot summer which is when I visited it. After touring Rosedale, I heard about some
old houses in Anderson, SC that were thought to be slave cabins. Located in the center of town, they had fallen into disrepair and also were posted as “No Trespassing.” A group was trying to preserve them, keeping the outside as original as possible and turning them into apartments. After asking questions, I found out these cabins belonged to my great great great great grandfather and grandmother, Samuel Girard Earle and Elizabeth Hampton Harrison Earle of the Evergreen Plantation. This knowledge threw me into a whirlwind of thoughts… If I were born 200 years earlier, I would have been a slaveowner. This knowl- edge didn’t taste very good to me at all. I won- dered what kind of slaveowners my ancestors were, and who are the descendents from those they owned? I know how lucky I am, books have been
published based just on my ancestors and all their business dealings, personal milestones and their births and deaths. But many of my friends who are descended from these en- slaved persons don’t have that luxury and even with all our modern technology and with the internet all information available at the tips of our fingers, they will never be able to trace their own roots. I ran across a photograph of a woman,
probably taken in the 1930’s. This photograph is a copy and came to me via my husband’s family. The handwritten inscription on the back simply says “Anna Dickey – caregiver, maid, cook, sitter, wash woman, confidant of all the families at Tiger Steam Station in Dun- can, SC during the 1920’s and ‘30’s.”
Anna Dickey
Somwhere there is someone, a niece, nephew, grandson or granddaughter that would love to have this piece of their family history. I have kept the photograph and her smile haunts me. She seems to be in the process of step- ping away from a barrel and is shy about hav- ing her picture made. Her body language tells me she was in motion and I can almost see her moving constantly, always busy. With her white kerchief on her head, her apron and work boots, I think of her often. I wish I could speak to her and tell her she is not forgotten even though I never knew her. •
All photos by Roxanne Lark (other than Anna)
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