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after that. He was 62 when he passed away. I was five months with Loomis when he died. He kept begging for me and Mrs. Hover said no; you can't go around him because you might mark your baby as he looks so bad. But anyway the next day she came in the kitchen where I was cooking dinner for a crowd waiting to hear he was gone so she said Pearl, go in and see what he wants. May be it won't hurt you. So when I walked in the room he held his hand out for me to come there so I walked up to the side of the bed and he took my hand and just did squeeze it a little as he never had the strength. After I went out in just a few minutes they came and told me he was gone. If I had any training at all to witness to any one I could have told him what I'm sure he wanted to ask me if he could have talked and that was for me to tell him not to worry about Mrs. Hover because Willie and I will see that she's taken care of.
Mrs. Hover lived until she was 77. The afternoon she died she was gasping for her breath and I took her in my arms and held her up until she breathed her last so then Ruth, Idemia and Epps all came to me and asked me if I'd bathe and lay her out so I said if you'll get some one to help me I'll do the best I can. So Victoria came and I bathed and dressed her just in a clean dress until her shroud came. Her false teeth had to be put together as they were broken, but I fixed them where they looked as good as ever. So when Willie come with her coffin & shroud Ettie her niece came in the kitchen where I was sitting by the old wood stove and said Willie is here with Aunt Jane's outfit do you want to come put it on her? And I said no, I can't, I've did all I can. She was sick two weeks and when she needed anything she'd always call for me because she'd tell them I knew how, because I had been doing for her so long. I had never had a mother so she took the place of my mother. I loved her as much as one of her own daughters. At least that's the way I felt. Willie had to do everything. He had to go to Picayune and pick out her casket and her shroud and the next day had to go forty miles to get the Preacher and then after the funeral he had to take him back. None of his brothers or any one offered to help him in any way with the expenses or doctor bills or anything. Willie and I had stayed there with the exception of one time when he had to go where his work was and that was when we moved to the gravel pit where he pumped gravel. We were only up there for a little over a year, then we came back home and when he got a job at a gas station about four miles from home he took that job and we
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