Mami T-- Part 13

At some point in time she purchased more land and Tony purchased some too. I do not know how much acreage was involved, but it was down near the Choctawhatchee River.

She moved to the Whitewater Community, and of course Tony always lived with her. She taught her son and all of her grandsons how to run a farm; although Tony was not around to be of much help to her.

According to daddy Tony eventually gambled away all of the land they had owned except for the small piece they lived on in the Whitewater Community.

As her grandsons grew up they were a lot of help and they were all very good farmers as she had taught them to be. In later years some of them turned to other occupations.

Her knowledge was passed on to her great grandsons who were farmers too, her love and knowledge of working the soil was passed down through several generations.

I certainly love digging in the dirt, planting the seed and watching it grow to harvest or bloom, and my greatest love of gardening is the propagation of the plants.

One of my sisters; who is also her gg granddaughter, Bettie, is a Landscape Gardener, and so is one of my nieces’ Shellie who is a ggg granddaughter of Mami T.  One of her ggg grandson’s Tim McDuffie majored in Agriculture at the University of Florida.

This next story happened after she moved to the Whitewater Community, and I am not sure of the year. She was called to testify to an incident she had been an eye witness to, and it had happened in the Whitewater Community, this is the reason I am fairly sure she was living here at the time.

I do remember seeing this home place when I was a little girl, some of the family still lived here long after she had died. This house is no longer standing now, and neither is the one near Miller’s Crossroads.

She was called to the witness stand on the morning the trial began; to testify as to what she had seen and heard concerning the case. She was sworn in and testified, and excused from the witness box, but was subject for recall later.

After the lunch break she was recalled to the stand. The prosecutor was a man by the name of Emmitt Mathis if I’m not mistaken. He said to her, “Now Aunt T didn't I understand you to say, and then spoke whatever it was he thought she had said"?

She was sitting in the witness stand with her right leg crossed over her left knee. She leaned forward and placed her right elbow on her knee with her right hand underneath her chin.

She looked him dead in the eye and answered, “Hell no, Emmitt Mathis you didn't understand me to say no sich a damned thing!” The judge spoke very quickly and sharply to her and said, “Now Aunt T you watch your mouth or I’ll have to hold you in contempt of court!”

She leaned back and gave him a dark look also and replied, “Contempt ah court be damned, he ain't gonna make me out no liar, him nur no other sonamabitch; he knows what I said, and I ain’t gonna repeat it neither!”

The man was found ‘Not Guilty’ because of her testimony.