University of Virginia Library

Aunt Jenny Pickett

How or where she lived I did not know but I
fancy she existed upon the meagre alms of
the kindly disposed among the people
both white and colored. I wish I knew her age
for it seemed as if Death must have made
many failures in trying to gather her in
with his yearly harvests. According to
her own story she had attained to an almost

fabulous age. She did not know the date
of her birth but she claimed that she had
long since passed the century mark. She
could remember when the country around
Charlottesville was a wilderness, and there
were many Indians about. Asked if she
remembered Thomas Jefferson she replied
"O, yes! I 'member old Tom Jefferson. He
was at the head of making we all slaves!"
How she got the idea that Jefferson was
responsible for the fact of slavery I never
knew but she always spoke of him irreverently
as "Old Tom." There could be but little
doubt that she was, as she claimed "morn
a hunderd"
She paid us occasional
visits, knowing that she would not go away
empty handed. She usually spent a good
part of the day in the kitchen with
Margaret when she came — She would sit
by the fire and smoke a pipe, nodding
in a kind of sleepy stupor. Among
the articles sent to Miss Gardner one year
for distribution among the very poor, was
a bonnet of very ancient date. I judge it
might have been in fashion sometime
between 1820 and 1830 Miss Gardner gave
it to Aunt Jenny who could not have been
more pleased with the most modern creation
of the milliners art. The next time she
came to our place with a handkerchief tied
on her head, Margaret asked, "Why Aunt
Jenny wheres your new bonnet?" "Why chile
dats my gold bunnit."
She told us that she
had been the mother of twenty children all
of whom had been sold away from her years
ago. In spite of her years and poverty, she
was as happy as a child to think she had
lived to be free. I think a year or so later
one of her long lost children, or a granchild
came from some other part of the south
in search of her and took her away to
a new home. So she passed out of our lives
leaving a unique picture on the pages of our
memory.

See "Left Overs" page 104