Affectionately known as "Mammy" by her grandchildren and the neighborhood children, as well. When her husband Jethro William Oates died, she was only 26 years old, had three small children, and was pregnant with John Martin. She was the matriarch of the Oates family for more than 50 years. Mammy never remarried and lived to be 80 years old. 

Blanche,  Serena,  Ronald,  John W.,  Ralph (about 1919)

"The above photos were taken off the southwest corner of the kitchen pantry and shows the gate posts as I remember them. 
The barn faces the south end of the Curtis House. This, about, sixteen by thirty feet "shot-gun" house, one room without windows, rested on "sleepers" which were skinned pine trees.
There was a water well out front which in my time was used for washing clothes and watering the hogs in the large fenced lot behind the barn. The wash tubs, one tin and one oak, and scrub boards were stored in the Curtis house. The dual use iron kettles, for boiling the clothes and making lard, with a brick under each of the three legs stood out front. The clothes line was anchored between two oak trees and extended to a fat lightwood post at the north end of the house.
I do not know who the Curtis family was.  Perhaps descendants of one of David's freed slaves.

Jack, 10-09-2000

Note that the above photos have been reversed from the family prints to correct what is believed to have been an error made when the originals were developed. In the above images, the background structures appear in their proper locations. Notice also, that Ronald and Ralph are using their right hands in the above images. Webmaster.