Person:Mary Bateman (16)

[the following was written in October 2011 by Mary Louise Magee Brumfield, granddaughter of Mary Bateman Magee] Mary Bateman Magee was my grandmother---My parents always lived with Grandma & Grandpa. I think daddy John Magee thought he should help them. I had a brother named Johnny & the family felt like Grandpa favored John & Johnny. She did many chores. I can remember gathering eggs every day. She had an egg basket & we would often fill it up. My Grandmother always had a cook Babe Conerly who lived just a little way down the hill. Babe would cook the vegetables Grandma had gathered for dinner---then she went home & about 4:30 would come back & fix supper & clean up. Grandma would sew some during the day using a pedal machine, since she was so frugal. She made her slips out of domestic cloth, which was kinda like a feed sack---she never used a pattern. On hog killing day, she would help cook the brains, sweetbred[?] & tongue. These were all delicacies back then. Grandma was a very religious person, never missing a church service. She would take a preacher in, feed him, wash his clothes and do anything else needed. I was with her at a Woman's Missionary Union meeting when my Aunt Alma came to tell us our house was on fire. Grandma cried but did not lose her faith, even tho she had only a rocker & kettle saved. Grandma usually walked to most near-by places. She & I would cross the creek on a log & go through the woods to Mr Hugh Bullock's at Pico. She usually went there to take them something. She would walk to Coz. Fannie Magee's, Aunt Myra's & to some of the Burris family. Again, she would take them something. In the 30's & 40's, tramps would come by---sometimes she would give them food to get rid of them---we were always kinda scared of them. In later years she had dementia. She would fill a basket with sheets & towels & take them to people & they never returned them. While living in West Feliciana Parish, one of the babies died & she & Grandpa came by horse & buggy to bring the body to be buried in the John Magee Cemetery at Clifton. Living in the house with them I cannot ever remember hearing a cross word from anybody. I do think Grandma ruled the roost & nobody realized it. She would always see that a pail of water & a gourd was on a shelf on the back porch---the water had been pulled up by a well bucket & the gourd was shaped like a dipper and used as such.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Death Certificate, in Louisiana, United States. Certificate of Death. (Louisiana Department of Health, Vital Records Office)
   vol 16, p 188.