Callie Shepard

Callie Shepherd was born in 1852 near Gilmer, Texas, enslaved by Dr. Stevens and his wife, Fannie, who had come from Georgia. Her mother, the main cook, was a small woman of part Native ancestry whom the family had brought from Georgia. Callie was raised in the house with the Stevens children, slept in a trundle bed in their room, and ate at the table at Miss Fannie's elbow. Dr. Stevens went off to the war, came home sick, and died on the plantation.

She said she was never whipped because she didn't go among the field workers, but she saw others whipped. She saw people who ran to the woods tracked by dogs that bit them and tore their clothes and skin, and she remembered the children being made to watch whippings. She rode to church in the buggy with the white children. As a young woman she was known as the best dancer at the balls, until she got religion and gave it up.

Her father died, and her stepfather was rough on the children. After Miss Fannie went back to Georgia, Callie's back hurt constantly from pulling fodder and chopping cotton. She heard the cannons of the war like thunder. One day, while she and other children were building frog houses in the sand, soldiers rode by with tin cups tied to their saddles, threw the cups to the children, and told them the war was over and they were free. Callie stayed near Gilmer, where she was born, and in old age was cared for by her son and his wife.