My father {George Harvey LANE} was in the Confederate Army and left my mother {Ann Eliza HART} with six children and my mother had to make a living sewing, spinning and anything else she could get to do. She stripped cane to make molasses. She made suits of clothes for the shoemaker's children and he paid my mother by making shoes for us, her children.

One day my mother went to Jefferson City which was seven miles from where we lived. She wint with my Aunt Adeline. She had $100 with her which was quite a sum of money in those days. She got it changed and my mother seeing it told her she shoulden't have done it as it was dangerous. That night about 12 o'clock someone knocked at my aunts door and said, "Adeline, you have got money, we want it and are going to have it, you might as well give it to us." She refused, they looked every where. They choked her and she finally got away and ran to her sister's house which was close by. She had hidden all the money except $30 underneath her house on a sleeper. She had put the $30 in a room in a small table drawer and locked it. As she went in the front door, she stepped behind the door and her sister with her baby ran out the opposite door and the Bushwhackers thought it was my Aunt Adeline who went out the back door. They followed her, when someone hollered "Come on we have it." They had broken the lock on the table drawer and got the $30. Two men had stood over my Grandmother { as she would add kindling to the fireplace, they would put it out so she wouldn't recognize them. As soon as the "Bushwhackers" were gone, they called to my mother and when she returned, Aunt Adeline was crying with her throat and it was black where they had choked her.

One day mother and we children were alone when a man who was dirty and mean looking man came to the house. He wanted to come in to get warm and asked "where is your husband" and my mother told him he wasn't home. Then he asked if she had a razor. She gave him an old one. Then he asked for a better one. She gave it to him and he sat there and whetted the razor and casting mean looks at her. Mother said that while he was whetting she was praying that God would send help. Sister Martha went out doors and came running in and said "oh mother, the mostest people are comming, women and children." The man laid the razor down and ran away and never came back. Mother thought it was an answer to her prayer.

My Aunt was working for Mrs. Blank, name apparently not known; she was weaving blankets. Someone said, "there are soldiers coming and Mrs. Blanks brother took $300 out of his pocket and threw it into my Aunt's lap and said that if she could save it she could have it. The reason he did this was because he knew the soldiers would take it away from him. My Aunt had reddish brown hair, she undid her hair and twisted the bills in her hair. The Yankee soldiers searched the men and when they didn't find any money they left. My aunt unrolled her hair and gave the money back.

My Grandfather had gone to the mill which was a long journy as he had to drive oxen.

My Grandmother heard a noise outside and she went to see what it was. When she went out she saw that her smoke house was full of Indians. She had always heard that an Indian admires a brave person. She had a poking stick that they rolled the back logs in the fireplace. She came out with it and went to the smoke house and pointed to the door and told them to get out. They all went out one behind the other. Then one started in with a new butcher knife and grunted ugh, ugh, and laid the knife down and picked up a pumpkin and started off. My Grandmother nodded her head meaning it was all right. He did this three times, each time laying a knife down. The Indians cut the pumpkins in strips and hung them across the ponys back and said ugh ugh and rode away. These were friendly Indians and the government had given the knives.

My Aunt and her sixteen year old brother lived on a farm and one day she was working in her garden. An army regiment came to the town, the captain came down to where she was working in the garden and said, "miss, arn't you afraid the soldiers will come and destroy your garden? She told them no. She said that if they knew how hard she had to work to support a widowed mother and sister, not one man would take a thing out of this garden. He went back to his regiment and described the farm to them and told them not to bother a thing and if they did and he found it out he would punish them. They went on their way and didn't bother her garden.

My Grandmother had a maid who was from Africa. She was a queen of her tribe. When she slept she made her bed on the floor and rolled up in it. She slept with her feet to the fireplace. One day she was hoeing in the field and threw up her hoe and said "Mrs. Nancy is going to have a baby today and she wouldn't work any more that day and went over to see and sure enough she had a baby son.

My great grandmother was a close observer of things and one day she noticed marks where the steps had been moved so she looked under the steps and she found several quills. She opened them and found they were full of gun powder. She burned them. It was the superstition of those days to find anything of that nature was an attempt to conjure a person.