from the James Tate collection
Hello Perry county, my name is James Tate , better known as Sammy Tate, a man by the name of Alonzo Quinn give me that when I was six year old, Alonzo lived on Toms creek,as did my Mother and Daddy Louis and Lena Scaggs Tate, my dad worked on a farm owned by Bob Lewis, he was making fifty cents a day at that time, I will say more about this later, a little about me, I was born Sept 18 1928, on a road that went from Ronescreek to crooked creek, I was the third child of Louis and Lena, before me was Hazel and Paul, six years after me Margie was born She was born on Toms creek at the Bob Lewis place, when I was born my Dad worked for Dewey Daniel on the farm I can name three more members of the Daniel family, there was Bill & Roby and a girl by the name of Grace who married Andrew Broadway, After this dad worked for Jack Depriest on farm at Britts Landing on Rhonescreek, Jack was a brother To Gradon Depriest who owned a store in Depriest Bend, there was a family by the name of Gibson I think his first name was Alonzo, He had three sons at that time, Otis, Ray, and Ferney and a Daughter named Hazel, the first time I remember seeing Otis he was standing up on the back of a blind mule loping her on an Icy road as most of you know he later become Slick Gibson, My brother Paul and I become friends with the Gibson brothers, even though Slick was older than me we become playmates and I have the scars to prove it, if it could be done we did it. Obe DePriest was the mail carrier at this time, we would catch green snakes and put them in the mail boxes, this went on for some time and Mr Obe went to our dads about it, need less to say we got a limb across our back side.