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MRS. AMELIA DEVOE
(Florida)
FORM A
STATE Florida
NAME OF WORKER Stetson Kennedy
ADDRESS 409 West Adams Street, Jacksonville, Florida
SUBJECT Salutation Used by Bahaman Negro in Key West
1. Name and address of informant: Mrs. Amelia Devoe (Negro)
408 Peacon Lane, Key West, Florida
2. Date and time of interview: March 10, 1939; 9 A.M.
3. Place of interview: 1210 Duval Street, Key West, Florida.
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with
informant: no one.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you: no one.
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Informant was washing clothes for Cuban family at the address given. The
house of the Cuban family is dilapidated, two-story, unpainted, frame, as
are most of the houses in the neighborhood. House is not equipped with
plumbing, but with pump and outhouse, and cistern for drinking water.
Washing is done in the back yard each Monday morning.
FORM B
Personal History of Informant
STATE Florida
NAME OF WORKER Stetson Kennedy
ADDRESS 409 West Adams Street, Jacksonville, Florida
DATE April 11, 1939
SUBJECT Salutation used by Bahaman Negro in Key West
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT: Mrs Amelia Devoe, 408 Peacon Lane, Key
West, Florida
1. Ancestry: Bahaman Negro
2. Place and date of birth: Nassau, Bahamas, 1870
3. Family: married three times, all husbands died. Two sons, one of whom
died in Naval service. Other son now living in Philadelphia.
4. Places lived in, with dates: Nassau, Bahamas (1870-1895), and Key West,
Florida (1895-).
5. Education, with dates: no formal education
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates: washerwoman, scrubwoman.
7. Special skills and interests: obsessed with idea of going to
California, where her son once was.
8. Community and religious activities: active in Baptist Church.
9. Description of informant: tall, lean, wears bandanna on head. Legs
extremely thin, large feet. Knows two words in Spanish, "mucha mala" (very
bad), which she uses often, saying, "'Melia mucha mala.'"
FORM C
Text of Interview
STATE Florida
NAME OF WORKER Stetson Kennedy
ADDRESS 409 West Adams Street, Jacksonville, Florida
DATE April 11, 1939
SUBJECT Salutation used by Bahaman Negro in Key West
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT Mrs. Amelia Devoe, 408 Peacon Lane, Key
West, Florida
The informant, when being greeted, replied:
"Fine, fine, super-fine,
The best of kind,
John fine, Henry fine,
Brown cotton fine,
and lawn pretty fine."
FORM C
Extra Comment
STATE Florida
NAME OF WORKER Stetson Kennedy
ADDRESS 409 West Adams, Jacksonville, Florida
DATE April 11, 1939
SUBJECT Salutation used by Bahaman Negro in Key West
NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT Mrs. Amelia Devoe, 408 Peacon Lane, Key
West, Florida
The informant says that the salutation given in the text of the interview
is quite common in Bahama. The "brown cotton" and "lawn" mentioned are two
kinds of cheap cotton cloth, which are widely used in the Bahamas for
clothing.
The informant washes large bundles of clothes for seventy-five cents; the
local laundry charges $1.00 for the same amount. She is sixty-nine years
old, and seems continually depressed. She feels assured that she will soon
be in the cemetery, and constantly talks about being taken there. She
would like very much to go to California, first.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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