Return Source
MS. ROSETTA BRADLEY JACKSON'S INTERVIEW
By Dr. William Rogers and Dr. Maxine Jones
September 25, 1993
Rosetta: My father was John Wesley Bradley.

Dr Jones: And your full name is Rosetta Bradley Jackson?

Dr Rogers: Mrs. Jackson will you give us a little bit about your background, where you were born and your connection with Rosewood.
Rosetta: I was born in 1924, January 21. The daughter of John Wesley Bradley and Beulah Canter Bradley. I was born in Palatka, Florida, the year after the riot. The only stories that I can tell you about it is the stories that my father told me. I Ve gone back to Rosewood years ago, (about 15 years, maybe longer than that because my father went back in 1951). I went back with my father and sisters, because I wanted to see what was Rosewood and the only thing that I saw was a little street that goes down to the bay and wherever it was and one house that was Mr. John Wright's house. I saw nothing else.

Dr Rogers: Mrs. Jackson do you remember, because we are having trouble identifying what was Mr. John Wright's house.
Rosetta: It was a house owned by a white man.

Dr Rogers: Where was it in Rosewood?
Rosetta: Rosewood.

Dr Rogers: Alright, but where was it in Rosewood, do you remember, is it still standing?
Rosetta: It is still standing, that has been restored. Its been restored. That was the house that him and the children ...

Dr Rogers: I wished we can have you look at that and say whether that's it, because right now it is important for us to know if that's the house
Rosetta: It is, show me the picture, do you have a picture?

Dr Rogers: Do we have a picture of it?

Dr Jones: No, we don't.

Dr Rogers: We will get one to you. That will be great.
Rosetta: I can identify the house. The rest of it was like woods.

Dr Jones: But your father recognized the location.
Rosetta: Oh, my father said this is the house. This is the house that Mr. Wright kept all the children and the women in this house. They escaped. Because right in the back of Mr. Wrights house was a railroad track, okay, and that's how the children escaped. My father said when they came up to Mr. Wright's house to ask him, do you have any of those niggers in here, Mr. Wright says no, I don't have any. You know wouldn't have any in my house. In the meantime, he was keeping them there until they could get on the train, and his orders was for the train do not stop at anybody especially men, to keep going. That's how the kids got, they got into Gainesville.

Dr Jones: Tell us something about your father, what kind of property did he own, how did he make his living.
Rosetta: Well as far as I know, he had property (I wished I would have brought my paper, I have a map in the Tropic Magazine from Miami, Florida showing right where the house was where the property he owned. I have that over at Raddison Hotel, I brought two copies with me). As he said, the black families down there owned their own land and this map outlines where each family was living at that time.

Dr Jones: How did your father make his living?
Rosetta: Well at that time, I think he was in turpentine and farming. I think it was.

Dr Rogers: He didnt work at Sumner at the sawmill there?
Rosetta: He might have, because that's where most people worked. They went from Rosewood to Sumner which they walked.

Dr Rogers: Some of them I know worked at the Coins Turpentine.
Rosetta: He might have, but he never said exactly where he worked, but I knew what he did.

Dr Jones: Was your father born in Rosewood?
Rosetta: No not really, my father was born in Beaufort, South Carolina. His father brought him here as a little child. He just called Rosewood his home. He was a very religious man. He was an intelligent man, he was a family man, strictly family man, not only with his immediate children family with the other families ... because what happened the Carriers, my father married a Carrier, then another Carrier married a Bradley. So they were all close family mixed.

Dr Rogers: What was your mother's name Mrs. Jackson?
Rosetta: My mother name your Beulah Campbell. My mother was not Virginia Carrier. Virginia Carrier died when the youngest son was bom.

Dr Rogers: Your Mother Beulah ....
Rosetta: My mother, Beulah, reared those children from twenty after... She married my father in the earliest, back when he was already seeing my mother and they married and then she took his children and finished raising them, but I was never allowed to say this is a half-sister or a half-brother. They didn't allow that from us. And I was the last one bom, Bradley that was bom.

Dr Rogers: Was your mother Mrs. Beulah, was she in the Carrier home on that Thursday, January 4 ....
Rosetta: No she was not there at all.

Dr Rogers: She was not there. Okay. Well, where your father then?
Rosetta: Oh, my father was there. As I understand when the news got around that the white men were coming into town and they were expecting trouble. Wherever he was he came home to protect his children; to see that his children was safe. And that's what he did. Until the fighting started.

Dr Rogers: Well, did he and the children take refuge in the near by woods.
Rosetta: They did. The children crawled through the woods, and that's how they got to Mr. Wright's house. They kept crawling through the woods, at the time .. .

Dr Rogers: Was your mother one of them?
Rosetta: No. No. My father said at the time there were people riding on horses and riding by, trying to find the men, that was in the woods (and the children) and as it was told that some of them passed right by my sisters and brothers hiding. All those were big enough to fight, they tried to fight. Tried to help out. But like I say, they hid in the woods until they were able to get to the Wright's house. So that my father when they got away they hid in the woods, they crawled through the woods. And finally they got into Gainesville. At first they hid out in the cemetery, but after that my father's half brother, Ed Bradley, Elisa, Jim Bradley they were living in Gainesville. So my father found refuge in their house and with the rest of the children until they got them to where .. . after he married my mother and he got with my mother. My mother took them all. I am only a few years older than my sister Dot, Lee Ruth, I'm 69 and going be 70 and she was 78.

Dr Jones: So Lee Ruth Davis was your sister.
Rosetta: Yes.

Dr Rogers: Do you remember or do you know when your father came from Beaufort, South Carolina as a young man or young boy?
Rosetta: He was a little boy.

Dr Rogers: So he was a long-time resident of ....
Rosetta: He was a long-time resident of Rosewood, Florida.

Dr Jones: Do you know what his father did, was he a farmer or .. .?
Rosetta: I really don't know, but whatever he did at that time that's what he did.

Dr Rogers: Well, did your father ever tell you the stories, of course, we all know them now thanks to you all and the researchers in all. Did your father ever talk about the alleged rape of Fannie Taylor, ah... you know as the new contemporary newspapers put it (and she put it) she was raped by a black man, but it appears very strongly that in fact she had a white lover and this was a cover-up. Did your father tell — how did you — when did you become aware of all that?
Rosetta: Through the years, when I was much younger it meant nothing to me (you know little kids), but then when I became a teenager, what really happened was that it began to stick what he was saying. Because at that time, kids hear of a riot - whats a riot. So white people were killing black people, its not now - it doesn't concern - its not that it doesn't concern you, but it wasn't important to you. Just like you telling a kid a story and they don't know anything about. So my daddy told the story. But that story was told over and over and over and over. And ah, later through the years it began to really sink in. My father was able to get with other members of the children - they were scattered everywhere, some was in New York some was in different parts - and I received a letter, it wasn't a letter, a lady told me that I had a brother living in a small town, and I wrote a letter to the small town - just the name Otter Creek, Florida, no address, no nothing. And the letter was given from one person to the other person, finally months later my brother received the letter. And he wrote back to me, by then my brother grown and married. And ah, when he wrote back to me thafs how we began to get up with the rest of the family. Someone would come through and say well, "this brother lives in Jacksonville, this brother is living in Otter Creek, this brother is living in Pensacola," and that's how - and kept writing around and we were able to get them back together. My father insisted that all of his children either be together on Thanksgiving or Christmas and it was a big family thing for us, and then we just kept getting dose with each other.

Dr Jones: How did your father make his living after he left Rosewood?
Rosetta: Well, when he came to Miami he did some farming, and after the farming he worked at a lumber company called the Peacock Lumber Company. He worked there for years until his health failed him. He had several strokes.

Dr Rogers: Did he just - because of the terrible tragedy there and all, did he just abandon or was he able to sell his land or did he just had to clear out?
Rosetta: Oh, there was no selling land you just had leave there and the land was left there.

Dr Rogers: So the land that he owned, he never sold it or so he left it for the sake of his family.
Rosetta: That's right, for the sake of his family, he wouldn't go back there. Nobody would go back there because they were scared to death. I guess they figured that if they went back, maybe in the middle of the night somebody would come and drag them out again. You still had those people that had the hatred in them against the blacks. And she was not raped.

Dr Rogers: Fannie Taylor was not raped?
Rosetta: She was not raped. The story goes on that her husband came back unexpectedly and her lover was there. The bruises came from her husband, but my father said during that time, if you said that a black man did something that was it. Everybody took their word for it and this what happened then. They took the word that a black man had raped her. And later the story came out that he was a convict that escaped prison and he went in to get food and money from her to rob her, and during the robbery he beat her.

Dr Rogers: Well, one thing that seems to be a lot of controversy about it, and I would like to know what stories you heard and what you think. When the Camers and other took refuge and Sylvester Carrier's mother homeland and all the little children were there and they had that big fusillade - that shoot-out on Thursday night which was January 4th. Sylvester was there and Sylvester was perhaps, and nobody knows how many, perhaps the main person who was defending the home against the whites who was shooting into. Ah, contemporary newspapers, the story they tell after this is that the next morning they found the grandmother dead, but that they also Sylvester Carrier dead. Now in Y'a'll's family, the people whom I talked with, they don't believe at all that Sylvester Carrier was killed.
Rosetta: No, because as it was said, "Sylvester Carrier was a very outspoken man and during those time you did not talk back at white people. You do not say what you think or whatever. And the main purpose was that the white folks here disliked Sylvester Carrier, they were afraid of him. And in this story (I wished you could get this newspaper), it would tell you that he could walk anywhere he wanted too, or go anywhere he wanted to, and nobody would bother him. So the main purpose was to say that Sylvester Carrier helped the convict escaped - right ah, which has never been really verified that it was really he who had anything to do with it.

Dr Rogers: No thafs never been verified that he had anything to do with it.
Rosetta: He never had anything to do with it. They are just saying that the wagon track stopped somewhere and the black man they lost the tracks going down into the woods or wherever it was. Ah, but they knew, my father said, that they would have a fight on their hands with Sylvester Carrier. The first thing was to go in and kill him first. So they knew where he was with the other members of the family. And that was the purpose of getting rid of Sylvester Carrier.

Dr Rogers: But he was not killed, he managed to escape, was he wounded that's what the ... did you ever hear that?
Rosetta: I never heard he was wounded, but I understand that the Masons-at that time Masons were a very strong and very religious organization. They helped him escape and that he died years later, and they said he went to Texas and then he died later (was it Louisiana?). There was a small article in the Louisiana paper that he had died, but he had changed his name. . y.:

Dr Jones: Do you know what he had changed it to?
Rosetta: To Lewis, it was changed to Lewis.

Dr Rogers: Did he keep the Sylvester?
Rosetta: I dont know about that part, but I even think his son changed his name to Lewis.

Dr Jones: Sylvester had a son?
Rosetta: That was his son, my nephew he changed his name to Lewis. It was never, they are saying that what happened that they shot him to pieces and that he was buried along with the rest of them. Okay, because I understand that they dug a trench and they pushed all the dead bodies in the trench and they took a bulldozer and covered them up.

Dr Jones: Did you ever hear your father speak of this .. ..?
Rosetta: My father said that's what they did. They dug a trench.

Dr Rogers: Your father said that there was a mass grave?
Rosetta: Yes, a mass grave there.

Dr Jones: Did he have any clue as to how people were killed?
Rosetta: No, they said because in the city of Rosewood there was like 300 whites and 200 hundred blacks.

Dr Rogers: Who lived there?
Rosetta: That lived there, and ah yeah, but they never knew how many, because you got people that came in by, like people in the Klu Klux Klan, that came in to join this. My father said that if they had of stayed out of it, they would have never had a riot. Because everybody there knew everybody and everybody there was friendly with everybody.

Dr Rogers: I believe that.
Rosetta: And the kids played with each others kids, but then they came in with the story that a black man had raped a white woman and he had to die. And he said they came from as far as Georgia.

Dr Rogers: Did you, Mrs. Jackson, did you ever hear any stories about the concern and kindness of what he did, of a conductor on the train-a Mr. Brice is that name, ... what is the story on that?
Rosetta: Mr. Brice knew Mr. White - okay, and they had the closest friendship.

Dr Jones: Mr. Wright?
Rosetta: Mr. Wright knew Mr. Brice the conductor, and that's why he helped get them out of there. Mr. Wright said to get these people away from there.

Dr Rogers: That makes sense.
Rosetta: And that's what he did, the women and the children.

Dr Jones: How did your father escape?
Rosetta: Through the woods, they crawled through the woods and they hid out during the night-time. Some of them was in the trees looking down, as you know watching out to see if anybody was coming. And I guess during that time such a high wooded area, that they felt maybe the white people, the Klans were afraid to come into those woods, because they figured those black folks had ammunition. So they kept crawling through and escaping through until he got to Gainesville. And the first place they scattered to was the cemetery. As saying goes, nobody goes into the cemetery and they never thought to even look for them in the cemetery wooded area. Okay and ah, the family members some kind of word got to chant(?) notice, some of them went there and those who had family escaped and went to the family house there; and he lived in Gainesville for years.

Dr Jones: How long did your father live, what year did he die?
Rosetta: My father died on the 2nd of August 1957. At the time, he was seventy-eight years old. He would have been 113 had he lived to now. Very handsome man, very religious man, he was strong in his conviction whatever he believed in that was it.

Dr Jones: I wondered how Rosewood or what happened at Rosewood changed him?
Rosetta: Well for awhile, it didn't. Because in, I was a little girl (5 or 6 years old) and my father... it would have been another riot because my father 28? 28 at that time living in what they call Richmond Heights. Perrine. And he was working, farming.

Dr Rogers: Is this in Miami? It was the last part of
Rosetta: Miami. He was farming and at that time it was a little different, the white man you know how it was, he was boss over the black man and you did not talk back at him. With all this still in him from what they had done to him and his family the white man decided to slap my father. He made it no better nor worse, he picked up a shovel and just.... with the shovel. That night, I remember late at night there was a shot into our house. The lamp, (at the time we used a kerosene lamp), the lamp exploded. There was my brothers there, my cousin was there (I had two brothers at the time), me the little girl was there and then the Masons, now a 152nd Avenue or Street or whatever it is in Richmond Heights (a street right - 152nd Street). Ah, there is a road that came out of the little place, was called Rockdale, Florida. The Masons again took my father through the back streets.

Dr Rogers: Are these white Masons or black Masons?
Rosetta: There were white and black, white and black. They ah, what happened keep involved when they got him out from Rockdale then the white Masons knew they would be noticed being white, the black Masons drove him through the back out into Miami. Okay, we came later and sure enough they were on the highway waiting for him, they never thought that he would go through the back. They never knew at that time who took him out. Okay, he was not a mean man because of all of this, but you can understand how he felt. You know I have been mistreated.

Dr Rogers: And he told you these stories as you were a young girl coming up?
Rosetta: Yeah, I have been mistreated by the white man, he has taken my property, my family scattered, it took me time to find. I had a brother who died when I was twenty-tnree-l had never seen him, okay, but the rest of them they were here, they had seen him-they have visited with him. So you can't help in the way he felt, but he wasn't mean, you know,-he always said that God will take care of it. My father was a trustee of the church, he was clasy of the church.

Dr Rogers: Was this a Baptist church?
Rosetta: No, it was St. Paul A.M.E. Church. He was a member of Greater Bethel A.M.E. until we moved to the little town in 1935 called Coconut Grove, which is a suburb of Miami and his religious faith was kept right on to that until he died. He instilled in us that religion and about God. He told us that you can't blame one man for what the other man did. I am living here now, as you know, Miami was a town then that they didn't want blacks at night downtown. They still expected yes ma'am and no ma'am. I guess that's why come I never said it, because I thought that my daddy had to do and I'm not gonna do it. And I never did. He was respected by white and black. They gave him respect, because ah, he carried himself in such a manner that he demanded respect.

Dr Jones: Can you tell us a little bit more about your mother?
Rosetta: My mother was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. She died the 6th of June, 1970.

Dr Rogers: She lived a good while after your father had died?
Daughter: No mamma, no, no wait a minute.
Rosetta: Yes she did.
Daughter: Not 1970 mamma.
Rosetta: I mean 18-, 1970 she died. My mother been dead 33 years 23 years.
Daughter: Hold it.
Rosetta: July 6th.
Daughter: Sabrina was born in 70'.
Rosetta: 60' I'm sorry you're right 1960.

Dr Rogers: So she died three years after your dad died?
Rosetta: Yes after my father, yes, after my daddy. My mother was a very well-known mid-wife. She delivered white, black, or whatever the babies were.

Dr Rogers: Your mother?
Rosetta: My mother, well-known mid-wife. Ah, when she died, she had delivered,she was acredited with delivering almost a thousand babies. Not only 285 did my mother deliver babies in Miami. My mother use to travel during the night to Miami. She had people from Key West, some of the kids who lived too far were born in our house. My mother was a Baptist.

Dr Jones: And which church were you raised in?
Rosetta: Bethel A.M.E. and Greater St. Paul. Ah, she was a beautiful lady, she was a kind lady, soft speaking. She would always say to me open up your mouth and talk - like I said, what did she say - see, but my father being so strong and out- spoken I guess I got it from him. But the kids that she raised, they all called her mama. She was well-respected by them and you never heard the word step-mother. Because I told you they did not allow that in my family.

Dr Jones: Was she in Rosewood in 1923?
Rosetta: No she was not in Rosewood.

Dr Rogers: The fact that your father later became ah - didn't you say he worked for a lumber mill or sawmill?
Rosetta: He worked for a lumber company.

Dr Rogers: Mine indicate that he had done that in Rosewood, and he had that kind of experience.
Rosetta: Yes. See in Rosewood they had what they called a sawmill. It was 19—, in the 60s' before I ever knew what a sawmill was. I was raised in the city all my life, the city of Miami. I didn't know, I came here when I was a year old and I didn't know what it was and I wanted to see what a sawmill was. Like places like Lacoochee. A name like Lacoochee, what kind of name is this. I want to see these places, and it was through my father and through father and my sister that going back to visit, we ah, fact my father was reluctant in 1951 when we went to go, he didn't even want to go down to Rosewood, but the point is I want to see where you were bom, I want to see where the riot was, and I want to see .. . you know, where the tree was that they hanged a relative of mine. I wanted to see what a great parvo (?) was.

Dr Rogers: This would have been Sam Carter?
Rosetta: Yes, I didn't know what a great parvo (?) was - you know, and they showed me the parvo (?) that was there. Ah, it has a bitter of memories for all of my older sisters and brothers. I am the last survivor.

Dr Jones: Lee Ruth Davis was your sister?
Rosetta: Yes my sister. She passed away in August

Dr Jones: Can you tell us a little bit about her and her memories in Rosewood?
Rosetta: Well had it not been for my sister Lee Ruth, this story would not have been out at all. She was the one behind the story. She was the one that wanted this story told and brought out. There was other members of the family didn't want it and still does not. Ah, she was a beautiful person, strong, willful, whatever she believed in she did it. Nobody could stop her from doing it.

Dr Rogers: From what I understand she was a very happy person too-with a great personality.
Rosetta: Oh yes - we had her service on the 13th of August and we had over 400 programs made, we had not one left, you couldn't get in the church. She belonged, well we all had religious teaching, so she grew up in the church also. Okay and every organization in the church she was a member of it. She was a stewardess, she was what we call a deaconess, she worked on usher boards-whatever. There was so many things that she worked on at the church, that were she spent her time, doing for the church and the community.

Dr Jones: What kind of person was she as a young girl, did Rosewood scar her in the same way?
Rosetta: Yes, they all had those little scars, because they were afraid. They said that one time if they saw a crowd of white people coming after them or being out spoken to them - at the time they were afraid to even say anything, because they kept thinking that they gonna come in the middle of the night and take us out of the bed, or we're gonna get killed, or whatever. But later through the years she was a strong woman. You know.

Dr Rogers: Was she the one that initiated the revelation of what had happened?
Rosetta: That's right. She wanted Rosewood put back on the map, she wanted it put back on the road, and she wanted some type of monument erected stated this is Rosewood, Florida, and what had happened. I am sorry that she didn't get this far with it, but she was misunderstood for the things she tried to do about this. See, as some family members thought that she shouldn't have done it. It was wrong for doing it. They did even wont to even cooperate 287 and talk about it, but she just kept right on with it and the right people got interested in it and they brought it out. Because they are trying to say that this did not happen-okay, there is a little small article in the papers stating that a Negro had attacked a white woman about this big and the date. But nothing else follows in the papers about it. Okay, like the not, like I say, if you are interested I will give you the paper on this. Have you read it?

Dr Rogers: Well, I guess I'm thinking unless I'm incorrect that, that was the Gary Moore who wrote article.
Rosetta: Gary Moore, yes, he wrote it.

Dr Rogers: Yes, we have it. We are familiar with that.
Rosetta: But anyway - ah, we were a strong family, we were a loving caring family, we cared about each other.

Dr Rogers: Well y'all still are.
Rosetta: Oh yes, oh yes, my father said that a family prays together stays together.

Dr Rogers: All y'all that I have talked to said that was a good reunion at Washington.
Rosetta: Oh yeah, yeah.

Dr Rogers: Well did you go to that?
Rosetta: No, I could not because my sister was very sick, she was very sick and as I say she died on the 9th of August. She had been hospitalized a good six months, in fact, she had about five operation in nine weeks. We really didn't expect her - that's when we didn't expect her to live. But she had a strong will and she did. Now when she died the other day, she went into the hospital she didn't feel well, she had a little pneumonia, and the next day she went into a coma, until she died.

Dr Rogers: Mrs. Jackson you have been extremely helpful, why don't you just take a second or so if you think of something or some other things that you feel like that we as people who are trying to understand and trying to make, or looking for the truth to say what happened there. Is there anything will occur to you that you feel like you should tell us, or we don't have enough sense to ask you about? I mean, can you think of other details or anything we will be glad to have that. - 288
Rosetta: No. I was interested in telling you about how the family got back together, because nobody could seem to get it together. How did the family get back together? I mean, the sisters and the brothers - okay, and, I know that it hadn't been mention before, maybe it had I don't know. Nobody asked any questions. And ah, like I say they were scattered everywhere.

Dr Jones: Now how many children did your father have with his first wife?
Rosetta: Nine.

Dr Jones: Nine. And then you were the only one .. . ?
Rosetta: Then me I made the 10th.

Dr Jones: And those nine children were sent off into different directions?
Rosetta: Yeah. Well, like I said you run and escape for your life, so you get on a freight train. They were little children, you know, some were 15 you know; because Lee Ruth and me, I had a brother who was the youngest - he and I were the youngest and ah I made the third youngest, but they, like I say - they got on freight trains and they got away. Then you can ride a freight train, nobody bothered you and they went as far as they could go and not knowing where the father was and not knowing wherer the sisters and brothers were, you know.

Dr Rogers: Excuse me Mrs. Jackson, did you dad ever describe the house that y'all, or the family lived in at Rosewood?
Rosetta: I know he said that it was a large family.

Dr Rogers: I know it was burned.
Rosetta: Yeah.

Dr Rogers: But did he ever talk about the house itself?
Rosetta: He just said that he had a big house that housed his family.

Dr Rogers: Well, it had to be pretty big.
Rosetta: Yes - it had to house his family, he said it was well-built, because back there it didn't take to much to build a good house and he had a lot of land around the house. 29C

Dr Rogers: He probably had a garden, if he was feeding all of those children.
Rosetta: Oh, he had a garden.

Dr Rogers: Apparently, a lot of people had gardens, chickens, cows.. ..
Rosetta: Yes, they had gardens, chickens, cows. You didn't have to go to the store for. And like I say, they did what they call, they had a smoke house that they cured meat - for you to eat- you go to the smoke house to get a ham or whatever you wanted - sausage or whatever you wanted to eat. My father was a good provider. My mother set the table three times a day. Linen table cover, napkin, silver ware, glasses, salt and pepper shaker or whatever, that's the way we had to eat. I dont care where we went, I don't care how many people there, you could not take us in, (you know during that time they say do the children eat in the kitchen), not my father, if we didn't eat to the table then we left them at home. Okay, so the blessing and grace were said three times a day. We lived, my mother being a mid-wife, and what not, in these days quite well. Because she was gone sometimes two or three days or whatever. She was in the court house in Miami Public Health Department. At one time, they had a chart with all these gold stars on it, that's my mother.

Dr Jones: Do you have any pictures of your father?
Rosetta: Not with me.

Dr Jones: That you could maybe possibly share with us at a later day or have a copies made we can reimburse you for the cost?
Rosetta: Yes, yeah. Nobody had to tell us that this is Sunday, you start with Sunday school. Nobody, we knew that you went to Sunday church, all day Sunday. We went to Sunday school, morning service you came back at three o'clock and you came back at seven o'clock. But like I say, my father was a religious man, very handsome. My father looks like a preacher. A lot of times he was mistaken for a preacher. Ah, you will hear him (clear throat) and say what did I do wrong.. He didn't have to whip you with a stick or whatever, but before you went to bed at night - humh, whoever it was come here - what happened. Now you are thinking about telling a little white lie and maybe you do but before you go to bed or sleep; you got to get up and say, you know, it didn't go like that - it went this way and that way, and he would always say "well I'm glad you told the truth." All the grandchildren loved him. They all called him papa or grandpapa. Any stranger that came into town in the neighborhood, food was laid out for them to eat. At Christmas you couldn't get around the house, because everybody in the community was at our house for Christmas. Okay, that's the Bradley family. We had a very pleasant, happy childhood.

Dr Jones: How did you, how long did your family stay in Gainesville before moving to Miami?
Rosetta: He left Gainesville and he went to Hawthorne, Florida. From Gainesville to Palatka, from Palatka to Hawthorne, Florida, and in 1925 they moved to Miami.

Dr Jones: So he wasn't in Gainesville very long?
Rosetta: No. He didn't want to live there and there are members of my family that like I say, his brothers lived there and then their children lived there. And to my family Gainesville became home. They never said anything about Rosewood, it was Gainesville, Gainesville is our home. We are from Gainesville, you know, and he said you are not really from Gainesville.

Dr Jones: Well, we appreciate your taking the time to talk with us.
Rosetta: You can get my address and I will send you ..

Return Top of Page