some of her children, including Minnie's mother, their freedom. Designing to make their home in a free State, the family took such of their possessions as they could carry in bundles on their heads, and started on foot for Ohio, little realising how long a tramp they had undertaken. They had to work for their living as they went along, and often stopped several months in a place before they could get enough money saved to warrant them in again taking up their pilgrimage. Finally they reached a German settlement in Tennessee, where the good people treated them so kindly that they decided to bring their journey to an end, and make their home among them. Minnie's mother was allowed to attend school with the white children, and obtained quite a good education in the common English branches. Afterwards she removed to Nashville, where she married, and where Minnie was born in 1857.
Her mother gave her her first lessons in reading at home, but when older she went to Fisk School. She was one of the original Jubilee Singers, and the youngest of the company which made the first visit to Great Britain, where her sweet voice and her youth drew to her many friends. On the return to America, she was obliged, by the prostration of her voice, to give up singing, and resumed her studies.
Edmund Watkins was born in Coosa County, Alabama, in 1850. His father was sold and taken to Texas when he was very young. His mother was a field hand, and when he was but eight years old he was set to work with her picking cotton.
