  The Whitewright Sun Thursday, August 23, 1951 pg. 1 FORMER SLAVE, 106 YEARS OLD, BURIED AT WHITEROCK "Aunt" Dinah Boyd, former slave, died Saturday at the age of about 106. Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon at Whiterock Church (colored), near Whitewright, where she lived for many years. Dinah was born of freed slave parents in Canada, but when she was about ten years old she and an eighteen-year-old aunt were stolen into slavery while walking in a park. She was taken in a covered hack to Kentucky, where she was sold seven times before the slaves were freed. She was married before the Civil War at a very early age. To be married it was necessary only to obtain permission from "Old Miss", and then strut around the quarters informing friends that they were married. Soon after the Civil War she and her husband, Jerry, came to Texas with a group of pioneering familes from Kentucky who settled the community of Kentuckytown, which thrived until the coming of the railroad to Whitewright, a smaller community three miles east, lured the population of Kentuckytown away. She worked for the Hamilton family in Kentuckytown and Whitewright the greater part of the time from about 1874 until she retired in 1929. She was proud of her "white folks" and loyal to them, and they loved her dearly. Although Dinah could not read and write, she was a keen judge of human nature, and was looked to by her many friends for advice. After retirement she lived with a daughter, Mrs. Carrie McLemore, in Dallas, for a number of years, and later with the grandson, Walter. Until she was past eighty she never wore glasses and could still see to thread a needle easily, but cataracts gradually dimmed her eyesight so that for the last ten years or more she had been almost totally blind, as well as hard of hearing, but her memory was clear, her mind alert, and her talent as a mimic undimmed. Her sense of humor and appreciation made caring for her a pleasant duty for her granddaughter-in-law, Ruby. She had been ill only a few days before her death. She is survived by three daughters, Mrs. Nannie Gray, Abilene; Mrs. Mollie Hogan, Oklahoma City; and Mrs. Carrie McLemore, Dallas; one son, Walter Boyd, Lovejoy, Illinois; twenty-two grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren; and four great-great-grandchildren.   White Rock Cemetery Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson CountyTXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message.  |