The following is from a newspaper clipping (no date, but was sometimes in early 1940s -- obviously in the "Yazoo Herald"): MRS. LENORA PEPPER WRITES INTERESTINGLY OF WAR DAYS 92-Year Old Vaughan Lady Tells of Her Experiences in Time of the Civil War. In the eastern section of the county near Vaughan, there a very wonderful old lady, who is now 92 years old. Enjoying the recent Civil War Memoirs of Jefferson Davis Hardin, Mrs. Lenora Pepper, too has been reminiscing to her attractive, Susie Lee Pepper, a student at Delta State Teachers College at Cleveland. Mrs. Pepper is the beloved grandmother of Mrs. Louis J. Wise, Mrs. F. A. Taylor, and Miss Rossa Brown Presley of this city. For many years, she has been a valued subscriber to the Herald. As she goes down the hill of life, her 92 summers have set lightly on her and her many friends wish that she may continue to enjoy good health for many more years. Susie Lee most kindly forwarded to the Herald the following that the Herald is most happy to publish as it was told to her August 16. "I was born in the year 1850, a member of a family of six. My father owned a small farm on the road between Pickens and Yazoo City, but his shop, where he made wagons and mended buggies, was his principal means of support for his family of little ones, who were early left without a mother. His little business flourished widely before the war, because he lived in a circle of wealthy slave owners who gave him plenty of work to do. "At a very early age I found a playmate on one of the neighboring plantations, a negro boy named Thornton. I brought him home with me, hoping to keep him. My father did not own any slaves at that time. His business did not require them, and his income did not allow them. "I got Thornton and his mother, Gracie, because their owner needed some cash at the time, and was willing to sell them to my father at a very reasonable price. They were destined to prove priceless in service and faithfulness in the trying days when the Yankee troops tramped in the thick dust of our country road. "Before even the rumors of war had disturbed the lazy tranquility of Mississippi's cotton lands, four of the children attended a little log-room school, the "Yellow Academy", and tackled the three R's under the guidance of a teacher paid by subscription. "At the age of ten, I started noticing a few changes, a few evidences of sacrifices, the war had begun. Promptly I was to learn how many duties, even a ten-year old could have. I had to learn to card wool and cotton and help with the spinning and weaving. The thread, before it was woven, was dyed indigo or dipped in the stain of crushed walnut hulls. "We had to have shoes, they had to be made at home. My father tanned cow hides for them. Only in the past several years have I gotten rid of some of the corns these shoes made. "Our hats were made of the first years growth of palmettoes, scalded and bleached in the sun. The strips were plaited into straw hats and shaped in a block which my father had made. "Our diet consisted chiefly of cornbread and meat. Sugar was not rationed, but was unseen for a couple of years on our dinner tables. Flour and coffee, both were also denied us. Our first substitute for coffee was parched meal. Later in the sweet potato season, we tried bits of dried parched potato in brewing us something hot and dark in the cup. "In 1863, during the seige of Vicksburg, a few of our soldiers came to Yazoo City and formed a brigade. The Yankees found them, outnumbered them, and forced them to retreat. "In the retreat, the two armies fought along the road in front of our house. Houses were burned to the right and left of us. Gracie, my black mammy, saved our house and our winter's meat. She hid our meat under her bed, down in her cabin, and recaptured a churn of buttermilk from one of the soldiers. "Our house was passed up after several of the soldiers had talked to her. I have often wondered what she told them. Thornton, her son, did not desert and follow the army; instead, he held our horses and mules down in the swamp until the skirmishes in that territory was over. "Mr. Ball, an invalid, lived near us in one of the houses that were burned. His daughter tried to drag him in his chair out in the yard. He . . . . . . . .(rest was not on copy) (Hope to find balance of article and add to this account.)