EASTER LUNDY KIMBLE  (1840 – 1924)

Easter Lundy was born a slave in 1840 in the state of Virginia.  She had two sons before the Civil War began.  Henry was born in 1859 and Lewis was born between 1860 and 1861.  Easter married Sam Kimble from the state of Georgia at the beginning of 1864.  Easter and Sam had 5 children, George born in 1864, Lewis in 1867, Hampton and Henderson in 1871 and Cornelius in 1874 and Aaron in 1877.

Easter was tall and erect, muscular, quiet and mean.  Her skin was a dark bronze color, and thick freckles covered her body from crown to soles of her feet.

As long as Easter was able she worked as a field hand.  She went wherever her husband would go as he followed the railroad construction and repair gangs in East Texas.

In the winter Easter helped clear the land for the farmers who were ready to plant cotton.  In a few days she took her hoe and her brood of young children back to the fields to cut out the tiny grass and weed sprouts.  She worked in the field until dark.  Tired, she had to take her brood home and cook food for the family.

Sam and Easter moved to Marion County, Texas when the children were small.  Some years later they moved to Queen City, Cass County, Texas

Easter spent the months of July, August, December, January, and February patching clothes and making the badly needed quilts.

During her working years Easter earned from twenty-five to fifty cents a day.  There was no minimum wage, over time, social security, health care, welfare or retirement. 

Sam Kimble died in 1911 in Potter County, Easter died in Longview, Texas on September 29, 1924.  She is buried in the Grace Hill Cemetery in the family plot owned by her son Henderson.