STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It is Friday morning. Friday morning, which means it's time for StoryCorps, the project which records your stories. And today we hear from a woman who goes by the name Ellaraino. She is 72 years old. At StoryCorps in Los Angeles she told a good friend about a time when she was 16 and had one thing on her mind, a boy.
ELLARAINO: I was in love with Tyrone. My relationship was heating up. And my parents knew that, so they had to take charge.
Mother told me we would be spending the summer in the South. And that's where I was going to be introduced to my great-grandmother, Silvia. She was 106 years old. And I just did not want to be spending my time with a senile old woman, but four days later we were in Farmerville, Louisiana.
Driving on this old road, I saw this log cabin, and I noticed on the front porch that was her. She had a slender, you know, almost frail frame. But I still found her to be regal-looking. And at night she would tell her stories.
When the Civil War ended, she was my age. She was 16. She said, even though she had freedom, not knowing how to read and write made her feel like a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing. And when she was 85 years old, she said it stops here. She got help from grownups, you know, and sometimes from children, and she would study on her own.
INSKEEP: Silvia. She told me that when she could spell her name, that was when she got her freedom.
You know, she passed in 1965. But Grandma Silvia is living on in my heart.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: Where else but StoryCorps do you hear stories like this? That's Ellaraino with her friend Baki AnNur at StoryCorps in Los Angeles. Their interview will be archived at the Library of Congress.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE")
NINA SIMONE: (Singing) I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. I wish I could break all the chains holding me.
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