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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 83
building, were obtained there on the place. Double doors set the house off in front, while immense windows were to be found on all sides. On the interior, a hallway 10 feet wide, led to the rear with all the spaciousness characteristic of that time. A stair way of cherry wood led from a point near the door, half way upstairs to a landing that spanned the hall and then continued on to the top. A wide brick wall coursed from the main doorway to the gate at the front of a large lawn. Huge oaks towered above it on each side, inviting someone to stretch a hammock between them and enjoy the breeze of an elevation that required bedcovering even during the hottest of Summer nights. Drinking water was obtained from two large cisterns at one side of the house. This house was built only a few feet in front of the old one, but not so close the family could not live there until the job was completed. A partly filled hole now marks the site of the basement of this first structure. The Army Real Estate Map identifying parcels of land with landowners at the time the Government procured the land reveals that the name “Toney” is listed for a number of parcels in the southwest area of the arsenal, bordering Triana. Dorothy Harris Foster's Mother's Family Dorothy Foster said her mother's family, the Rices (“a slave master name”) were poor. She was told they got water and lye from people her great grandmother worked for to clean the floors in the house they lived in as farm workers. Dorothy's mother told her, “We were so hungry you'd get you a bucket and get all the scraps off the table [of the family they served].” Dorothy said her mother told her she had experienced this. Her maternal grandparents sharecropped on her fraternal grandfather's land (William Harris II) on what is now Redstone Arsenal. Dorothy Foster's maternal grandmother, Henrietta Jackson Bibb, was born May 13, 1879 in Limestone County. Her mother was born in slavery. Henrietta and her husband, Tom Bibb, worked as sharecroppers with William Harris II. Henrietta died in June of 1963. Henrietta Jackson Bibb (1879-1963). 83 - (4116)