In Profile: Mattie Roper

My great-great grandmother was named Martha/Mattie Roper. Her mother,Caroline Roper, was the white daughter of a methodist minister and her father was a mulatto stud named Greenberry Smith. To look at her, she could have easily passed for a white woman. They say you couldnt tell she had any color until her children came around. I often wonder about her personality. It is also said that she was the best shot in Autauga County and that when her husband would get in his moods and not want to work, she would pick up the plow herself. She was a trained midwife and practiced in natural herbs and rememdies. My grandmother says that when she was a young girl, She would travel around to all of her children's homes loaded with preventive medicines to make sure none of them ever got sick. They say that she always wore pants and I suppose she was quite the tom boy.She and Morgan definitely had an interesting marriage, that I can tell just by the few things I know and have seen. She was born in 1857 and had her first child at 14, King Philip Goodson. She had her last child at 60. It is said that she died during an argument with her husband Morgan. We still have portraits of her. She and Morgan had 15 children that lived to adulthood and left ample property and legacy for their children.