Shadow And Sunshine

The narrative's final section, "Scenes from Slavery," consists of a series of anecdotes about the cruelty and hardships of slavery. Included are descriptions of the indignities endured by slaves on the auction block and the pain of forced separation from family that often accompanied a slave's sale to a new master. The most shocking anecdote involves a woman who, after Emancipation, marries a younger man, only to later learn that he is her son who was sold away as a child during slavery. These stories were initially told to Suggs by her mother, and she reprints them as a testament to the horrors that the slave system permitted.

Eliza Suggs, b. 1876 According to her 1906 narrative, Shadow and Sunshine, Eliza Suggs was born December 11, 1876, in Bureau County, Illinois, near the town of Providence. The 1880 U.S. Census validates Suggs's date and state of birth, but the rest of what is known about her existence comes from her own account. The last of eight children born to former slaves James and Melinda Suggs, Eliza suffered from what she describes as "an extreme case of the ricketsThis disease prevented her from walking, made her bones extremely brittle, and stunted her growth. As an adult, her weight was only "about fifty pounds," and her height, "about thirty-three inches". After Emancipation, Suggs's father became a minister in the Free Methodist Church. Eliza professed a deep Christian faith and supported such causes as missionary work in Africa and temperance. In 1886, James Suggs relocated his family to Orleans, Nebraska, so his children could attend school at the Free Methodist Seminary there. The date and circumstances of Eliza Suggs's death are unknown. "If I had been strong and healthy like other children . . . perhaps I should not have known the Lord. I might now have been running after the pleasures of the world". Because of her faith, Suggs routinely rejects suggestions that she earn money by displaying herself as an oddity: "It has never been a temptation to me to want to go with a show or to be in a museum for money making purposes . . . Such places are not for me. God wants me to live for Him, and I could not do it there. I must keep separated from the world."