Barren County Biography
Steve Landrum, My Client
Source: Glasgow (KY) Republican, 26 Dec 1940 and
quoted by Michelle Gorin Burris in Barren’s
Black Roots, Volume 2, (c) August 1992. By
permission. Sandi Gorin,
Gorin Genealogical Publishing
“Old Glasgowians will appreciate the following
article concerning one of Glasgow’s familiar old
figures, the late Steve Landrum, who has passed
to his reward. The article was written by Hon.
E. H. Smith, local attorney, editor of the
Kentucky Bar Journal and appeared in the current
issue of that publication.
“For twenty years, Stephen Landrum was my
client, and in all that time I never addressed
him other
than “Uncle Steve”. He could neither read nor
write, and he kept no books. He could add and
subtract and multiply, but not on paper with
pencil. He did it all mentally. He was
politeness itself, and he never came into my
office except with his hat in hand, and he never
addressed a white man without preceding the name
with “Mister.” He never had a lawsuit, and often
I have known him to surrender his rights to
avoid a lawsuit. He had an ever present fear of
litigation. He was extremely cautious and took
every precaution to make sure that his trades
were exactly understood. He trusted few people
and had little faith in banks. This old colored
man was worth a hundred thousand dollars, every
cent of which he made. He did not now his age,
but he must have been born of slave parents, if
indeed he was not himself a slave. He was a
benefactor of his race and very charitably
inclined, but he would not loan money.
“I do not know that “Uncle Steve” had any rule
by which he governed his life. If he did have, I
am sure that he did not recognize it as such. He
was full of eccentricities. Perhaps I can best
let the reader know him as I knew him by
reciting some of the incidents that came up in
my practice for him.
“His wealth was almost all invested in real
estate and his income was about five hundred
dollars per month. Each year, after we had an
income tax law, I made out his return for him.
He would come to my office without a single
written memorandum. I would procure an income
tax blank, and our conversation would run
something like this:
“Uncle Steve, how much did you collect for rent
last year?” Then without the slightest
hesitation, he would reply: “Five thousand eight
hundred and ninety-six dollars and twenty-five
cents.” “Did you make any repairs?” “Yes, sir,
spent three hundred and forty-four dollars for
repairs.”
“And, so it would go through each questions
contained on the income tax blank, and before I
could calculate the net income and the tax
thereon, knew what it was. I have never known
another man, white or black, who could keep his
business in his mind like that.
“He came into my office one morning with a
letter he had received for me to read it to him.
I read it. It was from a niece, and just a
friendly letter of family affairs. Incidentally
his niece said in the letter that her children
all had colds and the reason for this was that
the roof leaked, and the floor of the house had
holes in it, and she had been unable to get her
landlord to make repairs. After I had concluded
reading the letter, “Uncle Steve” thought for a
moment, then said, “Could you go to Louisville
for me?” I told him that of course I could go if
he wanted me to. He then told me to go up there
and buy her a house. I asked what kind of a
house and what I should pay. He then said for me
to be sure I got my money’s worth, and to pay,
two, three or even five thousand dollars for the
house. I paid $3,000 for a house for her. It was
deeded to his niece, and “Uncle Steve” never saw
that house. I remember that the house was on
Zane Street, and I suspect his niece is living
in it yet.
“He sold a business house in Glasgow for nine
thousand dollars and demanded and got the money
in cash. He brought this cash to my office and
he and I divided it among his relatives, with
instructions that each should buy himself a
house.
“One time I helped him in his negotiations to
purchase a house in Glasgow for which he was to
pay forty-five hundred dollars. The deed was
drawn and ready for delivery and it was time for
“Uncle Steve” to pay. “Just wait a little while,
and I’ll be back.” He was gone some fifteen or
twenty minutes, and when he returned he had
exactly forty-five hundred dollars in a little
split-bark basket with a napkin over the money.
There was nothing larger than a ten dollar bill
in the basket and there were many ones and
several double hands full of silver.
“He came to my office once with the request that
I go to the Court House with him. He was dressed
in a pair of jean pants, a hickory shirt and a
coat that as almost too ragged to wear. I did
not inquire as to why he needed me but went. I
learned that he was about to purchase some real
estate from a fellow lawyer, for fifteen hundred
dollars, and had agreed to meet him in the vault
of the Clerk’s office to accept the deed and pay
for it. “Uncle Steve” commenced to go through
his pockets and the largest bank note he had was
for five dollars. The denominations ranged from
this on down to a dime. He brought forth fifteen
hundred dollars from the many folds of his
clothes. I stacked it into fifteen piles of one
hundred dollars each, and then shoved it across
the table to the vendor, who delivered the deed.
“Uncle Steve” and I then left. It was not long
before the vendor came to my office saying,
“That old n___ has gyped me out of a hundred
dollars." I asked how, and he then said, “Here
is the money, and there is only fourteen hundred
dollars. Then it occurred to me why “Uncle
Steve” had wanted me to go along with him. If
“Uncle Steve” had been there alone, it would
have cost him just one hundred dollars.
Incidentally, the vendor found his hundred
dollars in one dollar bills on the floor of the
vault where he had dropped it.
“One of the best citizens who knew of “Uncle
Steve’s” wealth said one day, “Steve, why don’t
you bank you a fine home and buy a good
automobile and live comfortably for the balance
of your days?” “Uncle Steve” in his polite,
gentle way, replied, “Mr. Dickey, If I should do
that, these n___s around her would say I was
uppity and would associate with me, and the
white folks ain’t going to associate with me
anyway, and you know, Mr. Dickey, I just have to
have somebody to associate with.”
“Uncle Steve” had a custom of calling on his
tenants on Sunday forenoon. He carried an
unpolished and unornamental walking cane. With
this cane he would rap on the front door. The
tenants knew that walking stick rap, and would
meet him with the week’s rent in their hand.
And, woe betide the luckless renter, who didn’t
have it. He carried the cane only on Sunday
morning.
“A revenue agent called on “Uncle Steve” once
and claimed that there was forty dollars more
due him in taxes. “Uncle Steve” did not think he
owed this, and upon examination of the matter, I
came to the conclusion that he did not owe it. I
advised him that he could defeat the agent’s
claim, but it would take a lawsuit to do it.
“Uncle Steve” thought the matter over for a
moment and then said, “Better pay him. I don’t
want no lawsuit.” This always was his attitude,
to let himself be misused rather than to get
involved in any sort of litigation, even when he
knew he was right.
“I have seen “Uncle Steve” take money to the
bank in a half gallon tin bucket, and the money
would literally be so old, worn, and dirty, that
the bank would at once forward it to Washington
for redemption. Before he died, he had given
every relative he had a home. He bought the land
at his own expense, built a very nice two-story
school for the use of his people. In his will he
provided for his estate to help in the support
of a colored normal school, that was being
privately operated with the aid of voluntary
donations.
“Once he came to my office to get me to make a
trip to Ohio to help some of his folks out of
trouble. I figured the railroad fare, hotel and
Pullman cost, and told him the trip would cost
about a hundred dollars. He said that was all
right and went out. After awhile he returned and
handed me some bills. These I counted and found
he had given me one hundred and fifty dollars. I
told him that he had given me too much and he
said, “That’s all right. When you travel for me,
I want you to travel right.”
“I wrote my old friend’s will several years
before his death. I charged him twenty-five
dollars for this service, and he paid me two
hundred and fifty dimes. After the will was
written, whenever he either sold or bought any
property, he promptly added a codicil, and at
the time of his death, his will was right up to
date. He made two provisions in his will that
are unusual but were characteristic of him. One
was, that if any legatee questioned his will or
south to have it set aside, that his executors
should pay that legatee nothing at all, and the
estate legatees not protesting. The other was,
that no unnecessary expense be permitted at his
funeral. When I learned of my old friend’s
death, at once I informed them of the provision
for a modest funeral, but already they had
purchased and placed his body in a twelve
hundred dollar casket, so we let it go at that.
“Uncle Steve” no more wanted to be buried in an
expensive casket than he wanted to live in a
fine home.”
PHOTO: "Traces",
the publication of the South Central Kentucky
Historical and Genealogical Society, Sandi Gorin,
Editor. Volume 31, Issue No 1, Spring 2003.
Cover