Sylvia Stark, circa 1940.

Raised among the Leopold slaves of Clay County, Missouri, Sylvia Stark knew Harriet Tubman. Harriet, a teenager at the time, was a strong worker, but found it hard working under Mrs. Leopold. Eventually, Harriet was sold to a slave breaker whose job was to make slaves submissive to their masters. Disobedience was in Harriet’s nature, however, and it motivated her to save her parents and hundreds of other slaves through the underground railway network, thanks to the help of both white and black people. After serving as a scout for the Northern Army during the Civil War, Harriet built a home for the aged in New York.

Sylvia Stark also remembered that six black families were living on Salt Spring Island when she arrived there in 1860. Among them were a Grandpa and Grandma Jackson, who Sylvia said were 114 and 112 years of age.