Rachael was born into slavery at Tuckahoe on May 23, 1858. Her parents were Joe and Lucy Parker and her sister was Jane Parker. As both her mother and sister worked inside the house at Tuckahoe it is quite possible that the family lived in one of the cabins which still stands along Plantation Street.
It seems that some of the Parkers moved closer to Richmond as they were listed as living in Monroe Ward by 1870. In 1872, Rachael and her mother, Lucy, are listed on a record for the Freedman’s Bank. The bank, which had been created to assist the newly freed enslaved population after the Civil War, would fail and close just a few years later in 1874. Many depositors would have lost all of their money. It is very possible that this would have happened to the Parker family.
