An Ebony Magazine article titled, "Thomas Jefferson's Negro Grandchildren" was published in either 1954 or 1958.
She broke that silence for the magazine interview, appearing with a handful of other elderly black men and women beneath the bold, all-capital-letters headline: "THOMAS JEFFERSON'S NEGRO GRANDCHILDREN."
Peter Fossett, who had actually been born into slavery at Jefferson's Virginia plantation, Monticello.
The plantation's online Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia identifies Fossett as the grandson of slave Mary Hemings Bell (a relative of Sally Hemings) and an unknown white father possibly, it suggests, carpenter William Fosset.
Bessie Curtis, when she spoke to Ebony Magazine, was listed as a caterer and an active member of First Baptist.