hide under the house. They go on off. He’d come out. When he was sold he went under there. He come out and went on off when they found him and told him he was sold to this man. Grandma said he was obedient. They never hit him. He was her best husband. They never sold grandma and she couldn’t ‘count for him being let go. Grandma had another husband after freedom and two more children. They left there in a crowd and all come to Arkansas. Grandma was a cook for the field hands. She had charge of ringing a big dinner-bell hung up in a tree. She was black as charcoal. Mama and grandma said Master Coon and old Mistress Mollie was good to them. That the reason grandpa would go under the house. He didn’t want to be sold. He never was seen no more by them.
“Grandma said sometimes the meals was carried to the fields and they fed the children out of troughs. They took all the children to the spring set them in a row. They had a tubful of water and they washed them dried them and put on their clean clothes. They used homemade lye soap and greased them with tallow and mutton suet. That made them shine. They kept them greased so their knees and knuckles would ruff up and bleed.
“Grandma and mama stopped at Fourche Dam. They was so glad to be free and go about. Then it scared them to hear talk of being sold. It divided them and some owners was mean.
“In my time if I done wrong most any grown person whoop me. Then mama find it out, she give me another one. I got a double whooping.
“Times is powerful bad to raise up a family. Drinking and gambling, and it takes too much to feed a family now. Times is so much harder that way then when I was growing.”
Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller
Person interviewed: Ann May, Clarksville, Arkansas Age: 82
“I was born at Cabin Creek (Lamar now, but I still call it Cabin Creek. I can’t call it anything else). I was sold with my mother when I was a little girl and lived with our white folks until after the war and was freed. We lived on a farm. My father belong to another family, a neighbor of ours. We all lived with the white folks. My mother took care of all of them. They was always as good as they could be to us and after the war we stayed on with the white folks who owned my father and worked on the farm for him. His master gave us half of everything we made until we could get started our selves, then our white folks told my father to homestead a place near him, and he did. We lived there until after father died. We paid taxes and lived just like the white folks. We did what the white folks told us to do and never lost a thing by doing it. After I married my husband worked at the mill for your father and made a living for me and I worked for the white folks. Now I am too old to cook but I have a few washin’s for the white folks and am getting my old age pension that helps me a lot.
“I don’t know what I think about the young generation. I aim at my stopping place.
“The songs we sang were
‘Come ye that love the Lord and let your Joys be known’ ‘When You and I Were Young, Maggie’
‘Juanita’
‘Just Before the Battle, Mother’
‘Darling Nellie Gray’
‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginia’
‘Old Black Joe’
Of course we sang ‘Dixie.’ We had to sing that, it was the leading song.”
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Joe Mayes, Madison, Arkansas Age: ?
“I was born a slave two years. I never will forget man come and told mother she was free. She cooked. She never worked in the field till after freedom. In a few days another man come and made them leave. They couldn’t hold them in Kentucky. The owners give her provisions, meat, lasses, etc. They give her her clothes. She had four children and I was her youngest. The two oldest was girls. Father was dead. I don’t remember him. Mother finally made arrangements to go to Will Bennett’s place.
“Another thing I remember: Frank Hayes sold mother to Isaac Tremble after she was free. She didn’t know she was free. Neither did Isaac Tremble. I don’t know whether Frank Mayes was honest or not. The part I remember was that us boys stood on the block and never was parted from her. We had to leave our sisters. One was sold to Miss Margaret Moxley, the other to Miss Almyra Winder. (He said “Miss” but they may have been widows. He didn’t seem to know–ed.) Father belong to a Master Mills. All our family got together after we found out we had been freed.
“The Ku Klux: I went to the well little after dark. It was a good piece from our house. I looked up and saw a man with a robe and cap on. It scared me nearly to death. I nearly fell out. I had heard about the ‘booger man’ and learned better then. But there he was. I had heard a lot about Ku Klux.
“There was a big gourd hanging up by the well. We kept it there. There was a bucket full up. He said, ‘Give me water.’ I handed over the gourd full. He done something with it. He kept me handing him water. He said, ‘Hold my crown and draw me up another bucket full.’ I was so scared I lit out hard as I could run. It was dark enough to hide me when I got a piece out of his way.
“The owners was pretty good to mother to be slavery. She had clothes and enough to eat all the time. I used to go back to see all our white folks in Kentucky. They are about all dead now I expect. Mother was glad to be free but for a long time her life was harder.
“After we got up larger she got along better. I worked on a steamboat twelve or thirteen years. I was a roustabout and freight picker. I was on passenger boats mostly but they carried freight. I went to school some. I always had colored teachers. I farmed at Hughes and Madison ever since excepting one year in Mississippi.
“I live alone. I get $8 and commodities from the Sociable Welfare.
“The young folks would do better, work better, if they could get work all time. It is hard at times to get work right now. The times is all right. Better everything but work. I know colored folks is bad managers. That has been bad on us always.
“I worked on boats from Evansville, St. Louis, Memphis to New Orleans mostly. It was hard work but a fine living. I was stout then.”
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Jesse Meeks
707 Elm Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 76
Occupation: Minister
“I am seventy-six. ‘Course I was young in slavery times, but I can remember some things. I remember how they used to feed us. Put milk and bread or poke salad and corn-meal dumplin’s in a trough and give you a wooden spoon and all the children eat together.
“We stayed with our old master fourteen years. They were good folks and treated us right. My old master’s name was Sam Meeks–in Longview, Drew County, Arkansas, down here below Monticello.
“I got a letter here about a month ago from the daughter of my young mistress. I wrote to my young mistress and she was dead, so her daughter got the letter. She answered it and sent me a dollar and asked me was I on the Old Age Pension list.
“As far as I know, I am the onliest one of the old darkies living that belonged to Sam Meeks.
“I remember when the Ku Klux run in on my old master. That was after the War. He was at the breakfast table with his wife. You know in them days they didn’t have locks and keys. Had a hole bored through a board and put a peg in it, and I know the Ku Klux come up and stuck a gun through the auger hole and shot at old master but missed him. He run to the door and shot at the Ku Klux. I know us children found one of ’em down at the spring bathin’ his leg where old master had shot him.
“Oh! they were good folks and treated us right.”
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Subject: Superstitions
Story:–Information
This information given by: Jesse Meeks Place of residence: 707 Elm Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Occupation: Minister
Age: 76
[TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]
“I remember there was on old man called Billy Mann lived down here at Noble lake. He said he could ‘give you a hand.’ If you and your wife wasn’t gettin’ along very well and you wanted to get somebody else, he said he could ‘give you a hand’ and that would enable you to get anybody you wanted. That’s what he said.
“And I’ve heard ’em say they could make a ring around you and you couldn’t get out.
“I don’t believe in that though ’cause I’m in the ministerial work and it don’t pay me to believe in things like that. That is the work of the devil.”
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Jeff Metcalf
R.F.D., Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 73
“My mother’s name was Julia Metcalf and my father’s name was Jim Metcalf. They belong to an old bachelor named Bill Metcalf. I think I was born in Lee County, Mississippi. They did not leave when the war was over. They stayed on the Bill Metcalf place till they died. I reckon I do remember him.
“I can’t tell you ’bout the war nor slavery. I don’t know a thing ’bout it. I heard but I couldn’t tell you it been so long ago. They didn’t expect nothing but freedom. They got along in the Reconstruction days about like they had been getting along. Seemed like they didn’t know much about the war. They heard they was free. I don’t remember the Ku Klux Klan. I heard old folks talk ’bout it.
“I don’t know if my father ever voted but I guess he did. I have voted but I don’t vote now. In part I ‘proves of the women votin’. I think the men outer vote and support his family fur as he can.
“I come here in 1914 from Mississippi. I got busted farmin’. I knowed a heap o’ people said they was doing so well I come too. I come on the train.
“I ain’t got no home, no land. I got a hog. No garden. Two times in the year now is hard–winter and simmer. In some ways times is better. In some ways they is worser. When a trade used to be made to let you have provisions, you know you would not starve. Now if you can’t get work you ’bout starve and can’t get no credit. Crops been good last few years and prices fair fur it. But money won’t buy nothin’ now. Everything is so high. Meat is so high. Working man have to eat meat. If he don’t he get weak.
“The young folks do work. They can’t save much farmin’. If they could do public work between times it be better. I had a hard time in July and August. I got six children, they grown and gone. My wife is 72 years old. She ain’t no ‘count for work no more. The Government give me an’ her $10 a month between us two. Her name is Hannah Metcalf.
“I wish I did know somethin’ to tell you, lady, ’bout the Civil War and the slavery times. I done forgot ’bout all I heard ’em talkin’. When you see Hannah she might know somethin’.”
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Hardy Miller
702-1/2 W. Second Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 85
Occupation: Yardman
“Mistress, I’ll tell you what my mother said. She said she birthed me on Christmas morning in 1852 in Sumpter County, Georgia. It was on her old master’s place. Bright Herring was his name. Old mistress’ name was Miss Lizzie. My father belonged to a different owner.
“Mac McClendon and John Mourning was two nigger traders and they brought my mother and sister Nancy and sister Liza and my sister Anna and Hardy Miller–that’s me–out here on the train from Americus, Georgia to Memphis and put us on a steamboat and brought us here to Pine Bluff and sold me to Dr. Pope. He was a poor white man and he wanted a pair of niggers. He bought me and Laura Beckwith. In them days a doctor examined you and if your heart was sound and your lungs was sound and you didn’t have no broken bones–have to pay one hundred dollars for every year you was old. That was in 1862 and I was ten years old so they sold me for one thousand dollars and one thousand dollars for Laura cause she was sound too. Carried us down to Monticello and when I got free my mammy come after me.
“Fore I left Georgia, my daddy belonged to a man named Bill Ramsey. You see niggers used the name of their masters.
“I can remember when I was a boy Bill Ramsey set my father free and give him a free pass and anybody hire him have to pay just like they pay a nigger now. My daddy hired my mammy from her master. My mammy was her master’s daughter by a colored woman.
“My daddy had a hoss named Salem and had a cart and he would take me and my mammy and my sister Liza and go to Americus and buy rations for the next week.
“I member when the war started in 1861 my mammy hired me out to Mrs. Brewer and she used to git after me and say, ‘You better do that good or I’ll whip you. My husband gone to war now on account of you niggers and it’s a pity you niggers ever been cause he may get killed and I’ll never see him again.’
“I member seein’ General Bragg’s men and General Steele and General Marmaduke. Had a fight down at Mark’s Mill. We just lived six miles from there. Seen the Yankees comin’ by along the big public road. The Yankees whipped and fought em so strong they didn’t have time to bury the dead. We could see the buzzards and carrion crows. I used to hear old mistress say, ‘There goes the buzzards, done et all the meat off.’ I used to go to mill and we could see the bones. Used to got out and look at their teeth. No ma’m, I wasn’t scared, the white boys was with me.
“Dr. Pope was good to me, better to me than he was to Master Walter and Master Billy and my young Miss, Aurelia, cause me and Laura was scared of em and we tried to do everything they wanted.
“When the war ended in 1865 we was out in the field gettin’ pumpkins. Old master come out and said, ‘Hardy, you and Laura is free now. You can stay or you can go and live with somebody else.’ We stayed till 1868 and then our mammies come after us. I was seventeen.
“After freedom my mammy sent me to school. Teacher’s name was W.H. Young. Name was William Young but he went under the head of W.H. Young.
“I went to school four years and then I got too old. I learned a whole lot. Learned to read and spell and figger. I done pretty good. I learned how to add and multiply and how to cancel and how to work square root.
“What I’ve been doin’ all my life is farmin’ down at Fairfield on the Murphy place.
“Vote? Good lord! I done more votin’. Voted for all the Presidents. Yankees wouldn’t let us vote Democrat, had to vote Republican. They’d be there agitatin’. Stand right there and tell me the ones to vote for. I done quit votin’. I voted for Coolidge–we called him College–that’s the last votin’ I did. One of my friends, Levi Hunter, he was a colored magistrate down at Fairfield.
“Ku Klux? What you talkin’ about? Ku Klux come to our house. My sister Ellen’s husband went to war on the Yankee side durin’ the war–on the Republican side and fought the Democrats.
“After the war the Ku Klux came and got the colored folks what fought and killed em. I saw em kill a nigger right off his mule. Fell off on his sack of corn and the old mule kep’ on goin’.
“Ku Klux used to wear big old long robe with bunches of cotton sewed all over it. I member one time we was havin’ church and a Ku Klux was hid up in the scaffold. The preacher was readin’ the Bible and tellin’ the folks there was a man sent from God and say an angel be here directly. Just then the Ku Klux fell down and the niggers all thought ’twas the angel and they got up and flew.
“Ku Klux used to come to the church well and ask for a drink and say, ‘I ain’t had a bit of water since I fought the battle of Shiloh.’
“Might as well tell the truth–had just as good a time when I was a slave as when I was free. Had all the hog meat and milk and everything else to eat.
“I member one time when old master wasn’t at home the Yankees come and say to old mistress, ‘Madam, we is foragin’.’ Old mistress say, ‘My husband ain’t home; I can’t let you.’ Yankees say, ‘Well, we’re goin’ to anyway.’ They say, ‘Where you keep your milk and butter?’ Old mistress standin’ up there, her face as red as blood and say, ‘I haven’t any milk or butter to spare.’ But the Yankees would hunt till they found it.
“After a battle when the dead soldiers was layin’ around and didn’t have on no uniform cause some of the other soldiers took em, I’ve heard the old folk what knowed say you could tell the Yankees from the Rebels cause the Yankees had blue veins on their bellies and the Rebels didn’t.
“Now you want me to tell you bout this young nigger generation? I never thought I’d live to see this young generation come out and do as well as they is doin’. I’m goin’ tell you the truth. When I was young, boys and girls used to wear long white shirt come down to their ankles, cause it would shrink, with a hole cut out for their head. I think they is doin’ a whole lot better. Got better clothes. Almost look as well as the white folks. I just say the niggers dressin’ better than the white folks used to.
“Then I see some niggers got automobiles. Just been free bout seventy-two years and some of em actin’ just like white folks now.
“Well, good-bye–if I don’t see you again I’ll meet you in Heaven.”
Interviewer: Beulah Sherwood Hagg
Person interviewed: [HW: Henry Kirk] H.K. Miller 1513 State Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 86
“No ma’am, it will not bother me one bit if you want to have a long visit with me…. Yes, I was a little busy, but it can wait. I was getting my dishes ready for a party tomorrow night.
“Yes ma’am, I was born during slavery. I was born at a little place called Fort Valley in Georgia, July 25, 1851. Fort Valley is about 30 miles from Macon. I came to Little Rock in 1873. My old mistress was a widow. As well as I can remember she did not have any slaves but my father and mother and the six children. No ma’am, her name was not Miller, it was Wade…. Where did I get my name, then? It came from my grandfather on my father’s side…. Well, now, Miss, I can’t tell you where he got that name. From some white master, I reckon.
“We got free in Georgia June 15, 1865. I’ll never forget that date. What I mean is, that was the day the big freedom came. But we didn’t know it and just worked on. My father was a shoemaker for old mistress. Only one in town, far as I recollect. He made a lot of money for mistress. Mother was houseworker for her. As fast as us children got big enough to hire out, she leased us to anybody who would pay for our hire. I was put out with another widow woman who lived about 20 miles. She worked me on her cotton plantation. Old mistress sold one of my sisters; took cotton for pay. I remember hearing them tell about the big price she brought because cotton was so high. Old mistress got 15 bales of cotton for sister, and it was only a few days till freedom came and the man who had traded all them bales of cotton lost my sister, but old mistress kept the cotton. She was smart, wasn’t she? She knew freedom was right there. Sister came right back to my parents.
“Just give me time, miss, and I’ll tell you the whole story. This woman what had me hired tried to run away and take all her slaves along. I don’t remember just how many, but a dozen or more. Lots of white folks tried to run away and hide their slaves until after the Yankee soldiers had been through the town searching for them what had not been set free. She was trying to get to the woods country. But she got nervous and scared and done the worst thing she could. She run right into a Yankee camp. Course they asked where we all belonged and sent us where we belonged. They had always taught us to be scared of the Yankees. I remember just as well when I got back to where my mother was she asked me: “Boy, why you come here? Don’t you know old mistress got you rented out? You’re goin’ be whipped for sure.” I told her, no, now we got freedom. That was the first they had heard. So then she had to tell my father and mother. She tole them how they have no place to go, no money,–nothing to start life on; they better stay on with her. So my father and mother kept on with her; she let them have a part of what they made; she took some for board, as was right. The white ladies what had me between them fixed it up that I would serve out the time I was rented out for. It was about six months more. My parents saved money and we all went to a farm. I stayed with them till I was 19 years old. Of course they got all the money I made. I married when I was 20, still living in Georgia. We tried to farm on shares. A man from Arkansas came there, getting up a colony of colored to go to Arkansas to farm. Told big tales of fine land with nobody to work it. Not half as many Negroes in Arkansas as in Georgia. Me and my wife joined up to go.
“Well, ma’am, I didn’t get enough education to be what you call a educated man. My father paid for a six months night course for me after peace. I learned to read and write and figure a little. I have used my tablespoon full of brains ever since, always adding to that start. I learned everything I could from the many white friends I have had. Any way, miss, I have known enough to make a good living all these years.
“Now I’ll get on with the story. First work I got in Arkansas was working on a farm; me and her both; we always tried to stay together. We could not make anything on the Garner farm, and it was mighty unhealthy down in Fourche bottoms. I carried her back to Little Rock and I got work as house man in the Bunch home. From there I went to the home of Dudley E. Jones and stayed there 28 years. That was the beginning of my catering. I just naturally took to cooking and serving. White folks was still used to having colored wait on them and they liked my style. Mr. Jones was so kind. He told his friends about how I could plan big dinners and banquets; then cook and serve them. Right soon I was handling most of the big swell weddings for the society folks. Child, if I could call off the names of the folks I have served, it would be mighty near everybody of any consequence in Little Rock for more than 55 years. Yes ma’am, I’m now being called on to serve the grandchildren of my first customers.
“During the 28 years I lived in Mr. Jones’ family I was serving banquets, big public dinners, all kinds of big affairs. I have had the spring and fall banquets for the Scottish Rite Masons for more than 41 years. I have served nearly all the Governor’s banquets, college graduation and reunion parties; I took care of President Roosevelt–not this one, but Teddy—-. Served about 600 that day. Any big parties for colored people?… Yes ma’am! Don’t you remember when Booker T. Washington was here?… No ma’am. White folks didn’t have a thing to do with it, excepting the city let us have the new fire station. It was just finished but the fire engines ain’t moved in yet. I served about 600 that time. Yes ma’am, there was a lot of white folks there. Then, I have been called to other places to do the catering. Lonoke, Benton, Malvern, Conway–a heap of places like that.
“No miss, I didn’t always have all the catering business; oh, no. There was Mr. Rossner. He was a fine man. White gentleman. I used to help him a lot. But when he sold out to Bott, I got a lot of what business Mr. Rossner had had, Mr. Bott was a Jew. All that time my wife was my best helper. I took a young colored fellow named Freeling Alexander and taught him the business. He never been able to make it go on his own, but does fine working on salary. He has a cafeteria now.
“Well thank you miss, speaking about my home like that. Yes ma’am, I sure do own it. Fifty-two years I been living right here. First I bought the lot; it took me two years to pay for it. Next I build a little house. The big pin oak trees out front was only saplings when I set them out. Come out in the back yard and see my pecan tree…. It is a giant, ain’t it? Yes ma’am, it was a tiny thing when I set it out fifty-two years ago. Our only child was born in this house,–a dear daughter–and her three babies were born here too. After my wife and daughter died, me and the children kept on trying to keep the home together. I have taught them the catering business. Both granddaughters are high school graduates. The boy is in Mexico. Before he went he signed his name to a check and said: “Here, grandpa. You ain’t going to want for a thing while I’m gone. If something happens to your catering business, or you get so you can’t work, fill this in for whatever you need.” But thank the good Lord, I’m still going strong. Nobody has ever had to take care of H.K. Miller. Now let me tell you something else about this place. For more than ten years I have been paying $64.64 every year for my part of that asphalt paving you see out in front. Yes ma’am, the lot is 50 foot front, and I am paying for only half of it; from my curb line to the middle of the street. Maybe if I live long enough I’ll get it paid for sometime.
“I haven’t tried to lay by much money. I don’t suppose there is any other colored man–uneducated like me–what has done more for his community. I have given as high as $80 and $100 at one time to help out on the church debt or when they wanted to build. I always help in times of floods and things like that. I’ve helped many white persons in my lifetime.
“Well, now, I’ll tell you what I think about the voting system. I think this. Of course we are still in subjection to the white people; they are in the majority and have most of the government on their side. But I think that, er,–er,–well I’ll tell you, while it is all right for them to be at the head of things, they ought to do what is right. Being educated, they ought to know right from wrong. I believe in the Bible, miss. Look here. This little book–Gospel of St. John–has been carried in my pocket every day for years and years. And I never miss a day reading it. I don’t see how some people can be so unjust. I guess they never read their Bible. The reason I been able to make my three-score years and ten is because I obeys what the Good Book says.
“Now, let me see. I can remember that I been voting mighty near ever since I been here. I never had any trouble voting. I have never been objected from voting that I remember of.
“Now you ask about what I think of the young people. Well, I tell you. I think really that the young people of today had better begin to check up, a little. They are going too fast. They don’t seem to have enough consideration. When I see so many killed in automobile accidents, and know that drinking is the cause of so many car accidents,–well, yes ma’am, drinking sure does have a lot to do with it. I think they should more consider the way they going to make a living. Make a rule to look before they act. Another thing–the education being given them–they are not taking advantage of it. If they would profit by what they learn they could benefit theirselves. A lot of them now spend heap of time trying to get to be doctors and lawyers and like that. That is a mistake. There is not enough work among colored people to support them. I know. Negroes do not have confidence in their race for this kind of business. No ma’am. Colored will go for a white doctor and white lawyer ’cause they think they know more about that kind of business. I would recommend as the best means of making a living for colored young people is to select some kind of work that is absolutely necessary to be done and then do it honestly. The trades, carpentering, paper hanging, painting, garage work. Some work that white people need to have done, and they just as soon colored do it as white. White folks ain’t never going to have Negro doctors and lawyers, I reckon. That’s the reason I took up catering–even that long ago. Fifty-five years ago I knew to look around and find some work that white folks would need done. There’s where your living comes from.
“Yes, miss, my business is slack–falling off, as you say. Catering is not what it used to be. You see, 30 or 40 years ago, people’s homes were grand and big; big dining rooms, built for parties and banquets. But for the big affairs with 500 or 600 guests, they went to the hotels. Even the hotels had to rent my dishes, silver and linens…. Oh, lord, yes, miss. I always had my own. It took me ten years to save enough money to start out with my first 500 of everything…. You want to see them?… Sure, I keep them here at home…. Look. Here’s my silver chests, all packed to go. I have them divided into different sizes. This one has fifty of every kind of silver, so if fifty guests are to be provided for. I keep my linens, plates of different sizes, glasses and everything the same way. A 200-guest outfit is packed in those chests over there. No, ma’am, I don’t have much trouble of losing silver, because it all has my initials on; look: H.K.M. on every piece. Heap of dishes are broken every time I have a big catering. I found one plate yesterday–the last of a full pattern I had fifteen years ago. About every ten years is a complete turnover of china. Glassware goes faster, and of course, the linen is the greatest overhead. Yes ma’am, as I was telling you, catering is slack because of clubs. So many women take their parties to clubs now. Another thing, the style of food has changed. In those old days, the table was loaded with three four meats, fish, half dozen vegetable dishes, entrees, different kinds of wine, and an array of desserts. Now what do they have? Liquid punch, frozen punch and cakes. In June I had a wedding party for 400, and that’s all they served. I had to have 30 punch bowls, but borrowed about half from my white friends.
“You have got that wrong about me living with my grandchildren. No ma’am! They are living with me. They make their home with me. I don’t expect ever to marry again. I’m 86. In my will I am leaving everything I have to my three grandchildren.
“Well, miss, you’re looking young and blooming. Guess your husband is right proud of you? Say you’re a widow? Well, now, my goodness. Some of these days a fine man going to find you and then, er–er, lady, let me cater for the wedding?”
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Henry Kirk Miller [HW: Same as H.K. Miller] 1513 State Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age 87 [HW: 86]
“I am eighty-six years old-eighty-six years and six months. I was born July 25, 1851. I was a slave. Didn’t get free till June 1865. I was a boy fifteen years old when I got free.
“I have been living in this house fifty years. I have been living in Arkansas ever since 1873. That makes about sixty-five years.
“The engineer who got killed in that wreck the other day (a wreck which occurred February 7, 1938, Monday morning at three and in which the engineer and five other people were killed) came right from my town, Fort Valley, Georgia. I came here from there in 1873. I don’t know anybody living in Fort Valley now unless it’s my own folks. And I don’t ‘spect I’d know them now. When I got married and left there, I was only twenty-one years old.
Parents and Relatives
“My mother and father were born in South Carolina. After their master and missis married they came to Georgia. Back there I don’t know. When I remember anything they were in Georgia. They said they came from South Carolina to Georgia. I don’t know how they came. Both of my parents were Negroes. They came to Arkansas ahead of me. I have their pictures.” (He carried me into the parlor and showed me life-sized bust portraits of his mother and father.)
“There were eighteen of us: six boys and twelve girls. They are all dead now but myself and one sister. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia. I am older than she is.
Occupation
“I am a caterer. I have been serving the Scottish Rite Masons in their annual reunion every six months for forty-one years. We are going to the Seventh Street Entrance this Friday. One of the orders will have a dinner and I am going down to serve it. I served the dinner for Teddy Roosevelt there, thirty years ago. This Roosevelt is a cousin of his.
Masters
“My parents’ master was named Wade. When he died, I was so little that they had to lift me up to let me see into the coffin so I could look at him. I went to his daughter. My name is after my father’s father. My grandfather was named Miller. I took his name. He was a white man.
“Wade’s daughter was named Riley, but I keep my grandfather’s name. My mother and father were then transferred to the Rileys too, and they took the name of Riley. It was after freedom that I took the name Miller from my original people. Haven Riley’s father was my brother.” (Haven Riley lives in Little Rock and was formerly an instructor at Philander Smith College. Now he is a public stenographer and a private teacher.)
“Wade owned all of my brothers and sisters and parents and some of my kin–father’s sister and brother. There might have been some more I can’t remember. Wade was a farmer.
“I remember once when my mother and father were going to the field to work, I went with them as usual. That was before Wade died and his daughter drew us.
“My wife died six years ago. If she had lived till tomorrow, she would have been married to me sixty years. She died on the tenth of February and we were married on the sixth. We just lacked five years of being married sixty years when she died.
Food
“For food, I don’t know anything more than bread and meat. Meal, meat, molasses were the only rations I saw. In those times the white people had what was known as the white people’s house and then what was known as nigger quarters. The children that weren’t big enough to work were fed at the white people’s house. We got milk and mush for breakfast. When they boiled cabbage we got bread and pot-liquor. For supper we got milk and bread. They had cows and the children were fed mostly on milk and mush or milk and bread. We used to bake a corn cake in the ashes, ash cake, and put it in the milk.
“The chickens used to lay out in the barn. If we children would find the nests and bring the eggs in our missis would give us a biscuit, and we always got biscuits for Christmas.
Houses in the Negro Quarters
“In the nigger quarters there were nothing but log houses. I don’t remember any house other than a log house. They’d just go out in the woods and get logs and put up a log house. Put dirt and mud or clay in the cracks to seal it. Notch the logs in the end to hitch them at corners. Nailed planks at the end of the logs to make a door frame.
“My people all ate and cooked and lived in the same room. Some of the slaves had dirt floors and some of them had plank floors.
“Food was kept in the house in a sort of box or chest, built in the wall sometimes. Mostly it was kept on the table.
“In cooking they had a round oven made like a pot only the bottom would be flat. It had an iron top. The oven was a bought oven. It was shaped like a barrel. The top lifted up. Coal was placed under the oven and a little on top.
Tables and Chairs
“Tables were just boards nailed together. Nothing but planks nailed together. I don’t remember nothing but homemade benches for chairs. They sometimes made platted or split-bottom chairs out of white oak. Strips of oak were seven feet long. They put them in water so they would bend easily and wove them while they were flexible and fresh. The whole chair bottom was made out of one strip just like in caning. Those chairs were stouter than the chairs they make now.”
(To be continued) [TR: No continuation found.]
Interviewer: Mrs. Annie L. LaCotts
Person interviewed: Matilda Miller
Humphrey, Ark.
Age: 79
The day of the interview Matilda, a nice clean-looking Negro woman, was in bed, suffering from some kind of a pain in her head. She lives in a little two-room unpainted boxed house beside the highway in Humphrey. Her house is almost in the shadow of the big tank which was put up recently when the town acquired its water system.
When told that the visitor wanted to talk with her about her early life, Matilda said, “Well, honey, I’ll tell you all I can, but you see, I was just a little girl when the war was, but I’ve heard my mother tell lots of things about then.
“I was born a slave; my mother and daddy both were owned by Judge Richard Gamble at Crockett’s Bluff. I was born at Boone Hill–about twelve miles north of DeWitt–and how come it named Boone Hill, that farm was my young mistress’s. Her papa give it to her, just like he give me to her when I was little, and after she married Mr. Oliver Boone and lived there the farm always went by the name of ‘Boone Hill.’ The house is right on top of a hill, you know, it shure was a pretty place when Miss Georgia lived there, with great big Magnolia trees in the front yard. I belonged to Miss Georgia, my young mistress, and when the niggers were freed my mamma staid on with her. She was right there when both of his chillun were born, Mr. John Boone and Miss Mary, too. I nursed _both_ of them chillun. You know who Miss Mary is now, don’t you? Yes’um, she’s Mr. Lester Black’s wife and he’s good, too.
“I was de oney child my mother had till twelve years after the surrender. You see, my papa went off with Yankees and didn’t come back till twelve years after we was free, and then I had some brothers and sisters. Exactly nine months from the day my daddy come home, I had a baby brother born. My mother said she knew my daddy had been married or took up with some other woman, but she hadn’t got a divorce and still counted him her husband. They lived for a long time with our white folks, for they were good to us, but you know after the boys and girls got grown and began to marry and live in different places, my parents wanted to be with them and left the white folks.
“No mam, I didn’t see any fighting, but we could hear the big guns booming away off in the distance. I was married when I was 21 to Henry Miller and lived with him 51 years and ten months; he died from old age and hard work. We had two chillun, both girls. One of them lives here with me in that other room. Mamma said the Yankees told the Negroes when they got em freed they’d give em a mule and a farm or maybe a part of the plantation they’d been working on for their white folks. She thought they just told em that to make them dissatisfied and to get more of them ‘to join up with em’ and they were dressed in pretty blue clothes and had nice horses and that made lots of the Negro men go with them. None of em ever got anything but what their white folks give em, and just lots and lots of em never come back after the war cause the Yankees put them in front where the shooting was and they was killed. My husband Henry Miller died four years ago. He followed public work and made plenty of money but he had lots of friends and his money went easy too. I don’t spect I’ll live long for this hurtin’ in my head is awful bad sometime.”
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Nathan Miller, Madison, Arkansas Age: Born in 1868
“Lady, I’ll tell you what I know but it won’t nigh fill your book.
“I was born in 1862 south of Lockesburg, Arkansas. My parents was Marther and Burl Miller.
“They told me their owners come here from North Carolina in 1820. They owned lots of slaves and lots of land. Mother was medium light–about my color. See, I’m mixed. My hair is white. I heard mother say she never worked in the field. Father was a blacksmith on the place. He wasn’t a slave. His grandfather willed him free at ten years of age. It was tried in the Supreme Court. They set him free. Said they couldn’t break the dead man’s will.
“My father was a real bright colored man. It caused some disturbance. Father went back and forth to Kansas. They tried to make him leave if he was a free man. They said I would have to be a slave several years or leave the State. Freedom settled that for me.
“My great grandmother on my mother’s side belong to Thomas Jefferson. He was good to her. She used to tell me stories on her lap. She come from Virginia to Tennessee. They all cried to go back to Virginia and their master got mad and sold them. He was a meaner man. Her name was Sarah Jefferson. Mariah was her daughter and Marther was my mother. They was real dark folks but mother was my color, or a shade darker.
“Grandmother said she picked cotton from the seed all day till her fingers nearly bled. That was fore gin day. They said the more hills of tobacco you could cultivate was how much you was worth.
“I don’t remember the Ku Klux. They was in my little boy days but they never bothered me.
“All my life I been working hard–steamboat, railroad, farming. Wore clean out now.
“Times is awful hard. I am worn clean out. I am not sick. I’m ashamed to say I can’t do a good day’s work but I couldn’t. I am proud to own I get commodities and $8 from the Relief.”
Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lacy
Person interviewed: Sam Miller, Morrilton, Arkansas Age: 98
“I is ninety-eight years old, suh. My name’s Sam Miller, and I was born in Texas in 1840–don’t know de month nor de day. My parents died when I was jes’ a little chap, and we come to Conway County, Arkansas fifty years ago; been livin’ here ever since. My wife’s name was Annie Williamson. We ain’t got no chillun and never had none. I don’t belong to no chu’ch, but my wife is a Baptis’.
“Can’t see to git around much now. No, suh, I can’t read or write, neither. My memory ain’t so good about things when I was little, away back yonder, but I sure members dem Ku Klux Klans and de militia. They used to ketch people and take em out and whup em.
“Don’t rickolleck any of de old songs but one or two–oh, yes, dey used to sing ‘Old time religion’s good enough for me’ and songs like dat.
“De young people! Lawzy, I jest dunno how to take em. Can’t understand em at all. Dey too much for me!”
NOTE: The old fellow chuckled and shook his head but said very little more. He could have told much but for his faulty memory, no doubt. He was almost non-committal as to facts of slavery days, the War between the States, and Reconstruction period. Has the sense of humor that seems to be a characteristic of most of the old-time Negroes, but aside from a whimsical chuckle shows little of the interest that is usually associated with the old generation of Negroes.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: W.D. Miller, West Memphis, Arkansas Age: 65?
“Grandpa was sold twice in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was sold twice to the same people, from the Millers to the Robertsons (Robersons, Robinsons, etc.?). He said the Robertsons were not so very good to him but the Millers were. Grandma was washing when a Yank come and told them they had been sot free. They quit washing and went from house to house rejoicing. My parents’ names was Jesse and Mary Miller, and Grandma Agnes and Grandpa Peter Miller. The Robertsons was hill wheat farmers. The Millers had a cloth factory. Dan Miller owned it and he raised wheat. Mama was a puny woman and they worked her in the factory. She made cloth and yarn.
“I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina or close by there. My father’s uncle John House brought about one hundred families from North Carolina to Quittenden County, Mississippi. I was seven years old. He said they rode mules to pick cotton, it growed up like trees. We come in car boxes. I came to Heath and Helena eleven years ago. Papa stayed with his master Dan Miller till my uncle tolled him away. He died with smallpox soon after we come to Mississippi.
“It is a very good country but they don’t pick cotton riding on mules, at least I ain’t seed none that way.”
El Dorado District
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer: Pernella Anderson Subject: Slavery Customs
Story:–Information
Information given by: Mose Minser–Farmer–Age–78 Place of Residence: 5 miles from El Dorado–Section 8 [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]
Ah use ter could tawk an tell a thing plum well but ah been broke up by a cah. Cah run ovah mah haid an ah couldn’ tawk fuh 30 days. So now ah aint no good fuh nothin. Ah recollect one night ah dream a dream. De dream at ah dreamt, next morning dat dream come true. Jes like ah dreamt hit. Yes hit did. Ah wuz heah in slavery time. Ah membuh when dey freed us niggers. Se here, ah wuz a purty good size kid when dey free us. Ah kin membuh our house. Sot dis way. An ole Marster called all his niggers up. Dey all come along roun in a squad on de porch. Ah did not heah whut he said tuh em. But mah step-pa wuz dere an tole us we wuz free. Ah atter dey freed mah step-pa ah recollect he went on home and fried some aigs (eggs) in de ubben. Know we didn have no stove we cooked on de fiuhplace. As ah said cook dem aigs, gimme some uv hit, an he lef’ den. Went east and ah aint nevah seed dat man since. Ah membuhs once ah got a whoopin bout goin tuh de chinquepin tree. Some uv um tole me ole master wuz gwianter let us quit at dinnuh an so in place uv me goin ter dinnuh ah went on by de chinquepin tree tuh git some chanks. Ah had a brothuh wid me. So ah come tuh fine out dat dey gin tuh callin us. Dey hollered tuh come on dat we wuz gointer pick cotton. So in place uv us goin on tuh de house we went on back tuh de fiel’. Our fiel wuz bout a mile fum de house. Ole Moster waited down dere at de gate. He call me when ah got dere an wanted tuh know why ah didn come and git mah dinnah sos ah could pick cotton. So he taken mah britches down dat day. Mah chinks all run out on de groun’ an he tole mah brothah tuh pick um up. Ah knocked mah brothuh ovah fuh pickin um up an aftuh ah done dat ole moster taken his red pocket han’cher out and tied hit ovah mah eyes tuh keep me fum seein mah brothuh pick um up.
So when he got through wid me and put mah britches back on me ah went on tuh de fiel and went tuh pickin cotton. Dat evenin when us stop pickin cotton ah took mah brothah down and taken mah chinquapins.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Gip Minton, Des Arc, Arkansas Age: 84
“I was born at Jackson, Alabama on the Tennessee River. It was sho a putty river. I never did know my grandfolks. I think my father was a soldier. My master was a soldier, I think. He was in de war. I do remember the Civil War. I remember the last battle at Scottsboro. There was several but one big battle and they got to Belfontain. That is where it seemed they were trying to go. I don’t recollect who won the battle. I heard them fighting and saw the smoke and after they went on saw the bodies dead and all that was left was like a cyclone had swept by. There was a big regiment stationed at Scottsboro. It was just like any war fought with guns and they lived in tents. They took everything they could find. Looked like starvation was upon de land.
“I had two sisters and one brother and my mother died when I was a baby. I come out here to Arkansas with my mothers old master and mistress and never did see nor hear of none of them. No I never did hear from none of them. I come out here when I was ten or twelve years old. It was, it was right after the war. I recken I was freed, but I was raised by white folks and I stayed right on wid em. Dat freedom ain’t never bothered me.
“My master and mistress names was Master Alfred Minton. Dey call me Gip for him. Gip Minton is what they always called me. My mistress was Miss Annie Minton. I stayed right wid em. They raised me and I come on here wid em. I don’t know nothin about that freedom.
“I recken they was good to me. I et in de kitchen when they got through or on a table out in de back yard sometimes. I slept in an outhouse they fixed up mostly, when I got up big.
“We come on the train to Memphis and they come on thater way to Lonoke whar we settled. Don Shirley was the man I come on horseback with from Memphis to Lonoke. He was a man what dealt in horses. Sure he was a white man. He’s where we got some horses. I don’t remember if he lived at Lonoke or not.
“I have voted, yes ma’am, a heap of times. I don’t remember what kind er ticket I votes. I’m a Democrat, I think so. I ain’t voted fur sometime now. I don’t know if I’ll vote any more times or not. I don’t know what is right bout votin and what ain’t right.
“When I was a boy I helped farm. We had what we made. I guess it was plenty. I had more to eat and I didn’t have as many changes of clothes as folks has to have nowdays bout all de difference. They raised lots more. They bought things to do a year and didn’t be allus goin to town. It was hard to come to town. Yes mam it did take a long time, sometimes in a ox wagon. The oxen pulled more over muddy roads. Took three days to come to town and git back. I farmed one-half-for-the-other and on shear crop. Well one bout good as the other. Bout all anybody can make farmin is plenty to eat and a little to wear long time ago and nows the same way. The most I reckon I ever did make was on Surrounded Hill (Biscoe) when I farmed one-half-fur-de-udder for Sheriff Reinhardt. The ground was new and rich and the seasons hit just fine. No maam I never owned no farm, no livestock, no home. The only thing I owned was a horse one time. I worked 16 or 17 years for Mr. Brown and for Mr. Plunkett and Son. I drayed all de time fur em. Hauled freight up from the old depot (wharf) down on the river. Long time fore a railroad was thought of. I helped load cotton and hides on the boats. We loaded all day and all night too heap o’nights. We worked till we got through and let em take the ship on.
“The times is critical for old folks, wages low and everything is so high. The young folks got heap better educations but seems like they can’t use it. They don’t know how to any avantage. I know they don’t have as good chances at farmin as de older folks had. I don’t know why it is. My son works up at the lumber yard. Yes he owns this house. That’s all he owns. He make nough to get by on, I recken. He works hard, yes maam. He helps me if he can. I get $4 a month janitor at the Farmers and Merchants Bank (Des Arc). I works a little garden and cleans off yards. No maam it hurts my rheumatism to run the yard mower. I works when I sho can’t hardly go. Nothin matter cept I’m bout wo out. I plied for the old folks penshun but I ain’t got nuthin yet. I signed up at the bank fur it agin not long ago. I has been allus self sportin. Didn’t pend on no livin soul but myself.”
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: A.J. Mitchell
419 E. 11th Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78
Occupation: Garbage hauler
“I was ’bout seven when they surrendered. I can remember when my old master sold Aunt Susan. She raised me. I seen old master when he was tryin’ to whip old Aunt Susan. She was the cook. She said, ‘I ain’t goin’ let you whip me’ and I heard my sister say next day he done sold Aunt Susan. I ain’t seed her since. I called her ma. My mother died when I was two years old. She was full Injun. My father was black but his hair was straight. His face was so black it shined. Looked like it was greased. My father said he was freeborn and I’ve seen stripes on his back look like the veins on back of my hand where they whipped him tryin’ to make him disown his freedom.
“Old Jack Clifton was my master. Yes ma’m, that was his name.
“I ‘member when they had those old looms–makin’ cloth and old shuttle to put the thread on. I can see ’em now.
“I can ‘member when this used to be a Injun place. I’ve seen old Injun mounds. White folks come and run ’em out and give ’em Injun Territory.
“I heered the guns in the war and seed the folks comin’ home when the war broke. They said they was fitin’ ’bout freedom, tryin’ to free the people. I ‘member when they was fitin’ at Marks Mill. I know some of the people said that was where they was sot free.
“I don’t know as I seed any Ku Klux when they was goin’ round. Hearin’ ’bout ’em scared me. I have a good recollection. I can remember the first dream I ever had and the first time I whistled. I can remember when I was two or three years old. Remember when they had a big old conch shell. Old master would blow it at twelve o’clock for ’em to come in.
“Old master was good to us but I ‘member he had a leather strap and if we chillun had done anything he’d make us younguns put our head ‘tween his legs and put that strap on us. My goodness! He called me Pat and called his own son Bug–his own son Junie. We played together. Old master had nicknames for everybody.
“My first mistress was named Miss Mary but she died. I ‘member when old master married and brought Miss Becky home.
“Marse John (he was old master’s oldest son) he used to tote me about in his saddle bags. He was the overseer.
“I ‘member old master’s ridin’ hoss–a little old bay pony–called him Hardy. I never remember nobody else bein’ on it–that was his ridin’ hoss.
“Old master had dogs. One was Gus and one named Brute (he was a red bone hound). And one little dog they called Trigger. Old master’s head as white as cotton.
“I do remember the day they said the people was free–after the war broke. My father come and got me.
“Now I’m givin’ you a true statement. I’ve been stayin’ by myself twenty-three years. I been here in Pine Bluff–well I jest had got here when the people was comin’ back from that German war.
“My God, we had the finest time when we killed hogs–make sausage. We’d eat cracklin’s–oh, we thought they wasn’t nothin’ like cracklin’s. The Lord have mercy, there was an old beech tree set there in my master’s yard. You could hear that old tree pop ever’ day bout the same time, bout twelve o’clock. We used to eat beech mass. Good? Yes ma’m! I think about it often and wonder why it was right in old master’s yard.
“I’ve cast a many a vote. Not a bit of trouble in the world. Hope elect most all the old officers here in town. I had a brother was a constable under Squire Gaines. Well of course, Miss, I don’t think it’s right when they disfranchised the colored people. I tell you, Miss, I read the Bible and the Bible says every man has his rights–the poor and the free and the bound. I got good sense from the time I leaped in this world. I ‘member well I used to go and cast my vote just that quick but they got so they wouldn’t let you vote unless you could read.
“I’ve had ’em to offer me money to vote the Democrat ticket. I told him, no. I didn’t think that was principle. The colored man ain’t got no representive now. Colored men used to be elected to the legislature and they’d go and sell out. Some of ’em used to vote the Democrat ticket. God wants every man to have his birthright.
“I tell you one thing they did. This here no fence law was one of the lowest things they ever did. I don’t know what the governor was studyin’ ’bout. If they would let the old people raise meat, they wouldn’t have to get so much help from the government. God don’t like that, God wants the people to raise things. I could make a livin’ but they won’t let me.
“The first thing I remember bout studyin’ was Junie, old master’s son, studyin’ his book and I heard ’em spell the word ‘baker’. That was when they used the old Blue Back Speller.
“I went to school. I’m goin’ tell you as nearly as I can. That was, madam, let me see, that was in sixty-nine as near as I can come at it. Miss, I don’t know how long I went. My father wouldn’t let me. I didn’t know nothin’ but work. I weighed cotton ever since I was a little boy. I always wanted to be weighin’. Looked like it was my gift–weighin’ cotton.
“I’m a Missionary Baptist preacher. Got a license to preach. You go down and try to preach without a license and they put you up.
“Madam, you asked me a question I think I can answer with knowledge and understanding. The young people is goin’ too fast. The people is growin’ weaker and wiser. You take my folks–goin’ to school but not doin’ anything. I don’t think there’s much to the younger generation. Don’t think they’re doin’ much good. I was brought up with what they called fireside teachin’.”
Circumstances of Interview
STATE–Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER–Bernice Bowden
ADDRESS–1006 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas DATE–November 2, 1938
SUBJECT–Exslaves
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
1. Name and address of informant–Gracie Mitchell
2. Date and time of interview–November 1, 1938, 3:00 p.m.
3. Place of interview–117 Worthen Street
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant–Bernice Wilburn, 101 Miller Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you–None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.–A frame house (rented), bare floors, no window shades; a bed and some boxes and three straight chairs. In an adjoining room were another bed, heating stove, two trunks, one straight chair, one rocking chair. A third room the kitchen, contained cookstove and table and chairs.
Text of Interview
“They said I was born in Alabama. My mother’s name was Sallie and my father was Andrew Wheeler. I couldn’t tell when I was born–my folks never did tell me that. Belonged to Dr. Moore and when his daughter married he give my mother to her and she went to Mobile. They said I wasn’t weaned yet. My grandmother told me that. She is dead now. Don’t know nothin’ bout nary one o’ my white folks. I don’t recollect nothin’ bout a one of ’em ‘cept my old boss. He took us to Texas and stayed till the niggers was all free and then he went back. Good to me? No ma’m–no good there. And if you didn’t work he’d see what was the matter. Lived near Coffeyville in Upshaw county. That’s whar my husband found me. I was living with my aunt and uncle. They said the reason I had such a good gift makin’ quilts was cause my mother was a seamstress.
“I cooked ‘fore I married and I could make my own dresses, piece quilts and quilt. That’s mostly what I done. No laundry work. I never did farm till I was married. After we went to Chicago in 1922, I took care of other folks chillun, colored folks, while they was working in laundries and factories. I sure has worked. I ain’t nobody to what I was when I was first married. I knowed how to turn, but I don’t know whar to turn now–I ain’t able.
“I use to could plow just as good as any man. I could put that dirt up against that cotton and corn. I’d mold it up. Lay it by? Yes ma’m I’d lay it by, too.
“They didn’t send me to school but they learned me how to work.
“I had a quilt book with a lot o’ different patterns but I loaned it to a woman and she carried it to Oklahoma. Mighty few people you can put confidence in nowdays.
“I don’t go out much ‘cept to church–folks is so critical.
“You have to mind how you walk on the cross; If you don’t, your foot will slip,
And your soul will be lost.”
“I was a motherless chile but the Lord made up for it by givin’ me a good husband and I don’t want for anything.”
Interviewer’s Comment
According to her husband, Gracie spends every spare moment piecing quilts. He said they use to go fishing and that Gracie always took her quilt pieces along and if the fish were not biting she would sew. She showed me twenty-two finished quilt tops, each of a different design and several of the same design, or about thirty quilts in all. Two were entirely of silk, two of applique design which called “laid work”. They were folded up in a trunk and as she took them out and spread them on the bed for me to see she told me the name of the design. The following are the names of the designs:
1. Breakfast Dish
2. Sawtooth (silk)
3. Tulip design (Laid work)
4. “Prickle” Pear
5. Little Boy’s Breeches
6. Birds All Over the Elements
7. Drunkard’s Path
8. Railroad Crossing
9. Cocoanut Leaf (“That’s Laid Work”) 10. Cotton Leaf
11. Half an Orange
12. Tree of Paradise
13. Sunflower
14. Ocean Wave (silk)
15. Double Star
16. Swan’s Nest
17. Log Cabin in the Lane
18. Reel
19. Lily in de Valley (Silk)
20. Feathered Star
21. Fish Tail
22. Whirligig
Gracie showed me her winter coat bought in Chicago of fur fabric called moleskin, and with fur collar and cuffs.
She sells the quilt tops whenever she can. Many are made of new material which they buy.
Personal History of Informant
1. Ancestry–Father, Andrew Wheeler; Sallie Wheeler, mother.
2. Place and date of birth–Alabama. No date known, about 80 years old.
3. Family–Husband and one grown son.
4. Places lived in, with dates–Alabama, Texas till 1897, Arkansas 1897-1922, Chicago, 1922 to 1930. Arkansas 1930 to date.
5. Education, with dates–No education.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates–Cooked before marriage at 16; farmed after marriage; home sewing.
7. Special skills and interests–Quilt making and knitting.
8. Community and religious activities–Assisted husband in ministry.
9. Description of informant–Hair divided into many pigtails and wrapped with rags. Skin, dark. Medium height, slender, clothing soiled.
10. Other points gained in interview–Spends all her time piecing quilts, aside from housework.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Hettie Mitchell (mulatto) Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 69
“I am sixty-nine years old. I was raised in Dyersburg, Tennessee. I can tell you a few things mother told us. My own grandma on mother’s side was in South Carolina. She was stole when a child and brought to Tennessee in a covered wagon. Her mother died from the grief of it. She was hired out to nurse for these people. The people that stole her was named Spence. She was a house woman for them till freedom. She was never sold. Spences was not cruel people. Mother was never sold. She was the mother of twelve and raised nine to a good age–more than grown. The Spences seemed to always care for her children. When I go to Dyersburg they always want us to come to see them and they treat us mighty well.
“Mother was light. She said she had Indian strain (blood) but father was very light and it was white blood but he never discussed it before his children. So I can’t tell you excepting he said he was owned by the Brittians in South Carolina. He said his mother died soon after he was sold. He was sold to a nigger trader and come in the gang to Memphis, Tennessee and was put on the block and auctioned off to the highest bidder. He was a farm hand.
“Mother married father when she was nineteen years old. She was a house girl. She lived close to her old mistress. She was very, very old before she died she nearly stayed at my mother’s house. Her mind wasn’t right and mother understood how to take care of her and was kind to her. The Spences heard about grandma. They wrote and visited years after when mother was a girl.
“The way that father found out about his kin folks was this: One day a creek was named and he told the white man, ‘I was born close to that creek and played there in the white sand and water when I was a little boy.’ The white man asked his name, said he knew the creek well too. Father told him he never was named till he was sold and they named him Sam–Sam Barnett. He was sold to Barnett in Memphis. But his dear own mother called him ‘Candy.’ The white man found out about his people for him and they found out his own dear mother died that same year he was taken from South Carolina from grief. He heard from some of his people from that time on till he died.
“I worked on the farm in Tennessee till I married. I ironed, washed, and have kept my own house and done the work that goes along with raising a small family. We own our home. We have saved all we could along. I have never had a real hard time like some I know. I guess my time is at hand now. I don’t know which way to turn since my husband got down sick.
“I don’t vote. Seem like it used to not be a nice place for women to go where voting was taking place. Now they go mix up and vote. That is one big change. Time is changing and changing the people. Maybe it is the people is changing up the world as time goes by. We colored folks look to the white folks to know the way to do. We have always done it.”
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Mary Mitchell, Hazen, Arkansas Age: 60
“I was born in Trenton, Tennessee. My parents had five children. They were named William and Charlotte Wells. My father ran away and left my mother with all the children to raise. By birth mother was a Mississippian. She had been a nurse and my father was a timber man and farmer. My mother said she had her hardest time raising her little children. She was taken from her parents when a small girl and put on a block and sold. She never said if her owners was bad to her, but she said they was rough on Uncle Peter. He would fight. She said they would tie Uncle Peter and whoop him with a strap. From what she said there was a gang of slaves on Mr. Wade’s place. He owned her. I never heard her mention freedom but she said they had a big farm bell on a tall post in the back yard and they had a horn to blow. It was a whistle made of a cow’s horn.
“She said they was all afraid of the Ku Klux. They would ride across the field and they could see that they was around, but they never come up close to them.”
Circumstances of Interview
STATE–Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER–Bernice Bowden
ADDRESS–1006 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas DATE–November 3, 1938
SUBJECT–Exslaves
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
1. Name and address of informant–Moses Mitchell, 117 Worthen Street
2. Date and time of interview–November 1, 1938, 1:00 p.m.
3. Place of interview–117 Worthen Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
4. Place and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant–Bernice Wilburn, 101 Miller Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you–None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.–A frame house (rented), bare floors, no window shades; a bed and some boxes and three straight chairs. In an adjoining room were another bed, heating stove, two trunks, one straight chair, one rocking chair. A third room, the kitchen, contained cookstove and table and chairs.
Text of Interview
“I was born down here on White River near Arkansas Post, August, 1849. I belonged to Thomas Mitchel and when they (Yankees) took Arkansas Post, our owners gathered us up and my young master took us to Texas and he sold me to an Irishman named John McInish in Marshall for $1500. $500 in gold and the rest in Confederate money. They called it the new issue.
“I was twelve years old then and I stayed in Texas till I was forty-eight. I was at Tyler, Texas when they freed us. When they took us to Texas they left my mother and baby sister here in Arkansas, down here on Oak Log Bayou. I never saw her again and when I came back here to Arkansas, they said she had been dead twenty-eight years. Never did hear of my father again.
“I’m supposed to be part Creek Indian. Don’t know how much. We have one son, a farmer, lives across the river. Married this wife in 1873.
“My wife and I left Texas forty-one years ago and came back here to Arkansas and stayed till 1922. Then we went to Chicago and stayed till 1930, and then came back here. I’d like to go back up there, but I guess I’m gettin’ too old. While I was there I preached and I worked all the time. I worked on the streets and the driveways in Lincoln Park. I was in the brick and block department. Then I went from there to the asphalt department. There’s where I coined the money. Made $6.60 in the brick and block and $7.20 a day in the asphalt. Down here they don’t know no more about asphalt than a pig does about a holiday. _A man that’s from the South and never been nowhere, don’t know nothin’, a woman either_.
“Yes ma’m, I’m a preacher. Just a local preacher, wasn’t ordained. The reason for that was, in Texas a man over forty-five couldn’t join the traveling connection. I was licensed, but of course I couldn’t perform marriage ceremonies. I was just within one step of that.
“I went to school two days in my life. I was privileged to go to the first free school in Texas. Had a teacher named Goldman. Don’t know what year that was but they found out me and another fellow was too old so they wouldn’t let us go no more. But I caught my alphabet in them two days. So I just caught what education I’ve got, here and there. I can read well–best on my Bible and Testament and I read the newspapers. I can sorta scribble my name.
“I’ve been a farmer most of my life and a preacher for fifty-five years. I can repair shoes and use to do common carpenter work. I can help build a house. I only preach occasionally now, here and there. I belong to the Allen Temple in Hoboken (East Pine Bluff).
“I think the young generation is gone to naught. They’re a different cut to what they was in my comin’ up.”
Interviewer’s Comment
This man and his wife live in the outskirts of West pine Bluff. They receive a small sum of money and commodities from the County Welfare Department. He has a very pleasant personality, a good memory and intelligence above the ordinary. Reads the Daily Graphic and Arkansas Gazette. Age 89. He said, “_Here’s the idea, freedom is worth it all_.”
Personal History of Informant
1. Ancestry–Father, Lewis Mitchell; Mother, Rhoda Mitchell
2. Place and date of birth–Oak Log Bayou, White River, near Arkansas Post, Ark.
3. Family–Wife and one grown son.
4. Places lived in, with dates–Taken to Texas by his young master and sold in Marshall during the war. Lived in Tyler, Texas until forty-eight years of age; came back to Arkansas in 1897 and stayed until 1922; went to Chicago and lived until 1930; back to Jefferson County, Arkansas.
5. Education, with dates–Two days after twenty-one years of age. No date.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates–Farmer, preacher, common carpenter, cobbler, public work on streets in Chicago, farmed and preached until he went to Chicago in 1922. The he worked in the maintenance department of city streets of Chicago and of Lincoln Park, Chicago.
7. Special skills and interests–Asphalt worker
8. Community and religious activities–Licensed Methodist Preacher. No assignment now.
9. Description of informant–Five feet eight inches tall; weight, 165 pounds, nearly bald. Very prominent cheek bones. Keen intelligence. Neatly dressed.
10. Other points gained in interview–Reads daily papers; knowledge of world affairs.
Pine Bluff District
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer: Martin – Barker Subject: Negro Customs
Information by: Ben Moon
[TR: Information moved from bottom of second page.]
I was born on the Walker place, in 1869. My father was a slave to Mr. Bob. I used to drive Miss Lelia (Eulalie) to the Catholic church here in Pine Bluff. She used to let me go barefooted, and bare headed.
Miss Lelia was the daughter of Col. Creed Taylor. All during slavery time I drove her gins. We had eight mules. Eight at a time hitched to each lever, they would weave in an out but they was so hitched that they never got in any body’s way. They just walked around and round like they did in those days. We had herds of sheep, we sheared them and wove yarn for socks. We raised wheat, when it was ripe we laid a canvas cloth on the ground and put wheat on it, then men and women on horse back rode over it, and thrashed it that way. They called it treading it. Then we took it to the mill and ground it and made it into flour. For breakfast, (we ate awful soon in the morning), about 4 AM, then we packed lunch in tin buckets and eat again at daylight. Fat meat, cornbread and molasses. Some would have turnip greens for breakfast.
Summertime, Miss Lelia would plant plenty of fruit, and we would have fried apples, stewed peaches and things.
Sunday mornings we would have biscuit, butter, molasses, chicken, etc.
For our work they paid us seventy-five cents a day and when come cotton picking time old rule, seventy five cents for pickin cotton. Christmas time, plenty of fireworks, plenty to eat, drink and everything. We would dance all Christmas.
All kind of game was plentiful, plenty of coon, possum, used up everything that grew in the woods. Plenty of corn, we took it to the grist mill every Saturday.
Ark. riv. boats passed the Walker place, and dey was a landing right at dere place, and one at the Wright place, that is where the airport is now.
All de white folks had plenty of cattle den and in de winter time dey was all turned in on the fields and with what us niggers had, that made a good many, and you know yorself dat was good for de ground.
Mother was a slave on the Merriweather place, her marster was Mick[TR: name not clear] Merriweather. My granma was Gusta Merriweather, my mother Lavina and lived on the Merriweather place in what was then Dorsey county, near Edinburg, now Cleveland Co. My grandfather was Louis Barnett, owned by Nick Barnett of Cleveland co., then Dorsey co. Fathers people was owned by Marse Bob Walker. Miss Lelia (Eulalie) was mistis. Miss Maggie Benton was young mistis.
I dont believe in ghosts or spirits.
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Emma Moore
3715 Short West Second, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 80
Occupation: Laundry work
“I’se born in slavery times. When my daddy come back from the War, he said I was gwine on seven or eight.
“He stayed in the War three years and six months. I know that’s what he always told us. He went with his master, Joe Horton. Looks like I can see old Marse Joe now. Had long sandy whiskers. The las’ time I seed him he come to my uncle’s house. We was all livin’ in a row of houses. Called em the quarters. I never will fergit it.
“I was born on Horton’s Island here in Arkansas. That’s what they told me.
“I know when my daddy went to war and when he come back, he put on his crudiments (accoutrements) to let us see how he looked.
“I seed the soldiers gwine to war and comin’ back. Look like to me I was glad to see em till I seed too many of em.
“Yankees used to come down and take provisions. Yes, ’twas the Yankees!
“My granddaddy was the whippin’ boss. Had a white boss too named Massa Fred.
“Massa Joe used to come down and play with us chillun. His name was Joe Horton. Ever’body can tell you that was his name. Old missis named Miss Mary. She didn’t play with us much.
“Yes ma’am, they sure did take us to Texas durin’ of the War–in a ox wagon. Stayed down there a long time.
“We didn’t have plenty to eat but we had to eat what we did. I member they wouldn’t give us chillun no meat, jus’ grease my mouf and make my mother think we had meat.
“Now my mother told me, at night some of the folks used to steal one of old massa’s shoats and cook it at night. I know when that pot was on the rack but you better not say nothin’ bout it.
“All us chillun stayed in a big long log house. Dar is where us chillun stayed in the daytime, right close to Miss Mary.
“I used to sit on the lever at the gin. You know that was glory to me to ride. I whipped the old mule. Ever’ now and then I’d give him a tap.
“When they pressed the cotton, they wet the press and I member one time they wet it too much. I don’t say they sont it back but I think they made em pay for it. And they used to put chunks in the bale to make it weigh heavy. Right there on that lake where I was born.
“Used to work in the field. These white folks can tell you I loved to work. I used to get as much as the men. My mammy was a worker and as the sayin’ is, I was a chip off the old block.
“The first teacher I went to school to was named Mr. Cushman. Didn’t go only on rainy days. That was the first school and you might say the las’ one cause I had to nuss them chillun.
“You know old massa used to keep all our ages and my daddy said I was nineteen when I married, but I don’t know what year ’twas–honest I don’t.
“I been married three times.
“I member one time I was goin’ to a buryin’. I was hurryin’ to get dressed. I wanted to be ready when they come by for me cause they say it’s bad luck to stop a corpse. If you don’t know that I do–you know if they had done started from the house.
“My mama and daddy said they was born in Tennessee and was bought and brought here.
“I been goin’ to one of these gov’ment schools and got my eyes so weak I can’t hardly see to thread a needle. I’se crazy bout it I’m tellin’ you. I sit up here till God knows how long. They give me a copy to practice and they’d brag on me and that turned me foolish. I jus’ thought I was the teacher herself almos’. That’s the truf now.
“I can’t read much. I don’t fool with no newspaper. I wish I could, woman–I sure do.
“I keep tellin’ these young folks they better learn somethin’. I tell em they better take this chance. This young generation–I don’t know much bout the whites–I’m tellin’ you these colored is a sight.
“Well, I’m gwine away from here d’rectly–ain’t gwine be here much longer. If I don’t see you again I’ll meet you in heaven.”
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Patsy Moore, Madison, Arkansas Age: 74
“My mother was sold in Jamestown, Virginia to Daphney Hull. Her white folks got in debt. My papa was born in Georgia. Folks named Williams owned him. Ma never seen her ma no more but William Hull went to Virginia and bought her two sisters.
“I was named Patsy after grandma in Virginia. She had twenty-one children to ma’s knowing. Ma was a light color. Pa was a Molly Glaspy man. That means he was Indian and African. Molly Glaspy folks was nearly always free folks. Ma was named Mattie. If they would have no children they got trafficked about.
“Daphney Hull was good but William Hull and his wife was both mean. They lived on the main road to Holly Springs. Daphney Hull was a Methodist man, kind-hearted and good. He was a bachelor I think. He kept a woman to cook and keep his house. Auntie said the Yankees was mean to Mr. William Hull’s wife. They took all their money and meat. They had their money hid and some of the black folks let the Yankees find out where it was. They got it.
“Papa was a soldier. He sent for us. We come to Memphis, Tennessee in a wagon. We lived there five or six years. Pa got a pension till he died. Both my parents was field hands in slavery. Ma took in washing and ironing in Memphis.
“I was born in De Sota County, Mississippi. I remember Forrest’s battle in Memphis. I didn’t have sense to be scared. I seen black and white dead in the streets and alleys. We went to the magazine house for protection, and we played and stayed there. They tried to open the magazine house but couldn’t.
“When freedom come, folks left home, out in the streets, crying, praying, singing, shouting, yelling, and knocking down everything. Some shot off big guns. Den come the calm. It was sad then. So many folks done dead, things tore up and nowheres to go and nothing to eat, nothing to do. It got squally. Folks got sick, so hungry. Some folks starved nearly to death. Times got hard. We went to the washtub onliest way we all could live. Ma was a cripple woman. Pa couldn’t find work for so long when he mustered out.
“I do recollect the Civil War well.
“I live with my daughter. I have a cough since I had flu and now I have chills and fever. My daughter helps me all I get. She lives with me.
“Some of the young folks is mighty good. I reckon some is too loose acting. Times is hard. Harder in the winter than in summer time. We has our garden and chickens to help us out in summer.”
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Ada Moorehead
2300 E. Barraque, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 82?
“I was here in slavery times, honey, but I don’t know exactly how old I am. I was born in Huntsville, Alabama but you know in them days old folks didn’t tell the young folks no thin’ and I was so small when they brought me here. I don’t know what year I was born but I believe I’m about eighty-two. You know when a person ain’t able to work and dabble out his own clothes, you know he’s gone a long ways.
“My white folks was Ad White what owned me. Called him Marse Ad. Don’t call folks marse much now-days.
“My father was sold away from us in Alabama and we heard he was here in Pine Bluff so Aunt Fanny brought us here. She just had a road full of us and brought us here to Arkansas. We walked. We was a week on the road. I know we started here on Monday morning and we got here to the courthouse on the next Monday round about noon. That was that old courthouse. I reckon that ground is in the river now.
“When we got here I saw my father. He took me to his sister–that was my Aunt Savannah–and dropped me down.
“Mrs. Reynolds raised me. She come to Aunt Savannah’s house and hired me the very same day I got here. I nursed Miss Katie. She was bout a month old. You know–a little long dress baby. Don’t wear then long dresses now–gettin’ wiser.
“Mrs. Reynolds she was good to me. And since she’s gone looks like I’m gone too–gone to the dogs. Cause when Mrs. Reynolds got a dress for Miss Katie–got one for me too.
“My father was a soldier in the war. Last time I heard from him I know he was hauling salt to the breastworks. Yes, I was here in the war. That was all right to me but I wished a many a time I wasn’t here.
“I went to school two or three days in a week for about a term. But I didn’t learn to read much. Had to hire out and help raise my brother and sister. I’m goin’ to this here government school now. I goes every afternoon.
“Since I got old I can think bout the old times. It comes to me. I didn’t pay attention to nothin’ much when I was young.
“Oh Lord, I don’t know what’s goin’ to become of us old folks. Wasn’t for the Welfare, I don’t know what I’d do.
“I was sixteen when I married. I sure did marry young. I married young so I could see my chillun grown. I never married but once and I stayed a married woman forty-nine years to the very day my old man died. Lived with one man forty-nine years. I had my hand and heart full. I had a home of my own. How many chillun? Me? I had nine of my own and I raised other folks’ chillun. Oh, I been over this world right smart–first one thing and then another. I know a lot of white folks. They all been pretty good to me.”
Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person Interviewed: Mrs. Mary Jane (Mattie) Mooreman Home: with son
Age: 90
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve been in Hot Springs, been in Hot Springs 57 years. That’s a long time. Lots of changes have come–I’ve seen lots of changes here–changed from wooden sidewalks and little wood buildings.
“Your name’s Hudgins? I knew the Hudginses–knew Miss Nora well. What’s that? Did I know Adeline? Did I know Adeline! Do you mean to tell me she’s still alive? Adeline! Why Miss Maud,” (addressing Mrs. Eisele, for whom she works–and who sat nearby to help in the interview) “Miss Maude, I tell you Adeline’s WHITE, she’s white clean through!” (see interview with Adeline Blakeley, who incidentally is as black as “the ace of spades”–in pigmentation.) “Miss Maude, you never knew anybody like Adeline. She bossed those children and made them mind–just like they was hers. She took good care of them.” (Turning to the interviewer) “You know how the Hudgins always was about their children. Adeline thought every one of ’em was made out of gold—made out of pure GOLD.
“She made ’em mind. I remember once, she was down on Central Avenue with Ross and he did southing or other that, wasn’t nice. She walked over to the umbrella stand, you remember how they used to have umbrellas for sale out in front of the stores. She grabbed an umbrella and she whipped Ross with it–she didn’t hurt him. Then she put it back in the stand and said to the man who ran the store, ‘If that umbrella’s hurt, just charge it to Harve Hudgins.’ That’s the way Adeline was. So she’s still alive. Law how I’d like to see her. Bring me a picture of her. Oh Miss Mary, I’d love to have it.
“Me? I was born on Green river near Hartford, Kentucky. Guess I was about a year and a half, from what they told me when my mistress married. Don’t know how she ever met my master. She was raised in a convent and his folks lived a long way from hers. But anyhow she did. She was just 13 when she married. The man she married was named Charles Mooreman M-O-O-R-E-M-A-N. They had a son called Charles Wycliff Mooreman. He was named for his mother’s people. I got a son I called Charles Wycliff too. He works at the Arlington. He’s a waiter. They say he looks just like me. Mr. Charles Wycliff Mooreman–back in Kentucky. I still gets letters from him.
“Miss Mary I guess I had a pretty easy time in slavery days. They was good to us. Besides I was a house niggah.” (Those who have been “house niggahs” never quibble at the word slave or negro. A subtle social distinction brewed in the black race to separate house servants from field hands as far as wealthy planters from “poor white trash.”.) “Once I heard a man say of my mother, ‘You could put on a white boiled shirt and lie flat down on the floor in her kitchen and not get dirty.'”
“Cook? No, ma’am!” (with dignity and indignation) “I never cooked until after I was married, and I never washed, never washed so much as a rag. All I washed was the babies and maybe my mistress’s feet. I was a lady’s maid. I’d wait on my mistress and I’d knit sox for all the folks. When they would sleep it was our duty–us maids–to fan ’em with feathers made out of turkey feathers–feather fans. Part of it was to keep ’em cool. Then they didn’t have screens like we have today. So part of it was to keep the flies off. I remember how we couldn’t stomp our feet to keep the flies from biting for fear of waking ’em up.
“No, Miss Mary, we didn’t get such, good food. Nobody had all the kinds of things we have today. We had mostly buttermilk and cornbread and fat meat. Cake? ‘Deed we didn’t. I remember once they baked a cake and Mr. Charles Wycliff–he was just a little boy–he got in and took a whole fistful out of the cake. When Miss found out about it, she give us all doses of salts–enough to make us all throw up. She gave it to all the niggahs and the children–the white children. And what did she find out? It was her own child who had done it.
“Yes ma’am we learned to read and write. Oh, Miss Maude now–I don’t want to recite. I don’t want to.” (But she did “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “The Playful Kitten”–the latter all of 40 lines.) “I think, I think they both come out of McGuffey’s second Reader. Yes ma’am I remember’s McGuffey’s and the Blueback speller too.
“No, Miss Mary, there wasn’t so much of the war that was fought around us. I remember that old Master used to go out in the front yard and stand by a locust tree and put his ear against it. He said that way he could hear the cannon down to Bowling Green. No, I didn’t never hear any shooting from the war myself.
“Yes ma’am, the Confederates used to come through lots. I remember how we used to go to the spring for water for ’em. Then we’d stand with the buckets on our heads while they drank–drank out of a big gourd. When the buckets was empty we’d go back to the spring for more water.
“Once the Yankees come by the place. It was at night. They went out to the quarters and they tried to get ’em to rise up. Told ’em to come on in the big house and take what they wanted. Told ’em to take anything they wanted to take, take Master’s silver spoons and Miss’ silk dress. ‘If they don’t like it, we’ll shoot their brains out,’ they said. Next morning they told Master. He got scared and moved. At that time we was living at Cloverport.
“It was near the end of the war and we was already free, only we didn’t know it. He moved on up to Stephensport. That’s on the Ohio too. He took me and a brother of mine and another black boy. While we was there I remember he took me to a circus. I remember how the lady–she was dressed in pink come walking down a wire–straight on down to the ground. She was carrying a long pole. I won’t never forget that.
“Not long afterwards I was married. We was all free then. My husband asked my master if he could marry me. He told him ‘You’re a good man. You can come and live on my farm and work for me, but you can’t have Mattie.’ So we moved off to his Master’s farm.
“A little while after that his Master bought a big farm in Arkansas. He wanted to hire as many people as he could. So we went with him. He started out well, but the first summer he died. So everything had to be sold. A man what come down to bid on some of the farm tools and stock–come to the auction, he told us to come on up to Woodruff county and work for him. We was there 7 years and he worked the farm and I took care of myself and my babies. Then he went off and left me.
“I went in to Cotton Plant and started working there. Finally he wrote me and tried to get me to say we hadn’t never been married. Said he wanted to marry another woman. The white folks I worked for wouldn’t let me. I’d been married right and they wouldn’t let me disgrace myself by writing such a letter.
“Finally I came on to Hot Springs. For a while I cooked and washed. Then I started working for folks, regular. For 9 years, tho, I mostly washed and ironed.
“I came to Hot Springs on the 7th of February–I think it was 57 years ago. You remember Miss Maud–it was just before that big hail storm. You was here, don’t you remember–that hail storm that took all the windows out of all the houses, tore off roofs and swept dishes and table-cloths right off the tables. Can’t nobody forget that who’s seen it.
“Miss Mary, do you know Miss Julia Huggins? I worked for her a long time. Worked for her before she went away and after she came back. Between times I cooked for Mrs. Button (Burton–but called Button by everyone) Housley. When Miss Julia come back she marches right down to Mrs. Housley’s and tells me she wants me to work for her again. ‘Can’t get her now,’ says Mrs. Housley, ‘Mattie’s done found out she’s black.’ But anyhow I went to see her, and I went back to work for her, pretty foxy Miss Julia was.
“I been working for Mrs. Eisele pretty near twenty five years. Saw her children grow up and the grand children. Lancing, he’s my heart. Once when Mr. and Mrs. Eisele went to see Mrs. Brown, Lancing’s mother, they took me with them. All the way to Watertown, Wisconsin. There wasn’t any more niggas in the town and all the children thought I was somthing to look at. They’d come to see me and they’d bring their friends with ’em. Once while we was there, a circus come to town. The children wanted me to see it. Told me there was a negro boy in it. Guess they thought it would be a treat to me to see another niggah. I told ’em, ‘Law, don’t you think I see lots, lots more than I wants, everyday when I is at home?’
“It used to scare me. The folks would go off to a party or a show and leave me alone with the baby. No, Miss Mary, I wasn’t scared for myself. I thought somebody might come in and kidnap that baby. No matter how late they was I’d sit on the top step of the stairs leading upstairs–just outside the door where Lansing was asleep. No matter what time they come home they’d find me there. ‘Why don’t you go on in your bedroom and lie down?’ they’d ask me. ‘No,’ I’d tell ’em, ‘somebody might come in, and they would have to get that baby over my dead body.’
“Jonnie, that’s my daughter” (Mrs. D.G. Murphy, 338 Walnut Street, a large stucco house with well cared for lawn) “she wants me to quit work. I told her, ‘You put that over on Mrs. Murphy–you made her quit work and took care of her. What happened to her? She died! You’re not going to make me old.’
“Twice she’s got me to quit work. Once, she told me it was against the law. Told me there was a law old folks couldn’t work. I believed her and I quit. Then I come on down and I asked Mr. Eisele” (an important business executive and prominent in civic affairs, [HW: aged 83]) “He rared back and he said, ‘I’d like to see anybody stop me from working.’ So I come on back.
“Another time, it was when the old age pensions come in. They tried to stop me again. Told me I had to take it. I asked Mr. Eisele if I could work just the same. ‘No,’ he says ‘if you take it, you’ll have to quit work.’ So I stamped my foot and I says, ‘I won’t take nobody’s pension.’
“The other day Jonnie called up here and she started to crying. Lots of folks write her notes and say she’s bad to let me work. Somebody told her that they had seen me going by to work at 4 o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t no such. I asked a man when I was on the way and it was 25 minutes until 5. Besides, my clock had stopped and I couldn’t tell what time it was. Yes, Miss Mary, I does get here sort of early, but then I like it. I just sit in the kitchen until the folks get up.
“You see that picture over there, it’s Mr. Eisele when he was 17. I’d know that smiling face anywhere. He’s always good to me. When they go away to Florida I can go to the store and get money whenever I need it. But it’s always good to see them come back. Miss Maud says I’m sure to go to Heaven, I’m such a good worker. No, Miss Mary, I’m not going to quit work. Not until I get old.”
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Evelina Morgan
1317 W. Sixteenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: App. 81
[TR: Original first page moved to follow second page per HW: Insert this page before Par. 1, P. 3]
“I was born in Wedgeboro, North Carolina, on the plantation of–let me see what that man’s name was. He was an old lawyer. I done forgot that old white man’s name. Old Tom Ash! Senator Ash–that’s his name. He was good to his slaves. He had so many niggers he didn’t know them all.
“My father’s name was Alphonso Dorgens and my mother’s name was Lizzie Dorgens. Both of them dead. I don’t know what her name was before she married. My pa belonged to the Dorgens’ and he married my ma. That is how she come to be a Dorgen. Old Man Ash never did buy him. He just visited my mother. They all was in the same neighborhood. Big plantations. Both of them had masters that owned lots of land. I don’t know how often he visited my mother after he married her. He was over there all the time. They were right adjoining plantations.
“I was born in a frame house. I don’t know nothin’ about it no more than that. It was j’ined to the kitchen. My mother had two rooms j’ined to the kitchen. She was the old mistress’ cook. She could come right out of the kitchen and go on in her room.
“My father worked on the farm. They fed the slaves meat and bread. That is all I remember–meat and bread and potatoes. They made lots of potatoes. They gave ’em what they raised. You could raise stuff for yourself if you wanted to.
“My mother took care of her children. We children was on the place there with her. She didn’t have nobody’s children to take care of but us.
“I was six years old during of the War. My ma told me my age, but I forgot it; I never did have it put down. The only way I gits a pension, I just tells ’em I was six years old during of the War, and they figures out the age. Sorta like that. But I know I was six years old when the Rebels and the Yankees was fighting.