[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of second page.]
An humble cottage, sheltered by four magnificent oak trees, houses an interesting old negro, Albert Cummins.
Texarkana people, old and young, reverence this character, and obtain from him much valuable information concerning the early life of this country. This ex-slave was freed when he was fifteen years old, but continued to live in the same family until he was a man. He says: "All de training an' advice I evah had come frum mah mistress. She wuz a beautiful Christian; if I am anybody, I owe it to her. I nevah went to school a day in mah life; whut I know I absorbed frum de white folks! Mah religion is De Golden Rule. It will take any man to heaben who follows its teachings.
"Mah mahster wuz kilt in de battle fought at Poison Springs, near Camden. We got separated in de skirmish an' I nevah did see him again. Libin' at that time wuz hard because dere wuz no way to communicate, only to sen' messages by horseback riders. It wuz months befo' I really knew dat mah mahster had been kilt, and where.
"Mr. Autrey bought mah mother when I wuz an infant, and gave us de protection an' care dat all good slave owners bestowed on their slaves. I worshipped dis man, dere has nevah been anudder like him. I sees him often in mah dreams now, an' he allus appears without food an' raiment, jus' as de South wuz left after de war."
"I came heah when Texarkana wuz only three years old, jus' a little kindly village, where we all knew each udder. Due to de location an' de comin' ob railroads, de town advanced rapidly. Not until it wuz too late did de citizens realize whut a drawback it is to be on de line between two states. Dis being Texarkana's fate, she has had a hard struggle overcoming dis handicap for sixty-three years. Still dat State Line divides de two cities like de "Mason and Dixon Line" divides the North an' South.
"Living on the Arkansas side of this city, Albert Cummins is naturally very partial to his side. "The Arkansas side is more civilized", according to his version. "Too easy fo' de Texas folks to commit a crime an' step across to Arkansas to escape arrest an' nevah be heard ob again."
"I can tell you all about my kin folks. My mama's owners was Mars John Moore and Miss Molly Moore. They come from Virginia and brought Grandma Mahaley and Grandpa Tom.
"Mr. Daniel Johnson went to North Carolina and bought Alice and John and their family. When he brought them to Mississippi, they come in a hack. It was snowing and cold. It took em so long to came they take turns walkin'. Grandma was walking long wid the hack and somewhere she cut through and climbed over a railin' fence. She lost her baby outer her quilts and went on a mile fore she knowed bout it. She say, 'Lawd, Master Daniel, if I ain't lost my baby.' They stopped the hack and she went back to see where her baby could be. She knowed where she got out the hack and she knowed she had the baby then. Fore she got to the fence she clum over, she seed her baby on the snow. She said the sun was warm and he was well wrop up. That all what saved em. She shuck him round till she woke him up. She was so scared he be froze. When he let out cryin' she knowed he be all right. She put him in the foot of the hack mong jugs of hot water what they had to keep em warm. She say he never had a cold from it. Well, that was John, my papa, what she lost in de snow. Grandma used to set and tell us that and way I can member it was my own papa she be talkin' bout.
"Papa was raised up by the Johnson family and mama by the Moore family. Den Alice Moore had em marry her and John Johnson. Their plantations joined, and joined Judge Reid's (or Reed's) place. We all had a big time on them three farms. They was good to their niggers but Mr. ---- they said whooped his niggers awful heep.
"Ed Amick was Mars Daniel Johnson's overseer. He told him he wanted his slaves treated mighty good and they was good. Yes ma'am, they was good to em!! We had a plenty to eat. Every Saturday they killed a lamb, a goat or a yearlin' and divided up mong his folks and the niggers. Us childen would kill a peafowl and they let us eat em. White folks didn't eat em. They was tender seem like round the head.
"Miss Evaline was Mars Daniel's sister. She was a old maid. Miss Evaline, Aunt Selie old nigger woman and Brittain old nigger man done nuthin' but raise chickens, geese, guineas, ducks, pigeons. They had a few turkeys and peafowls all the time. When they stewed chicken it was stewed in a big black pot they kept to cook fowls in. They fry chicken in a pot er grease then turn drap sweet biscuit bread in. They put eggs in it, too. They call it marble cakes. Then they pour sweet milk in the bottom grease and make good gravy. When they rendered up lard they always made marble cakes. They cut marble cakes all kind er shapes and twisted em round like knots and rings. They take em up in big pans big as dish pans.
"We had plenty to eat and plenty flannel and cotton check dresses. Regular women done our quiltin' and made our dresses. She made our dresses plain waist, full gathered skirt and buttons down the backs on our waist.
"I was named for Miss Betty Johnson. Mars Daniel bought me books. I slip and tear ABC's outen every book he buy for me. Miss Betty say A-B-C-D; I say after her. She say, 'Betty, you ain't lookin' on the book.' I say, 'Miss Betty, I hear Miss Cornelia's baby woke up. Agin Miss Betty—she was my young mistress—ABC's me sayin' em long wid her. I say, 'Miss Betty, I smell ginger bread, can't I go git a piece?' She say, 'Betty—I'm so sorry I name you fer me. I wish I named Mary.' I say, 'Then you name Mary Betty an' give me nother name.' Miss Betty git me down agin to sayin' the ABC's, I be lookin' off. She say, 'Betty, you goin' to be a idiot.' I say, 'That what I wanter be—zactly what I wanter be.' I didn't know what a idiot was then.
"I took up crocheting. Miss Cornelia cut me some quilt pieces. She say 'Betty that's her talent' bout me. Miss Betty say, 'If she goin' to be mine I want her to be smart.' Miss Mary lernt my sister Mary fast.
"When I was bout fifteen I was goiner to the nigger school. I wanted to go to the white school wid Miss Mag. Miss Betty say, 'Betty, that white woman would whoop you every day.' I take my dinner in a bucket and go on wid Mary. I'd leave fore the teacher have time to have my lesson and git in late. The teacher said, 'Betty, Miss Cornelia and Miss Betty say they want you to be smart and you up an' run off and come in late, and do all sorts er ways. Ain't you shamed?'
"They had a big entertainment. Miss Betty learned me a piece to say—poetry. I could lern it from sayin' it over wid Miss Betty. They bought me and Mary our fust calico dresses. I lack to walked myself to death. I was so proud. It had two ruffles on the bottom of the skirt and a shash tied at the waist behind. We had red hats wid streamers hanging down the back. The dresses was red and black small checks. Mary lernt her piece at school. We had singing and speeches and a big dinner at the school closin'.
"Mr. John Moore went to war and was killed at the beginnin' of the first battle soon as he got there. They had a sayin, 'You won't last as long as John Moore when he went to war.'
"Mr. Criss Moore was kickin' a nigger boy. Old Miss say, 'Criss, quit kickin' him, you hurt him.' He say, 'I ain't hurtin' him, I'm playin' wid him!' White boys played wid nigger boys when they come round the house. Glad to meet up to get to play.
"Mr. Criss Moore, Jr. (John Moore's grandson) is a doctor way up North and so is Mr. Daniel Johnson, Jr. One of em in Washington I think. I could ask Miss Betty Carter when I go back to Mississippi.
"When I left Mississippi Mr. Criss hated to see me go. Mr. Johnson say, 'I wanted all our niggers buried on our place.' He say to Jim, my husband, 'Now when she die you let me know and I'll help bring her back and bury her in the old graveyard.' When my papa died Mr. Johnson had the hearse come out and get him and take him in it to the graveyard. He was buried by mama and nearly all the Johnson, Moore, and Reed (or Reid) niggers buried there. My husband is buried here (Hazen, Arkansas) but he was a Curlett.
"Papa set out apple trees on the old Johnson place, still bearin' apples. The old farm place is forty-eight miles from Tupelo and three miles from Houlka, Mississippi.
"My mother had eighteen children and I had sixteen but all mine dead now but three. Mama's ma and grandpapa Haley had twenty-two children. Yes ma'am, they sho did have plenty to eat. Mars Daniel say to his wife, 'Cornelia, feed my niggers.' That bout last he said when he went off to war. Mars Green, Daniel, and Jimmie three brothers. Three Johnson brothers buried their gold money in stone jars and iron cookin' pots fore they left and went to war.
"When the fightin' stopped, people was so glad they rung and rung the farm bells and blowed horns—big old cow horns. When Mars Daniel come home he went to my papa's house and says, 'John, you free.' He says, 'I been free as I wanter be whah I is.' He went on to my grandpa's house and says, 'Toby, you are free!' He raised up and says, 'You brought me here frum Africa and North Carolina and I goiner stay wid you long as ever I get sompin to eat. You gotter look after me!' Mars Daniel say, 'Well, I ain't runnin' nobody off my place long as they behave.' Purtnigh every nigger sot tight till he died of the old sets. Mars Daniel say to grandpa, 'Toby, you ain't my nigger.' Grandpa raise up an' say, 'I is, too.'
"They had to work but they had plenty that made em content. We had good times. On moonlight nights somebody ask Mars Daniel if they could have a cotton pile, then they go tell Mars Moore and Judge Reid (or Reed). They come, when the moon peep up they start pickin'. Pick out four or five bales. Then Mars Daniel say you come to the house. Ring the bell. Then we have a big supper—pot of chicken, stew and sweet potatoes roasted. Have a wash pot full of molasses candy to pull and all the goobers we could eat.
"Then we had three banjos. The musicians was William Word, Uncle Dan Porter, and Miles Porter. Did we dance? Square dance. Then if somebody been wantin' to marry they step over the broom and it be nounced they married. You can't get nobody—colored folks I mean—to step over a broom; they say it bad luck. If it fall and they step over they step back. They say if somebody sweep under your feet you won't marry that year. Folks didn't visit round much. They had some place to go they went but they had to work. They work together and done mighty little—idle vistin'. Folks took the knitting long visting lest it be Sunday.
"White women wouldn't nurse their own babies cause it would make their breast fall. They would bring a healthy woman and a clean woman up to the house. They had a house close by. She would nurse her baby and the white baby, too. They would feed her everything she wanted. She didn't have to work cause the milk would be hot to give the babies. Dannie and my brother Bradford, and Mary my sister and Miss Maggie nursed my mama. Rich women didn't nurse their babies, never did, cause it would cause their breast to be flat.
"My papa was the last slave to die. Mama died twelve months fore he died. I was born after freedom but times changed mighty little mama and papa said. Grandma learned me to cut doll dresses and Miss Cornelia learned me to sew and learned Aunt Joe (a ex-slave Negro here in town) to play Miss Betty's piano. She was their house girl. Yes ma'am, when I was small girl she was bout grown. Aunt Joe is a fine cook. Miss Cornelia learnt her how. I could learned to played too but I didn't want to. I wanted to knit and crochet and sew. Miss Cornelia said that was my talent. I made wrist warmers and lace. Sister Mary would spin. She spun yarn and cotton thread. They made feather beds. Picked the geese and sheared the sheep. I got my big feather bed now.
"When I married, Miss Betty made my weddin' dress. We had a preacher marry us at my home. My mama give me to Miss Betty and they raised me. I was the weaslingest one of her children. She give me to Miss Betty. Now she wants me to come back. I think I go back Christmas and stay. Miss Betty is old and feeble now. I got three children living here in Hazen now. All I got left.
"The men folks did all go off, white and black, and vote. I don't know how they voted. Now, honey, you know I don't know nothing bout voting.
"Times is so changed. Conditions so changed that I don't know if the young generation is improved much. They learn better but it don't do em no more good. It seems like it is the management that counts. That is the reason my grandpa didn't want to leave Mars Daniel Johnson's. He was a good manager and Miss Betty is a good manager. We don't know how to manage and ain't got much to manage wid. That the way it looks to me. Some folks is luckier than others."
[TR: Additional topic moved from subsequent page.]
[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of first page.]
"My mother said during the war and in slavery times they ate out of wooden spoons and bowls they made." They cooked a washpot full of peas for a meal or two and roasted potatoes around the pot in the ashes. They always cooked hams and greens of all kinds in the big iron pots for there were so many of them to eat and in slavery times the cook, cooked for her family in with what she cooked for the Master. They made banks of dirt, sand, leaves and plank and never washed the sweet potatoes till they went to cook them. They had rows of banks in the garden or out behind some of the houses, and had potatoes like that all winter and in the spring to bed.
They saved the ashes and put them in a barrel and poured water over them and saved the drip—lye—and made soap or corn hominy—made big pots of soap and cooked pots full of lye hominy. They carried corn to the mill and had it ground into meal and flour made like that too. The women spun, wove, and knitted. The men would hunt between crop times. If the slaves were caught stealing, the Patty Row would catch him and his master whip him.
My Grandpas and Grandmas and Mamma's Master was John Moore. Mr. John said before his daughter and wife should go to the washtub he would wade blood saddle-skirt deep. He set out to war. Went to Vicksburg and was killed.
His wifes name was Mrs. Elisabeth and his daughters name was Miss Inez. They say thats where the saying "He won't last longer than John Moore did when he went to war" sprang up but I don't know about that part of it for sure.
Grandma Becky said when the Yankees came to Mrs. Moores house and to Judge Rieds place they demanded money but they told them they didn't have none. They stole and wasted all the food clothes, beds. Just tore up what they didn't carry with them and burned it in a pile. They took two legs of the chickens and tore them apart and threw them down on the ground, leaving piles of them to waste.
Song her Mother and Grandmother sang:
Musical Instrument
"The only musical instrument we had was a banjo. Some made their banjos. Take a bucket or pan a long strip of wood. 3 horse hairs twisted made the base string. 2 horsehairs twisted made the second string. 1 horse hair twisted made the fourth and the fifth string was the fine one, it was not twisted at all but drawn tight. They were all bees waxed."
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
1. Name and address of informant—J.H. Curry, Washington, Arkansas
2. Date and time of interview—
3. Place of interview—Washington, Arkansas
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant—
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Personal History of Informant
1. Ancestry—father, Washington Curry; mother, Eliza Douglass; grandmother; Malinda Evans; grandfather, Mike Evans.
2. Place and date of birth—Born in Haywood County, Tennessee in 1862.
3. Family—
4. Places lived in, with dates—Tennessee until 1883. From 1883 until now, in Arkansas.
5. Education, with dates—He took a four-years' course at Haywood after the war.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—Minister
7. Special skills and interest—Church work.
8. Community and religious activities—Preacher
9. Description of informant—
10. Other points gained in interview—His father was a slave and he tells lots of slavery.
[HW: Master Educates Slave]
Text of Interview (Unedited)
"I was born in 1862, September first. I got that off the Bible. My father, he belonged to a doctor and the doctor, he was a kind of a wait man to him. And the doctor learnt him how to read and write. Right after the War, he was a teacher. He was ready to be a teacher before most other people because he learnt to read and write in slavery. There were so many folks that came to see the doctor and wanted to leave numbers and addresses that he had to have some one to 'tend to that and he taught my father to read and write so that he could do it.
"I was born in Tennessee, in Haywood County. My father was born in North Carolina, so they tell me. He was brought to Tennessee. He was a slave and my mother was a slave. His name was Washington Curry and my mother's name was Eliza Douglass before she married. Her master was named John Douglass and my father's master was named T.A. Curry, Tom Curry some folks called him.
"I don't know just how many slaves Tom Curry owned. Lemme see. There was my daddy, his four brothers, his five sisters. My father's father had ten children, and my father had the same number—five boys and six girls. Ten of us lived for forty years. My mother had ten living children when she died in 1921. Since '21, three girls died. My father died in 1892.
"My father's master had around a hundred slaves. Douglass was a richer man than my father's master. I suspect he had two hundred slaves. He was my mother's father as well as her master. I know him. He used to come to our house and he would give mama anything she wanted. He liked her. She was his daughter.
"My father's father—I can't remember what his name was. I know his mother was Candace. I never did see his father but I saw my grandma. He was dead before I was born. My mother's mother was named Malinda Evans. Only one thing I remember that was remarkable about her. Her husband was a free man named Mike Evans. He come from up North and married her in slave time and he bought her. He was a fine carpenter. They used to hire him out to build houses. He was a contractor in slave time. I remember him well.
"After the War, he used to have white men getting training for the carpenter's training under him. He was Grandma Evans' husband. He wasn't my father's father. My father was born before Grandma Evans was freed. All the rest of them were born afterward. They sold her to him but the children all belonged to the Douglasses. He probably paid for her on time and they kept the children that was born.
"The doctor was good to my father. Way after freedom, he was our family doctor. He was at my father's bedside when father died. He's dead now.
"My father was a carpenter and a wait man (waiter). He was a finished carpenter. He used to make everything 'round the house. Sometimes he went off and worked and would bring the money back to his master, and his master would give him some for himself.
"My mother worked 'round the house. She was a servant. I don't know that she ever did the work in the field. My daddy just come home every Saturday night. My father and mother always belonged to different masters in slavery time. The Douglasses and the Currys were five or six miles apart. My father would walk that distance on Saturday night and stay there all day Sunday and git up before day in the morning Monday so that he would be back home Monday morning in time for his work. I remember myself when we moved away. That's when my memory first starts.
"I could see that old white woman come out begging and saying, 'Uncle Washington, please don't carry Aunt Lize away.' But we went on away. When we got where we was going, my mother made a pallet on the floor that night, and the three children slept on the pallet on the floor. Nothing to eat—not a bite. I went to bed hungry, and you know how it is when you go to bed hungry, you can't sleep. I jerk a little nod, and then I'd be awake again with the gnawing in my stomach. One time I woke up, and there was a big light in the house, and father was working at the table, and mama reached over and said, 'Stick your head back under the cover again, you little rascal you.' I won't say what I saw. But I'll say this much. We had the finest breakfast the next morning that I ever ate in all my life.
"I used to hear my people talk about pateroles but I don't reckon I can recall now what they said. There is a man in Washington named Bob Sanders. He knows everything about slavery, and politics too. He used to be a regular politician. He is about ninety years old. They came there and got him about two year ago and paid him ten dollars a day and his fare. Man came up and got him and carried him to the capitol in his car. They were writing up something about Arkansas history.
"I have been married fifty-seven years. I married in 1881. My wife was a Lemons. I married on February tenth in Tennessee at Stanton. Nancy Lemons.
"I went to public school a little after the war. My wife and I both went to Haywood after we were married. After we married and had children, we went. I took a four-years' course there when it was a fine institution. It's gone down now.
"I was the oldest boy. We had two mules. We farmed on the halves. We made fifteen bales of cotton a year. Never did make less than ten or twelve.
"I have been in the ministry fifty-three years. I was transferred to Arkansas in 1883 in the conference which met at Humboldt. My first work here was in Searcy in 1884.
"I think the question of Negro suffrage will work itself out. As we get further away from the Civil War and the reconstruction, it will be less and less opposition to the Negro's voting. You can see a lot of signs of that now.
"I don't know about the young people. They are gone wild. I don't know what to say about them.
"I think where men are able to work I think it is best to give them work. A man that is able to work ought to be given work by the government if he can't get it any other way."
"I was told I was born in '57 in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana.
"Oh, I can remember before the War broke out. Yes ma'am, I had good owners. Old master and mistress was named James Railey and Matilda Railey. I called her mistress.
"I remember one time my father carried me to Natchez on Christmas to spend with his people. His parents were servants on a plantation near Natchez.
"I remember two shows I saw. They was the Daniel Rice shows. They was animal shows but they had em on a boat, kind of a flatboat. We didn't have trains and things like that—traveled on the big waters.
"I remember when we refugeed to Texas in '63. They raised tobacco there.
"We got free in '65 and the Governor or somebody ordered all the owners to take all the folks back that wanted to go.
"All the young folks, they had them in Tyler, Texas makin' bullets. My father had the care of about fifty youngsters makin' bullets.
"Old master had two plantations in Louisiana and three in Mississippi. He was a large slaveholder.
"When we got back to Louisiana from Texas, ever'thing was the same except where the levees had been cut and overflowed the land.
"Old master died before the War broke out and my mistress died in '67.
"My father died in Texas. That left my mother a widow. She spent about two weeks at the old home place in Louisiana. She pulled up then and went to Natchez to my father's people. She made two crops with my young master. His name was Otie Railey. Help her? Well, I was comin'. I had one brother and one sister.
"In '68 she worked with a colored man on the shares.
"I started to school in '67. A colored man come in there and established a private school. I went in '67, '68, and '69 and then I didn't go any more till '71 and '72. I got along pretty well in it. I know mine from the other fellows. I can write and any common business I can take care of.
"We had two or three men run off and joined the Yankees. One got drowned fore he got there and the other two come back after freedom.
"My mother worked for wages after freedom. She got three bales of cotton for her services and mine and she boarded herself.
"In '74 she rented. I still stayed with her. She lived with me all her life and died with me.
"I come over to Arkansas the twenty-third day of December in 1916. Worked for Long-Bell Lumber Company till they went down. Then I Just jobbed around. I can still work a little but not like I used to.
"I used to vote Republican when I was interested in politics but I have no interest in it now.
"The younger generation is faster now than they was in my time. They was more constrictions on the young people. When I was young I had a certain hour to come in at night. Eight o'clock was my hour—not later than that. I think the fault must be in the times but if the parents started in time they could control them.
"I remember one time a cow got after my father and he ran, but she caught up with him. He fell down and she booed him in the back. My grandfather come up with a axe and hit her in the head. She just shook her head and went off.
"Outside of my people, the best friend I ever met up with was a white man."
[HW: Food Rationed]
"I was born in North Carolina, in Halifax County, in the country near Scotland Neck. My mother's name was Nellie Doggett. Her name was Hale before she married. My father's name was Tom Doggett. I never did see any of my grand people.
"My mother's master was named Lewis Hale. He was a farmer. He was fairly good himself but the overseers wasn't. They have mistreated my mother. All I know is what I heard, of course; I wasn't old enough to see for myself. My mother was a field hand. She worked on the farm. My father did the same thing.
"My father and mother belonged to different masters. I forgot now who my father said he belonged to. My father didn't live on the same plantation with my mother. He just came and visited her from time to time.
Food
"Sometimes they didn't have any food to eat. The old missis sometimes saw that my mother's children were fed. My mother's master was pretty good to her and her children, but my father's master was not. Food was issued every week. They give molasses, meal, a little flour, a little rice and along like that.
House
"My mother and father lived in old weatherboard houses. I don't know whether all of the slaves lived in weatherboarded houses or not. But I nursed the children and had to go from one house to the other and I know several of them lived in weatherboarded houses. Most of the houses had two rooms. The food that was kept by the slaves, that is the rations given them, was kept in the kitchen part of the house.
Breeding
"I don't know of any cases where slaves were compelled to breed but I have heard of them. I don't know the names of the people. Just remember hearing talk about them.
Freedom Comes
"My mother and father never found out they were free till April 1865. Some of them were freed before then. I don't know how they found it out, but I heard them talking about it.
Right after Freedom
"Right after freedom, my father and mother worked right on in the same place just like they always did. I reckon they paid them, I don't know. They did what they wanted to.
Patrollers, Ku Klux, and Reconstruction
"I remember the Ku Klux. They used to come and whip the niggers that didn't have a pass. I think them was pateroles though. There was some people too who used to steal slaves if they found them away from home, and then they would sell them. I don't know what they called them. I just remember the Ku Klux and the pateroles.
"The Ku Klux were the ones that whipped the niggers that they caught out without a pass. I don't remember any Ku Klux whipping niggers after the War because they were in politics.
Voters and Officeholders
"I have heard of Negroes voting and holding office after the War. I wasn't acquainted with any of them except a man named Kane Gibbs and another named Cicero Barnes. I heard the old people talking about them. I don't know what offices they held. They lived in another county somewhere.
Life Since Emancipation
"I went from North Carolina to Louisiana, and from Louisiana here. They had it that you could shake trees out in Louisiana and the money would fall off. They had some good land out there too. One acre would make all you wanted—corn or anything else. That was a rich land. But I don't know—I don't care what you had or what you owned when you left there, you had to leave it there. Never would give you no direct settlement or pay you anything; that is, pay you anything definite. Just gave you something from time to time. Whatever you had you had to leave it there.
Occupational Experiences
"I used to work in the field when I was able. That was when I was in the country. When I came to the city I usually did washing and ironing. Now I can't do anything. All the people I used to work for is dead. There was one woman in particular. She was a good woman, too. I don't have any help at all now, except my son. He has a family of his own—wife and seven children. Right now, he is cut off and ain't making nothing for himself nor nobody else. But I thank God for what I have because things could be much worse."
Interviewer's Comment
Here again, there is a confusion of patrollers with Ku Klux. It seems to point to a use of the word Ku Klux before the War. Of course, it is clear that the Ku Klux Klan operated after the War.
Ella Daniels' age is given as seventy-four on her insurance policy, and I have placed that age on the first page of this story in the heading. But three children were born after her and before the close of the War. She says they were born two years apart. Allowing that the youngest was born, in 1864, the one next to her would have been born in 1860, and she would have been born in 1858. This seems likely too because she speaks of nursing the children and going from house to house (page two) and must have been quite a child to have been able to do that. Born in 1858, she would have been seven years old in 1865 and would have been able to have been doing such nursing as would have been required of her for two years probably. So it appears to me that her age is eighty, but I have recorded in the heading the same age decided upon for insurance.
"I was born at Monticello, Arkansas at the last of the Cibil (Civil) War. My parents' names was Richard and Ann Allen. They had thirteen children. Mother was a house girl and papa a blacksmith and farmer.
"My great-grandma and grandpa was killed in Indian Nation (Alabama) by Sam and Will Allen. They was coming west long 'fo'e the war from one of the Carolinas. I disremembers which they told me. Great-grandpa was a chief. They was shot and all the children run but they caught my Grandma Evaline and put her in the wagon and brought her to Monticello, Arkansas. They fixed her so she couldn't get loose from them. She was a little full-blood Indian girl then. They got her fer my great-grandpa a wife. He seen her and thought she was so pretty.
"She was wild. She wouldn't eat much else but meat and raw at that. She had a child 'fo'e ever she'd eat bread. They tamed her. Grandpa's pa that wanted the Indian wife was full-blood African. Mama was little lighter than 'gingercake' color.
"My Indian grandma was mean. I was feard of 'er. She run us down and ketch us and whoop us. She was tall slender woman. She was mean as she could be. She'd cut a cat's head off fer no cause er tall. Grandpa was kind. He'd bring me candy back if he went off. I cried after him. I played with his girl. We was about the same size. Her name was Annie Mathis. He was a Mathis. He was a blacksmith too at Monticello and later he bought a farm three and one-half miles out. I was raised on a farm. Papa died there. I washed and done field work all my life. Grandma married Bob Mathis.
"Our owner was Sam and Lizzie Allen. William Allen was his brother. I think Sam had eight children. There was a Claude Allen in Monticello and some grandchildren, Eva Allen and Lent Allen. Eva married Robert Lawson. I lived at Round Pond seventeen or eighteen years, then come to Forrest City. I been away from them Allen's and Mathis' and Gill's so long and 'bout forgot 'em. They wasn't none too good to nobody—selfish. They'd make trouble, then crap out of it. Pack it on anybody. They wasn't none too good to do nothing. Some of 'em lazy as ever was white men and women. Some of 'em I know wasn't rich—poor as 'Jobe's stucky.' I don't know nothing 'bout 'em now. They wasn't good.
"I was a baby at freedom and I don't know about that nor the Ku Klux. Grandpa started a blacksmith shop at Monticello after freedom.
"My pa was a white man. Richard Allen was mama's husband.
"Me and my husband gats ten dollars from the Old Age Pension. He is ninety-six years old. He do a little about. I had a stroke and ain't been no 'count since. He can tell you about the Cibil War."
Interviewer's Comment
I missed her husband twice. It was a long ways out there but I will see him another time.
"I was born in Mississippi. My mistress was Jane Davis. She raised me. She owned my mother too.
"When Miss Jane's husband died, he willed the niggers to his childun and Mandy Paine owned me then. When I was one month old they said I was so white Mandy Paine thought her brother was my father, so she got me and carried me to the meat block and was goin' to cut my head off. When the childun heard, they run and cried, 'Mama's goin' to kill Harriet's baby.' Old mistress, Jane Davis, heard about it and she come and paid Miss Jane forty dollars for me and carried me to her home, and I slep right in the bed with her till the war ceasted."
"Her childun was grown and they used to come by and say, 'Ma, why don't you take that nigger out of your bed?' and she'd reach over and pat me and say, 'This the only nigger I got.'
"I stayed there two or three years after freedom. I didn't know what free meant. Big childun all laugh and say, 'All niggers free, all niggers free.' And I'd say, 'What is free?' I was lookin' for a man to come.
"I worked in the house and in the field. I had plenty chances to go to school but I didn't have no sense.
"My mother was sold to nigger traders and I never did see her again. I always say I never had no mother, and I never did know who my father was.
"I've worked hard since I got to be a women. I never been the mother of but three childun. Me and my boy stay together.
"I had a happy time when I lived with Miss Jane, but I been workin' ever since."
"They said I was born in 1862, the second day of March, in Little Rock.
"I 'member the War. I 'member the bluecoats. I knowed they was fightin' but I didn't know what about.
"My old master was killed in the War. I don't know his name, I just heered 'em call him old master.
"I know old missis kept lookin' for him all durin' the War and looked for him afterward. As long as I could understand anything she was still lookin'.
"Far as I know, my parents stayed with old missis after the War.
"I 'member my father hired me out when I was a little boy. They treated, me good.
"Never have done anything 'cept farm work. I'm failin' now. Hate to say so but I found out I am.
"I never did want to go away from here. I could a went, but I think a fellow can do better where he is raised. I have watched the dumb beasts go off with others and see how they was treated, so I never did crave to go off from home. I have knowed people have went away and they'd bring 'em back dead, and I'd say to myself, 'I wonder how he died?' I've studied it over and I've just made myself satisfied.
"I went to school some but I was the biggest help the old folks had and they kept me workin'."