You can't get the whole story by reading the words in this interview.
You have to hear the tones and the accents, and see the facial
expressions and bodily movements, and sense the sometimes almost occult
influence; you have to feel the utter lack of resentment that lies
behind the words that sound vehement when read. You marvel at the quick,
smooth cover-up when something is to be withheld, at the unexpected
vigor of the mind when the bait is attractive enough to draw it out, and
at the sweetness of the disposition. Some old people merely get
mellowed and sweetened by the hardships through which they have passed.
Sometimes, you wonder if some of the old folk don't have dispositions
that they can turn off or on at will.
It is not hard to realize the reason why Amanda was treated better than
other children when you remember that she called her grandpa "Master".
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: "Cat" Ross
Brassfield, Ark.
Age: Born 1862
"I was born in Releford County on old Major Ross place. I was born
durin' a battle between the North and South at Murfreesboro. The house
was on the battle ground. Mama had five children. Her name was Susanna
Wade. Papa's name was Amos Ross. He belong to Major Bill Ross. Major
Ross had ten houses houses--one at the edge of the thicket, two on Stone
river, and they was scattered around over his land. Major Ross never
went to war. Papa went with Major Billy to bury his gold. It stayed
where they put it till after the war they went and dug it up. I seen
that. When they brought it to the house, it was a pot--iron pot--full of
gold. I didn't know where they had it buried nor how they fixed it.
"My folks was all field hands. They muster been blessed cause
they didn't get mixed up with the other nations. Grandfather's
mother--Grandma Venus--come from Africa. She'd been in bondage about
a hundred years. I recollect her well. My folks all lived to be old
people, over a hundred years old. They was all pretty well, all
Africans.
"I have seen the Ku Klux quarter mile long and two breasted on horses.
They scared me so bad I never had no experiences with them. They run my
uncle in. He was a big dancer. One time they made him dance. He cut the
pigeon-wing for them. That was the name of what he danced.
"I never was sold. I was give way. One of the Wades married into the
Mitchell family. Mama belong to the Wades. They give me and Mama and
Aunt Sallie--she wasn't my aunt but I called her that--to Wade's
daughter. She was the young mistress. The Wades wasn't so good to their
slaves. When freedom was declared, Papa come and got me and Mama and
took us on over to his place agin. We started sharecroppin' at Major
Ross's place. In 1881 Chick McGregor paid my way. I come to Arkansas.
I farmed all my life till 1922 to 1933 I been here in Brassfield
sawmilling. They took the mill away from here. I cain't plough, I'm not
able. I pick and hoe cotton. I work day labor. I never have got on the
Welfare."
Southfield
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer: Pernella Anderson
Subject: Centennial Snow--Spring in St. Louis addition
Name: Mattie Ross
Occupation: Gardening
Residence: South Field, Oil Field.
Age: 74
[TR: Information moved from bottom of second page.]
Ah wuz born aftuh surrender. Ah guess ah'm about 74 years ole. Mah pa
wuz er slave an mah ma wuz too. Dey moster wuz name Green Traylor an dey
lived right down dar at _Tula_ Creek. Mah mistess wuz named Martha
Traylor an dey name me aftuh huh. Mah name is Martha Lee Traylor. Aftuh
she mahried huh name wiz Martha Tatum. We worked down dar. Oh! Mah Lawd!
How we did work--all ovah dat bottom. De puttiest fiel' ah evah did see.
De Traylor's owned hit den. Later on de Tatums bought hit fum dem and
years aftuh dat de Nash's bought hit fum de Tatums. But new all uv dat
place is growed up. Nothing but er pine thicket and er black berry
thicket. Ye caint hardly walk through de place. Later on de Cobbs owned
us. George Cobb wuz his name. He lived down in de Caledonia settlement.
Ah went behin' him er many er day wid de hoe or he'd crack mah haid.
He use tuh be de sheriff here de years uv de boom an his nephew is de
sheriff now--Grady Wosley. Later en while ah wuz a gull ah werked fuh
de Swilleys an wuz partly raised on dey plantation. De ole man wuz name
Lawson Swilley. His wife, Margaret Swilley, and I clare dem two people
treated me white. She mammied me er many er day. Ah wuz bred and born
right down dar er-round Caledonia. Ah wuz a big gull durin de time uv de
centennial snow. Dis snow wuz called dat cause hit wuz de bigges snow
dat evah been. Hit wuz ovah yo haid. We had tuh spade our way evah whah
we went. Tuh de wood gitting place, tuh de sping, tuh de hoss lot, and
evah whah. De anow wuz warm an soft. We piled up so much snow till hit
took hit er half er year tuh melt. Dat snow stayed on de groun two
months.
Ah am de muthah uv five gulls and fo' boys. Didn nairy one uv mah gulls
come in de pen till dey wuz mahried. Ah use tuh fish in er big ole fish
pond rat down whah de wesson depot is now. Years ergo people come fum
Camden an othuh places tuh fish in dat fish pond.
Mr. Sam Austin sole old man Burgy (Burgiss?) er piece uv groun' to bury
folks in and he wuz de first man tuh die an be buried dar. So dey name
hit de Burgy Cemetery.
Down dar in Memphis Addition atah the colored Prof. Dykes place dar use
tuh be one uv de bes' springs. Course at dat time hit wuz er big ole
fiel' den and de watuch wuz jes lak ice watuh.
Dat make me think. Mah pa sed he went tuh de wah tuh cook fuh his ole
moster, Green Traylor. Well pa said dar wuz er spring whar dey got
watuh. Said he went tuh git watuh outen de sping and had tuh pull dead
men outn de spring an dat day drinked of'n dem dead men all while de wah
wuz going on.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Laura Rowland
(Bright Mulatto)
Age: 65?
Address: Brinkley, Arkansas
"My parents name was Mary Ann and Sam Billingslea. Mother's father lived
with us when I first remember. His name was Robert Todd. He was a brown
skin Negro. They said he was a West Indian. He talked of olden times but
I don't remember well enough to tell you. Father owned a home that we
was living on when I first remember. Mother was bright color, too.
Vaden, Mississippi was our trading post. Mother had twenty children. She
was a worker. She would work anywhere she was put. My folks never talked
much about slavery. I don't know how they got our place.
"I know they was bothered by the Ku Klux. One night they heard or saw
the Ku Klux coming. The log house set low on the ground but was dug out
to keep potatoes and things in--a cellar like. The planks was wide, bout
a foot wide, rough pine, not nailed down. They lifted the planks up and
all lay down and put the planks back up. The house look like outside
nothing could go under it, it was setting on the hard ground. When they
got there and opened the doors they saw nobody at home and rode off.
"Another time, one black night, a man--he must have been a
soldier--strided a block step with his horse and ordered supper. She
told him she didn't have nothing cooked and very little to cook. He
cursed and ordered the supper. Told her to get it. She pretended to be
fixing it and slipped out the back door down the furrows and squatted
in the briers in a fence corner. Long time after she had been out there
hid, he come along, jumped the fence on his horse, jumped over her back,
down into the lane and to the road he went. If the horse hadn't jumped
over her and had struck her he would have killed her. Now I think he was
a soldier, not the Ku Klux. I heard my father say he was a yard boy.
"I married in Mississippi and came to Malvern and Hot Springs. He was a
mill hand. I raised three children of my own and was a chamber maid.
I kept house and cooked for Mrs. Bera McCafity, a rich woman in Hot
Springs. My husband died and was buried at Malvern. I married again, in
Hot Springs, and lived there several years. We went to the steel mill at
Gary, Indiana. He died. I come back here and to Brinkley in 1920. One
daughter lives in Detroit and one in Chicago. The youngest one is
married, has a family and a hard time; the other makes her living. It
takes it all to do her. I get $8.00 on the P.W.A.
"They all accuse me around here of talking mighty proper. I been around
fine city folks so much I notice how they speak.
"I don't fool with voting. I don't care to vote unless it would be some
town question to settle. I would know something about it and the people.
"I don't know my age. I was grown when I married nearly sixty years ago.
We have to show our license to get on the W.P.A. or our age in the Bible
you understand."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Landy Rucker
2315 W. Fourth Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 83
"I was born in 1854 in the State of Georgia, Elbert County.
"I member some about the war. I went to the field when I was twelve.
Pulled fodder, picked peas and tended to the cow pen. I had to go then.
We had _a good master_. _Our mistress wasn't good though_. She
wouldn't give us enough to eat. Old master used to ask if we had enough
to eat and he'd pull out great big hams and cut em all to pieces and
give em to us. Old mistress would cry and say, 'You're givin' away all
my good dinner.' But she repented since the war. She said she didn't do
right.
"We got here to Pine Bluff in '61.
"Oh yes, I remember comin' here on the train and on the boat.
"Old mistress whipped us when she thought we needed it. I been pretty
good all my life.
"My father was a blacksmith and one day when I was six or seven I was
takin' his dinner when some dogs smelled the dinner and smelled me too
and they got after me. I had to climb a tree and they stayed around till
they heard some other dogs barkin' and ran off. I come down then and
took my bucket and left. Nother time some hogs chased me. They rooted
all around the tree till they heard somethin' crackle in the woods and
run off and then I'd come down.
"After the war I went to school three days and the teacher whipped me. I
went home and I didn't go back. I went home and went to the field. I had
a mother and a sister and I tried to make a living for them.
"I went to school a little while after that and then went to the field.
Most I know I learned by myself.
"Yes'm, I seen the Yankees bout a year fore the war ceasted. They come
to get somethin' to eat and anything else they could get. Got the mules
and things and took my two brothers and put em in the war. One come back
after surrender and the other one died in the war. They said they was
fightin' to free the niggers from being under bondage.
"I seen the Ku Klux. Looked like their horses could fly. Made em jump a
big high fence. They come and took my father and all the other men on
the place and was goin' to put em in the Confederate army. But papa was
old and he cried and old mistress thought a lot of him so they let him
stay. I just lay down and hollered cause they was takin' my brothers,
but they didn't keep em long. One of my brothers, six years older than
me, come up here to Pine Bluff to jine the Yankees.
"We could hear the guns at Marks Mill.
"I been married twice. There was about eleven years betwixt the two
marriages.
"I worked on the farm till about '85. Then I worked in the planing mill.
I got hit by a car and it broke my hip so I have to walk on crutches
now. Then I got me a little shoe shop and I got along fine till I got so
I couldn't set down long enough to fix a pair of shoes. I bought this
house and I gets help from the Relief so I'm gettin' along all right
now."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Martha Ruffin
1310 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 80
"I was born in North Carolina, and I was seven years old when the
Surrender was. Every one of my children can tell you when they was born,
but I can't. My mother, Quinettie Farmer was her name. Brother Robert
Farmer is my cousin. He is about the same age as my husband. He got
married one week and me and my husband the next. My father's name was
Valentine Farmer. My grandmother on my mother's side was Mandy Harrison,
and my grandfather's name on my mother's side was Jordan Harrison. My
grandpa on my father's side was named Reuben Farmer, and his wife was
Nancy Farmer. I have seed my grandpa and grandma on my father's side.
But my mother didn't see them on my mother's side.
"I 'members my daddy's white folks' names, Moses Farmer. My father never
was sold. My daddy, Valentine Farmer, was a ditcher, shoemaker, and
sometimes a tanner. My mother was a house girl. She washed and ironed. I
couldn't tell exactly what my grandparents did. My grandparents, so my
parents told me, were mostly farmers. I reckon Moses Farmer owned about
three hundred slaves.
"I was born on Robert Bynum's place. He was my mother's owner. He
married one of the Harrison girls and my mother fell to that girl. My
mother done just about as she pleased. She didn't know nothin' about
workin' in the field till after the Surrender.
"The way my mother and father happened to meet--my old master hired my
daddy to do some work for him and he met my mama that way.
"The way my folks learned they was free was, a white school-teacher who
was teaching school where we stayed told my mother she was free, but
not to say nothing about it. About three weeks later, the Yankees come
through there and told them they was free and told my old boss that if
he wanted them to work he would have to hire them and pay them. The
school-teacher stayed with mother's folks--mother's white folks. The
school-teacher was teaching white folks, not niggers. She was a Yankee,
too. My mother was the house girl, and the school-teacher stayed with
her folks. The War was so hot she couldn't git no chance to go back
home.
"My daddy farmed after the War. He farmed on shares the first year. The
next year, he bought him a horse. He finally owned his own farm. He
owned it when he died. He had about one hundred acres of land.
"I have pretty fair health for an old woman like I am. I am bothered
with the rheumatism. The Lawd wouldn't let both of us git down at the
same time. (Here she refers to her husband who was sick in bed at
the time she made the statement. You have his story already. It was
difficult for her to tell her story, for he wanted it to be like
his--ed.)
"I belong to the Primitive Baptist Church. I haven't changed my
membership from my home.
"I got married in 1882, in February. How many years is that? I got so I
can't count up nothin'. Fifty-six years. Yes, that's it; that's how long
I been married. I had a little sister that got married with me. She
didn't really git married; she just stood up with me. She was just a
little baby girl. They told me I was pretty near twenty-three years old
when I married. I have a daughter that's been married twenty-five years.
We had older daughters, but that one was the first one married. I have
got a daughter over in North Little Rock that is about fifty years old.
Her husband is dead. We had ten children. My daughter is the mother of
ten children too. She got married younger than I did. This girl I am
living with is my baby. I have four children living--three girls and one
boy. A woman asked me how many children I had and I told her three. She
was a fortuneteller and she wanted to tell me my fortune. But I didn't
want her to tell me nothin'. God was gittin' ready to tell me somethin'
I didn't want to hear. I've got five great-grandchildren. We don't have
no great-great-grandchildren. Don't want none."