The old lady sat with her eyes nearly closed while I questioned her and
listened to her story. Those eyes ran and looked as though they needed
attention badly. The interview was conducted entirely on the porch as
that of Annie Parks. Traffic interrupted; friends interrupted; and a
daughter interrupted from time to time. But this daughter, while a
little suspicious, was in no degree hostile. The two of them referred
me to J.T. Tims, who, they said, knew a lot about slavery. His story is
given along with this one.
I got the impression that the old lady was born before the War, but
I accepted her statement and put her down as born since the War and
guessed her age as near seventy. She was evidently quite reserved about
some details. Her father's marriage to her mother after the War would
not necessarily mean that he was not married to her slave fashion before
the War. She didn't care so much about giving any story, but she was
polite and obliging after she had satisfied herself as to my identity
and work.
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Omelia Thomas
1014 W. Fifth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 63
"I was born in Marianna, Lee County, in Arkansas. I wasn't born right in
the town but out a piece from the town in the old Bouden place, in 1875.
My father kept a record of all births and deaths in his Bible. He never
forgot whenever a new baby would come to get down his glasses and
pen and ink and Bible. My daddy learned to read and write after the
emancipation.
"My father's name was Frank Johnson and my mother's name was Henrietta
Johnson. I don't know the given names of my father's and mother's
parents. I do know my mother's mother's name. Lucinda, and my father's
mother was named Stephens. I don't know their given names. My mother's
master was a Trotter.
"My father was a free man. He hired his own time. He told me that
his father hired his own time and he would go off and work. He made
washpots. He would go off and work and bring back money and things. His
mother was free too. When war was declared, he volunteered to go. He
was with the Yankees. My father worked just like my grandfather did.
Whenever he had a job to do. He never had a lick from anybody, carried
his gun strapped down on his side all the time and never went without
it.
"After the War, he worked on a steamboat. They used to kick the
roustabouts about and run them around but they never laid the weight of
their hands on him.
"They wouldn't allow him to go to school in slavery time. After the War,
he got a Blue Back Speller and would make a bowl of fire and at night
he would study--sometimes until daybreak. Then he found an old man that
would help him and he studied under him for a while. He never went to
any regular school, but he went to night school a little. Most of what
he got, he got himself.
"He was born in Louisville, Kentucky. I don't know how he happened to
meet my mother. During the time after the War, he went to running on the
boat from New Orleans to Friar Point, Mississippi. Then he would come
over to Helena. In going 'round, he met my mother near Marianna and
married her.
"Mother never had much to say, and the other girls would have a big time
talking. He noticed that she was sewing with ravelings and he said,
'Lady, next time I come I'll bring you a spool of thread if you don't
mind.' He brought the thread and she didn't mind, and from then on, they
went to courting. Finally they married. They married very shortly after
the War.
"My mother was a motherless girl. My daddy said he looked at her
struggling along. All the other girls were trying to have a good time.
But she would be settin' down trying to make a quilt or something else
useful, and he said to a friend of his, 'That woman would make a good
wife; I am going to marry her.' And he did.
"She used to spin her fine and coarse sewing thread and yarn to make
socks and stockings with. Her stockings and socks for the babies and
papa would always be yarn. She could do pretty work. She had a large
family. She had seventeen children and she kept them all in things she
made herself. She raised ten of them. She would make the thread and yarn
and the socks and stockings for all of these. I have known the time when
she used to make coats and pants for my father and brothers. She would
make them by hand because they didn't have any machines then. Of course,
she made all the underwear. She put up preserves and jellies for us to
eat in the winter. She used to put up kraut and stuff by the barrel. I
have seen some happy days when I was with my daddy and mother. He raised
pigs and hogs and chickens and cows. He raised all kinds of peas and
vegetables. He raised those things chiefly for the home, and he made
cotton for money. He would save about eight or ten bales and put them
under his shed for stockings and clothes and everything. He would have
another cotton selling in March.
"When my father was in the army, he would sometimes be out in the
weather, he told us, and he and the other soldiers would wrap up in
their blankets and sleep right in the snow itself.
"I farmed all my life until 1897. I farmed all my life till then. I was
at home. I married in 1895. My first husband and I made three crops and
then he stopped and went to public work. After that I never farmed any
more but went to cooking and doing laundry work. I came from Clarendon
here in 1901.
"I never had any experiences with the Yankees. My mother used to tell
how they took all the old master's stuff--mules and sugar--and then
throwed it out and rode their horses through it when they didn't want it
for theirselves.
"I married a second time. I have been single now for the last three
years. My husband died on the twentieth of August three years ago. I
ain't got no business here at all. I ought to be at my home living well.
But I work for what I get and I'm proud of it.
"A working woman has many things to contend with. That girl downstairs
keeps a gang of men coming and going, and sometimes some of them
sometimes try to come up here. Sunday night when I come home from
church, one was standing in the dark by my door waiting for me. I had
this stick in my hand and I ordered him down. He saw I meant business;
so he went on down. Some of them are determined.
"There's no hope for tomorrow so far as these young folks are concerned.
And the majority of the old people are almost worse than the young ones.
Used to be that all the old people were mothers and fathers but now they
are all going together. Everything is in a critical condition. There is
not much truth in the land. All human affection is gone. There is mighty
little respect. The way some people carry on is pitiful."