Sallie Crane lives near the highway between Sweet Home and Wrightsville.
Wrightsville post office, Lucinda Hays' box. McLain Birch, 1711 Wolfe
Street, Little Rock, knows the way to her house.
Her age is not less than ninety, because she hoed cotton and plowed
before the War. If anything, it is more than the ninety which she
claims. Those who know her well say she must be at least ninety-five.
She has a good memory although she complains of her health. She seems to
be pretty well dependent on herself and the Welfare and is asking for
old clothes and shoes as you will note by the story.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Isaac Crawford
Brinkley, Ark.
Age: 75
"I was born the first year of the Civil War. I was born and raised and
married in Holmes County, Mississippi. My parents was named Harriett and
James Crawford. They belong to a widow woman, Miss Sallie Crawford. She
had a girl named Bettie and three sons named Sam, Mack, Gus. Mack and
Gus was heavy drinkers. Moster Sam would drink but he wasn't so bad.
They wasn't mean to the Negroes on the place. They had eight or nine
families scattered around over their land.
"I farmed till I was eighteen then they made me foreman over the hands
on the place I stayed till after I married.
"I know Sam was in the war and come home cripple. He was in the war five
years. He couldn't get home from the war. I drove his hack and toted him
to it. I toted him in the house. He said he never rode in the war; he
always had to walk and tote his baggage. His feet got frost bit and raw.
They never got well. He lived. They lived close to Goodman, Mississippi.
"I heard my mother say she was mixed with Creole Indian. She was some
French. My father was pure African. Now what am I?
"Ole mistress wasn't mean to none of us. She wrung my ears and talked to
me. I minded her pretty good.
"The children set on the steps to eat and about under the trees. Some
folks kept their children looking good. Some let em go. They fed em--set
a big pot and dip em out greens. Give em a cup of milk. We all had
plenty coarse victuals. We all had to work. It done you no good to be
fraid er sweat in them days.
"I didn't know bout freedom and I didn't care bout it. They didn't give
no land nor no mules away as I ever know'd of.
"The Ku Klux never come on our place. I heard about em all the time. I
seen em in the road. They look like hants.
"I been farming all my life. I come here to farm. Better land and no
fence law.
"I come to 'ply to the P.W.A. today. That is the very reason you caught
me in town today."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mary Crosby
1216 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 76
"Good morning. I don't know anybody 'round here that was born in slavery
times 'cept me. I don't know exactly when I was born in Georgia but I
can remember my mama said her old master, Mat Fields, sent my father and
all the other men folks to Arkansas the second year of the war. After
the war, I remember there was a colored man named Mose come from
Mississippi to Georgia and told the colored folks they could shake money
off the trees in Mississippi. Of course they was just ignorant as cattle
and they believed him. I know I thought what a good time I would have. I
can remember seeing old master crying cause his colored folks all
leaving, but Mose emigrated all of us to Mississippi.
"He kept emigrating folks over there till he like to got killed. The
white people give him a stayaway and told him not to come back, but he
sure did get some colored folks out of Georgia.
"I 'member they said the war was to free the niggers. They called it the
Civil War. I never did know why they called it that. I can't 'member
things like I used to.
"My mother's old master's granddaughter, Miss Anne, had a baby that was
six months old when I was born and mama said old master come in and tell
Miss Ann, 'I've got a new little nigger for Mary Lou.' He said he was
goin' to give her ten and that I was her first little nigger. When we
was both grown Mary Lou used to write to me once a year and say 'I claim
you yet, Mary.'
"I 'member when Garfield was shot. That was the first time I ever heard
of gangrene.
"Yes'm I have worked hard all my life. When I was in Mississippi I used
to make as much as ten dollars a week washin' and ironin'. But I'm not
able to work now. The Welfare helps me some."
[HW: (COPY)]
El Dorado Division
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS (Ex-Slave)
Mrs. Mildred Thompson
Federal Writers' Project
Union County, Arkansas
[TR: hand dated Nov. 6, 1936]
[TR: Ellen Crowley]
Ellen Crowley an old Negress of Jefferson county, known as "old Aunt
Ellen" to both white and colored people. She was quite a character; a
slave during Civil War and lived in Mississippi. She later married and
moved to Arkansas.
Aunt Ellen was much feared and also respected by the colored race owing
to the fact that she could foretell the future and cast a spell on those
she didn't like. This unusual talent "come about" while on a white
plantation as a nurse. She foretold of a great sorrow that would fall on
her white folks and in the year two children passed away. One day soon
after she was being teased by a small negro boy to whom she promptly put
the 'curse' on and in later years he was subject to "fits."
She said she was "purty nigh" 200 when asked her age, always slept in
the nude, and on arising she would say: "I didn't sleep well last night,
the debil sit at my feet and worried my soul" or vice versa "I had a
good rest the Lord sit at my head and brought me peace."
She was immaculate about her person and clothes and always wore a red
bandana around her head.
Her mania was to clean the yard. When asked about her marriage she would
say: "I been married seven times" but Jones, Brown and Crowley were the
only husbands she could remember by name. She said the other "four no
count Negroes wasn't worth remembering."
She was ever faithful to those she worked for, and was known to walk ten
and twelve miles to see her white folks with whom she had work. Would
come in and say: "Howdy, I'se come to stay awhile. I'll clean the yard
for my victuals and I can sleep on the floor." She would go on her way
in a few days leaving behind a clean yard and pleasant memories of a
faithful servant.
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Richard Crump
1801 Gaines Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 82
[HW: Father Takes a "Deadening"]
"I was born right here in Aberdeen, Mississippi about five miles from
the town on the east side of the Tom Bigbee River in Monroe County,
Mississippi.
"My father's name was Richard Crump. My mother was named Emily Crump. My
grandmother on my father's side was named Susan Crump. My mother came
from Middleton, Tennessee. But I don't know nothing about any of her
people. My father said he come from South Carolina when he was a boy
eight or ten years old. That was way before I was born. They brought him
to Mississippi from South Carolina.
"My father's master was old man Johnnie Crump. My mistress was named
Nina Crump. That was Johnnie Crump's wife. My mars had four boys to my
remembrance. One was named Wess, one was named Rufe, one was named Joe,
and one was named Johnnie. He had a girl named Annie and one named Lulu.
"My mother was the mother of thirteen children. I am the onliest one
living, that I know of. The way they gwine with us now, I ain't goin' a
be here long. Just got four dollars to pay rent and bills and git
somethin' to eat for a month. You don't git nothin' much when you git
the commodities--no grease to cook with.
"We never had no trouble much when I was coming along. My mars was a
pretty good old man. He didn't allow no overseer to whip his slaves. The
overseer couldn't whip my old mother anyhow because she was a kind of
bully and she would git back in a corner with a hoe and dare him in. And
he wouldn't go in neither.
"My grandmother had three or four sons. One was name Nels Crump, another
was named Miles and another was named Henry and another Jim. She had two
or three more but I can't think of them. They died before I was old
enough to know anything. Then she had two or three daughters. One was
named Lottie. She had another one but I can't think of her name. I was
so little. All of them are dead now. All of my people are dead but me.
They are trying to find a sister of mine, but I ain't found her yet. She
oughter be down here by Forrest City somewheres. But there ain't nobody
here that I know about but me. And the way they're carryin' them now I
ain't goin' to be here long. All of them people you hear me talk about,
they're supposed to be dead.
"I was born in 1858. At least the old man told me that. I mean my father
of course. The first thing I knowed anything about was picking cotton. I
was a little bitty old fellow with a little sack hangin' at my side. I
was pickin' beside my mother. They would grab us sometimes when we
didn't pick right. Shake us and pull our ears.
"I didn't know anything about sellin' and buying. I never was sold.
"The next thing I remember was being told I was free. My daddy said old
mars told them they were free. I didn't hear him tell it myself. They
come 'round on a Monday morning and told papa and the rest that they
were free as he was and that they could go if they wanted to or they
could stay, 'cause they were free as he was and didn't have no master no
more, didn't have no one to domineer over them no more.
"Right after freedom, my folks worked on old man Jim Burdyne's farm.
That is the first place I remember after freedom. Father taken a little
deadening. You don't know what a deadening is? That's a lease. He
cleaned up some land. We boys were just gettin' so we could pick up
brush and tops of trees--and burn it, and one thing and another. Two
years after the War was over, I got big enough to plow. I was plowing
when I was nine years old. We had three boys and four girls older than
me. The balance of them was born after freedom. We made crops on shares
for three years after freedom, and then we commenced to rent. Shares
were one-third of the cotton and one-fourth of the corn. They didn't pay
everything they promised. They taken a lot of it away from us. They said
figures didn't lie. You know how that was. You dassent dispute a man's
word then. Sometimes a man would get mad and beat up his overseer and
run him away. But my daddy wouldn't do it. He said, 'Well, if I owe
anything I'll pay it. I got a large family to take care of.'
"I never got a chance to go to school any. There was too much work to
do. I married when I was twenty-one. I would go off and stay a month or
two and come back. Never left home permanent for a long while. Stayed
'round home till I was forty years old. I come to Arkansas in 1898. I
made a living by farming at first.
"I didn't shoot no craps. I belong to the church. I have belonged to the
church about forty years or more. I did play cords and shoot craps and
things like that for years before I got religion.
"I come to Little Rock in 1918 and been here ever since. I worked 'round
here in town first one thing and then another. Worked at the railroad
and on like that.
"We used to vote right smart in Mississippi. Had a little trouble
sometimes but it would soon die down. I haven't voted since I been here.
Do no good nohow. Can't vote in none of these primary elections. Vote
for the President. And that won't do no good. They can throw your ballot
out if they want to.
"I believe in the right thing. I wouldn't believe in anything else. I
try to be loyal to the state and the city. But colored folks don't have
much show. Work for a man four or five years and go back to him and he
don't know nothin' about you. They soon forget you and a white man's
word goes far.
"I was able to work as late as 1930, but I ain't been no 'count since to
do much work. I get a pension for old age from the Welfare and
commodities and I depend on that for a living. Whatever they want to
give me, I'll take it and make out with it. If there's any chance for me
to git a slave's pension, I wish they would send it to me. For I need it
awful bad. They done cut me way down now. I got heart trouble and high
blood pressure but I don't give up.
"My mother sure used to make good ash cake. When she made it for my
daddy, she would put a piece of paper on it on top and another on the
bottom. That would keep it clean. She made it extra good. When he would
git through, she would give us the rest. Sometimes, she wouldn't put the
paper on it because she would be mad. He would ask, 'No paper today?'
She would say, 'No.' And he wouldn't say nothin' more.
"There is some of the meanest white people in the United States in
Mississippi up there on the Yellow Dog River. That's where the Devil
makes meanness.
"There's some pretty mean colored folks too. There is some of them right
here in Little Rock. Them boys from Dunbar give me a lot of trouble.
They ride by on their bicycles and holler at us. If we say anything to
them, they say, 'Shut up, old gray head.' Sometimes they say worse. I
used to live by Brother Love. Christmas the boys threw at the house and
gave me sass when I spoke to them. So I got out of that settlement. Here
it is quiet because it is among the white folks."
Interviewer: Mrs. Carol Graham, El Dorado Division
Person interviewed: Zenia Culp
Age: Over 80
[Jan 29 1938]
"Yas'm, my name is Zenia, Zenia Culp 'tis now since I married. My old
master's name was Billy Newton. Him and three more brothers come here
and settled in this county years ago and Master Billy settled this farm.
I was born and raised here and ain't never lived nowheres else. I used
to be nurse girl and lived up at the big house. You know up there where
Mr. John Dunbar's widow lives now. And the family burying groun' is jus'
a little south of the house where you sees them trees and tomb stones
out in the middle of the field.
"Master Billy's folks was so good to me and I sure thought a heap of
young Master Billy. Believe I told you I was the nurse girl. Well, young
Master Billy was my special care. And he was a live one too. I sure had
a time keepin' up wid that young rascal. I would get him ready for bed
every night. In summer time he went barefoot like all little chaps does
and course I would wash his foots before I put him to bed. That little
fellow would be so sleepy sometime that he would say: 'Don't wash em,
Zenia, jes' wet em.' Oh, he was a sight, young Master Billy was.
"Does you know Miss Pearl? She live there in El Dorado. She is young
master's widow. Miss Pearl comes out to see me sometime and we talks
lots bout young Master Billy.
"Yas'm, I'se always lived here where I was born. Never moved way from de
old plantation. Course things is changed lots since the days when old
Master Billy was livin'. When he went off to the war he took most of the
men black folks and the womens stayed home to take care of mistress and
the chillun.
"My husban' been dead a long, long time and I live here wid my son. His
wife is gone from home dis evenin'. So I thought I'd come out and pick
off some peanuts jes' to git out in the sunshine awhile. That's my son
out there makin' sorghum. My daughter-in-law is so good to me. She
treats me like I was a baby.
"You asks me to tell you something bout slave days, and how we done our
work then. Well, as I tell you, my job was nurse girl and all I had to
do was to keep up wid young Master Billy and that wasn't no work tall,
that was just fun. But while I'd be followin' roun' after him I'd see
how the others would be doin' things.
"When they gathered sweet potatoes they would dig a pit and line it with
straw and put the tatoes in it then cover them with straw and build a
coop over it. This would keep the potatoes from rotting. The Irish
potatoes they would spread out in the sand under the house and the
onions they would hand up in the fence to keep them from rotting.
"In old Master Newton's day they didn' have ice boxes and they would put
the milk and butter and eggs in buckets and let em down in the well to
keep em cool.
"Master's niggers lived in log houses down at de quarters but they was
fed out of the big house. I members they had a long table to eat off and
kept hit scoured so nice and clean with sand and ashes and they scoured
the floors like that too and it made em so purty and white. They made
their mops cut of shucks. I always eat in the nursery with young Master
Billy.
"They had big old fireplaces in Master's house and I never seen a stove
till after the war.
"I member bein' down at the quarters one time and one of the women had
the sideache and they put poultices on her made out of shucks and hot
ashes and that sho'ly did ease the pain.
"The pickaninnies had a time playin'. Seein' these peanuts minds me that
they used to bust the ends and put them on their ears for ear rings.
Course Master Billy had to try it too, then let out a howl cause they
pinched.
"Lan', but them was good old days when Master Billy was alive."
Texarkana District
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer: Mrs. W.M. Ball
Subject: Anecdotes
Story:
Information given by: Albert Cummins
Place of Residence: Laurel St., Texarkana, Ark.
Occupation: None (Ex-Slave)
Age: 86
[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."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Betty Curlett, Hazen, Arkansas
Age: 66
[-- -- 1938]
"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."
Little Rock District
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertson
[HW: Yankees Stole Food]
Subject: History--Slavery Days
Subject: Musical Instrument
Story:--Information
[TR: Additional topic moved from subsequent page.]
[TR: Hand dated 11-14-36]
This information given by: Betty Curlett
Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas
Occupation: Washwoman
Age: 67
[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:
Old Cow died in the fork of the branch
Baby, Ba, Ba.
Dock held the light, Kimbo skinned it.
Ba, Ba, Ba.
Old cow lived no more on the ranch and frank no more from
branch, Kinba a pair of shoes, he sewed from the old cows hide
he had tanned.
Baby, Ba, Ba.