"I ain't worked a lick in four or five years. If I lived to see August
tenth, I will be eighty-six years old. I used to follow railroading or
saw milling or farming. That is what I followed when I was able to work.
The last work I did was farming, working by the day--a dollar and a half
a day. And they cut it down and cut me down. Now they ain't giving
nothing. If a man gets six bits a day he doing good. Harder times in
Arkansas now than I have ever seen before. If a man is able to take care
of his family now, he is doing well. They don't give niggers nothing
now.
"The only way I live is I get a little pension. They give me eight
dollars a month and commodities. That is all I live on now. That keeps
me up, thank God. I have been getting the pension about ever since they
started. I reckon it is about two years. I have been receiving it every
month. It ain't failed yet. They been taking care of me pretty well ever
since they started. First start it wasn't nothin' but rations. They give
me groceries enough to las' me every month. I had a wife then.
"I have been a _widow_ now four years. Four years I've been a _widow_. But
there ain't nothin' like a man staying in his own house. I have made out
now for four years. Right there cooking and washing for George! I didn't
have nothing else to do. Fellow can't tell what day the Lord will say,
'Stop', but as long as I am this way, I'll keep at it.
"This soreness in my leg keeps me in bad shape. I came here to get my
leg fixed. It gets so I can't walk without a stick. I don't like to stay
with other folks. They're sinners and they use me sorta sinful--speak
any sort of language. But they sure 'nough treats me nice.
"I got my leg hurt last December. Car ran into me at Wrightsville, and
knocked me down and threw me far as from here to that thing (about
fifteen feet). After they flung me down, I was flat on my back a long
while. I couldn't move. When a fellow gets old and then gets crippled
up, it's hard. But I'm gettin' 'long pretty well now, 'cept that this
leg ain't strong."
DEC -- 1937
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Andrew Gregory
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 74
"I was born in Carroll County, Tennessee. My mother was owned by
Houston. She said when war was declared he was at a neighbor's house. He
jumped up and said, 'I gonner be the first to kill a Yankee.' They said
in a few minutes he fell back on the bed dead. My father owner was
Tillman Gregory. After freedom he stayed on sharecroppin'. From what he
said that wasn't much better than bein' owned. They had to work or
starve. He said they didn't make nobody work but they didn't keep nobody
from starvin' if they didn't go at it. They was proud to be free but
that didn't ease up the working.
"My people stayed on in Tennessee a long time. When I was nineteen years
old they was making up a crowd to come here to work. Said the land was
new. I come wid them. It was a big time. We come on the Hardcash
(steamboat). I farmed and cleared land all my life. I sold wood, hauled
wood. I've done all kinds of form work. I get $12 from the Welfare
Association.
"The young generation is a puzzle to me. That why I stand and watch what
they do. The folks make the times. It's a puzzle to me too."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Annie Griegg
Madison, Arkansas
Age: 84
"I was born a slave, born in Nashville, Tennessee. I was sold twice. I
don't recollect my mother; I was so small when I was parted from her. I
had two sisters and I recollect them. One of my sisters was sold the
same day I was sold and I recollect my other sister was named Rebecca. I
never seen her no more after I was sold. I was the youngest.
"Mother belong to Captain Walker. That was before the Civil War so I
know he wasn't an officer in it. His daughter married a man named Mr.
Foster. Captain Walker had give me to his daughter when she married.
They lived in Nashville, Tennessee too. Mr. Foster sold me and Captain
Walker sold my sister Ann and Mr. Bill Steel Henderson at Columbia,
Tennessee bought us both and give my sister to his widowed sister for a
house girl and nurse and he kept me.
"They lived close to us and my sister stayed at our house nearly all the
time. My sister and me was sold for the some price, $100 a piece. She
could count and knew a dollar. She had some learning then. I never went
to school a day in my life.
"The first block was a big tree and stumps sawed off for steps by the
side of it. The big tree had been sawed off up high. The man cried me
off standing on the next stump step. My sister told me our mother was a
cook at Captain Walker's. She told me my father was a Foster. It was my
understanding that he was a white man. My sister was darker than I was.
Mr. Foster sold me for a nurse. Mr. Henderson's sister was name Mrs.
McGaha (?). My sister nursed and cooked. I nursed three children at Mr.
Henderson's. He was good to me. I loved the children and they was crazy
about me. He sold me to Mr. Field Mathis. I nursed four children for
them. I never did know why I was sold. Mr. Henderson was heap the best.
Mr. Henderson never hit me a lick in his life.
"Mathis was cruel. He drank all the time. He got mad and stamped my
hand. I nearly lost the use of my hand. It was swollen way up and hurt
and stayed riz up till his cousin noticed it. He was a doctor. He lived
in the other end of the house--the same house. He found some bones was
broke loose in my hand (right hand). Dr. Mathis (Dr. Mathis or Dr.
Mathews who died at Forrest City, Arkansas) set his brother out about
treating little nurse thater way. Told him he oughter be ashamed of
hisself. Dr. Mathis splintered my hand and doctored it till it got well.
"Mr. Field Mathis was a merchant. They moved to Colt, Arkansas at the
beginning of the War, Dr. and Mr. Field Mathis both. We come on the
train and steamboats. It was so new to me I had a fine time but that is
all I can tell about it. Mr. Field was cross with his wife. She was
fairly good to me. I had all the cooking, washing and ironing to do
before I left there.
"After we come to Arkansas I never got to see my sister. My husband was
a good scholar. He could write. He wrote and wrote back to find my
sister and mother but they never answered my letters. I asked everybody
that come from there about my sisters and mother but never have heard a
word. I slept on a pallet on the floor nearly all my life. I had a
little bed at Mr. Henderson's.
"I didn't know it was freedom till one day when I was about fourteen or
fifteen years old--judging from my size and what I done. I went off to a
spring to wash. I had one pot of clothes to boil and another just out of
the pot to rub and rinse. A girl come to tell me Mrs. Field had company
and wanted me to come cook dinner. I didn't go but I told her I would be
on and cook dinner soon as I could turn loose the washing. There was two
colored girls and a white girl could done the cooking but I was a good
cook. The girl put on the water for me to scald the chickens soon as she
went to the house. When I got there Mrs. Field Mathis had a handful of
switches corded together to beat me. I picked up the pan of boiling
water to scald the chickens in. She got scared of me, told me to put the
pan down. I didn't do it. I didn't aim to hurt her. I wouldn't throwed
that boiling water on nothing. She sent to the store for her husband. He
come and I told him how it was about the clothes and three girls there
could cook without me. He got mad at her and said: 'Mary Agnes, she is
as free as you are or I am. I'm not going to ever hurt her again and you
better not.' That is the first I ever heard about freedom. It had been
freedom a long time. I don't know how long then.
"I stayed on, washed out the clothes and strung them up that evening. I
ironed all the clothes and cooked the rest of the week. Mr. Field got me
a good home with some colored folks. He told me if I would go there he
never would let nobody bother me and he never would mistreat me no more.
I worked some for them but they paid me. She ought to thought a heap of
me the way I cooked and worked for her. That was my freedom. I was sold
on a platform to Mr. Mathis.
"After freedom I done field work. I never seen a Ku Klux in my life. I
cooked out some and I married. I still cooked out. I was married once
and married in a church. I have seven children living and seven dead.
"I live with my daughter and her family and I get $6 and commodities.
I'm mighty thankful for that. It helps me a whole lots.
"I recken young folks do the best they know to do. Seems like folks are
kinder hearted than they used to be. Times have changed a heap every
way. Times is harder for poor folks than the others. It is a true saying
that poor folks have hard ways and rich folks have mean ways. They are
more selfish. I always had to work hard. Both times I was sold for
$100."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Persons interviewed: William and Charlotte Guess
West Memphis, Arkansas
Ages: 68 and 66