The old lady took me in the house and showed me about a dozen quilts,
beautifully patterned and made. She had also some unfinished tops. She
says that she does not have much of a sale for them now because the
"quality of folks" who liked such things well enough to buy them "is
just about gone."
She is crippled and unable to walk with facility. She has a great deal
of difficulty in getting off and on her porch. Still she does not
impress one as feeble so much as just disabled in one or two
particulars. She has a crippled knee, and both of her hands are
peculiarly stiff in the finger joints, one more so than the other. If it
were not for the disabilities, as old as she is, I believe that she
could give a good account of herself.
I didn't have the heart to tell the old lady that her Bible record is
not what she thinks it is. It is not the old original record which her
mistress possessed. Neither is it the copy of the record of her mistress
which her mother kept. From questioning, I gather that the old mistress
dictated the original record to some one connected with her mother,
might have written it out herself on a sheet of paper. From time to
time, as new deaths and births occurred, scraps of paper containing them
were added to the first paper, and as the papers got worn, blurred, and
dog-eared, they were copied--probably not without errors. Time came when
the grandchildren up in the grades and with _semi-modern_[HW:?] ideas
copied the scraps into the family Bible. By that time aging and blurring
of the original lead pencil notes, together with recopying, had
invalidated the record till it is no longer altogether reliable.
The births recorded in the Bible are as follows and in the exact order
given below:
Mary Patterson 10-11-1866
Harris Donesson 3-13- 72
Lilley Donesson 7-21- 85
Pearly Donesson 3-29- 92
Silvay Williams 8-29- 84
Beney Williams 11-24- 85
Millia A. Williams 12-30- 88
Joe Patterson 10- 3- 77
H. Patterson 7-29- 79
Maria E. Patterson 11-19- 81
Jennie Patterson 12-24- 84
Alex Patterson 7- 5- 86
James Patterson 6-20- 90
Janie Patterson 1-27- 60
Amanda Patterson 1-28- 63
James Rafield Walker 8-11- 99
Cornelius Walker 7-21-1902
Willie Walker 11-20- 03
Elias Walker 7-21- 11
Emmet Brown 1-23- 22
Leon Harris 12-13- 21
The following marriages were given:
May Lee Brown 2-26-1926
James Walker Brown 2-21- 35
Jennie Walker 6-20- 15
Lillie Jean Walker 12-6- 36
The name of Sarah Jane Patterson is not in the list. The list itself is
not chronological. It is written in ink but in the stiff cramped hand to
be expected of a school child not yet thoroughly familiar with the pen.
The eye fixes on the name of Janie Patterson, 1-27-1860. It does not
seem probable that this is correct if it is meant to be Sarah Jane.
Sarah Jane could give no help except to answer questions about the
manner in which the record was made.
These considerations led me to set the record aside in my own mind so
far as Sarah Jane Patterson's age is concerned and to take her word. She
has a very clear conception of the change from slavery to freedom. Her
memories are blurred and indistinct, but she recollects that this matter
was during slavery times and that during freedom. It seems that she had
the care of the smaller children during slavery time--at the time she
saw the soldiers marching through. This was not during the time of
freedom, because she distinguished clearly the Ku Klux time. She would
have to be at least eighty to have cared for children. Her tenacious
memory of ninety may have some foundation, therefore.
Moreover where writing is done in lead pencil and hurriedly, six is
often made to look like four and a part of eight may become blurred till
it looks like a zero. That would account for 1848 being transcribed as
1860. There would be nothing unusual, however, in a Sarah Jane and a
Jane. I neglected to cover that point in a question.
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Solomon P. Pattillo
1502 Martin Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 76
Occupation: Formerly farmer, teacher, and small dealer--now blind
"I was born November 1862. I was three years old at the time of the
surrender. I was born right here in Arkansas--right down here in Tulip,
Dallas County, Arkansas. I have never been out of the state but twice.