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Brinkley, Arkansas
Age 69
"I am sixty-nine years old. I was raised in Dyersburg, Tennessee. I can tell you a few things mother told us. My own
grandma on mother's side was in South Carolina. She was stole when a child and brought to Tennessee in a covered
wagon. Her mother died from the grief of it. She was hired out to nurse for these people. The people that stole her
was named Spence. She was a house woman for them till freedom. She was never sold. Spences was not cruel
people. Mother was never sold. She was the mother of twelve and raised nine to a good age --- more than grown.
The Spences seemed to always care for her children. When I go to Dyersburg they always want us to come to see
them and they treat us mighty well.
"Mother was light. She said she had Indian strain (blood) but father was very light and it was white blood but he
never discussed it before his children. So I can't tell you excepting he said he was owned by the Brittians in South
Carolina. He said his mother died soon after he was sold. He was sold to a nigger trader and come in the gang to
Memphis, Tennessee and was put on the block and auctioned off to the highest bidder. He was a farm hand.
"Mother married father when she was nineteen years old. She was a house girl. She lived close to her old mistress.
She was very, very old and before she died she nearly stayed at my mother's house. Her mind wasn't right and
mother understood how to take care of her and was kind to The Spances heard about grandma. They wrote and
visited years after when mother was a girl.
"The way that father found out about his kin folks was this: One day a creek was named and he told the white man,
'I was born close to that creek and played there in the white sand and water when I was a little boy.' The white man
asked his name, said he knew the creek well too. Father told him he never was named till he was sold and they
named him Sam --- Sam Barnett. He was sold to Barnett in Memphis. But his dear own mother called him 'Candy.'
The white man found out about his people for him and they found out his own dear mother died that same year he
was taken from South Carolina from grief. He heard from some of his people from that time on till he died.
"I worked on the farm in Tennessee till I married. I ironed, washed, and have kept my own house and done the work
that goes along with raising a small family. We own our home. We have saved all we could along. I have never had
a real hard time like some I know. I guess my time is at hand now. I don't know which way to turn since my
husband got down sick.
"I don't vote. Seem like it used to not be a nice place for woman to go where voting was taking place. Now they go
mix up and vote. That is one big change. Time is changing and changing the people. Maybe it is the people is
changing up the world as time goes by. We colored folks lock to the white folks to know the way to do. We have
always done it."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
