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717 Louisiana St, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 75
"Yes'm, I was born in slave times but my mammy was sucklin' me. Don't know much bout slavery but just come up
free.
"My mammy's old master was Colvin Goodloe in Alabama, Pulaski County, near Tuscumbia. I heared my uncle say
old master favored his niggers.
"Mammy told me bout an gettin' whippin's, but she never 1st the overseer whip her -- she'd go to old master.
"My grandmama's hair was straight but she was black. She was mixed Indian. My mammy's father was Indian and
she say he fought in the Revolution. She had his pistol and rocks. When he died he was the oldest man around there.
"I tell you what I remember. I 'member my mammy had a son named Enoch and he nussed no in slave days when
mammy was workin' in the field. They didn't low em to go to the house but three times a day -- that was the women
what had babies. But I was so sickly mammy had Enoch bring me to the fence so she could suckle me.
"I went to school down here in Arkansas in Lincoln County. I got so I could read in McGuffy's Fourth Reader. I
member that story bout the white man chunkin' the boy down out of the apple tree.
"That was a government school on the railroad -- notch house. Just had one door and one window. They took the
nigger cabins and made a schoolhouse.
"After freedom my mammy stayed on old master's place -- he didn't drive an away. My mammy spinned the raw
cotton and took it to Tuscumbia and get it wove. Some of it she dyed. I know when I was a cal I were a checked
dress with a white apron. And my first Sunday dress was striped cotton. After she worked enough she bought me a
red worsted dress and trimmed it and a sailor hat. We want to church and they led me by the hand. After church I
had to take off my dress and hang it up till next Sunday. Had a apron made of cross barred muslin. Don't see any of
that now. It was made with a bodice and had ruffles round the neck. Wore brass toed shoes and balmoral stockin's in
my gal time. When my husband was courtin' me, my dreen was down to my shoe top. He never saw my leg!
"My fust work was nussin'. I want to Hot Springs with the white folks. I nussed babies till I got against nussin'
babies. I stayed right in the house and slep on a sofa with a baby in my arms. In my time they loved you off half a
day on Sunday.
"Chile, I washed and ironed and washed and ironed and washed and ironed till I married. I married when I was
seventeen. My mother was dead and I'd rather been married than runnin' loose -- I might a stepped on a snake.
"My daddy was a ex-soldier. I don't know what side he fought on but my mammy got bounty when he died. That's
what she bought that lead with down here in Lincoln County from her old master Goodloe.
"I tell you -- I'm a old christian and I think this younger generation is growin' up like Christ said -- they is gettin'
weaker and wiser.
"My mother's sister, Patience Goodloe, lived in Pulaski County, Alabama and I went back there after I was married
and stayed two months.
I went up and down the fields whars my daddy and mammy worked. I want out to the graveyard where my little
brother was married but they has cotton and corn planted on the old slavetime graveyard.
"I like that country lots better than this here Arkansas. Don't have no springs or nothin' here."
