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913 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age About 85
"I was born in Helena, Arkansas. Not exactly in the town but in hardly not more than three blocks from the town.
Have you heard about the Grissoms down there? Well, them is my white folks. My maiden name was Burks. But we
never called ourselves any name 'cept Grissom.
"My mother's name was Sylvia Grissom. Her husband was named Jack Burkes. He went to the Civil War. That was
a long time ago. When they got up the war, they sold out a lot of the colored folks. But they didn't get a chance to
sell my mother. She left. They tell me one of them Grisson boys has been down here looking for me. He didn't find
me and he went on back.
"My mother's mistress was named Sylvia Grissom too. All of us was named after the white folks. All the old folks is
dead, but the young ones is living. I think my mother's master was named John. They had so many of them that I
forgit which is which. But they had all mama's children named after them. My mother had three girls and three boys.
"When the war began and my father went to war, my mother left Helena and came here. She run off from the
Grissoms. They whipped her too much, those white folks did. She got tired of all that beating. She took all of us
with her. All six of us children were born before the war. I was the fourth.
"There is a place down here where the white folks used to whip and hang the niggers. Baskin Lake they call it.
Mother got that far.
I don't know how. I think that she came in a wagon. She stayed there a little while and then she went to Churchill's
place. Churchill's place and John Addison's place is close together down there. That is old time. Them folks is dead,
dead, dead. Churchill's and Addison's places joined near Horse Shoe Lake. They had hung and burnt people--killed
'em and destroyed 'em at Baskin Lake. We stayed there about four days before we went on to Churchill's place. We
couldn't stay there long.
"The ha'nts--the spirits--bothered us so we couldn't sleep. All them people that had been killed there used to come
back. We could hear than tipping 'round in the house all the night long. They would blow out the light. You would
kiver up and they would git on top of the kiver. Mama couldn't stand it; so she come down to General Churchill's
place and made arrangements to stay there. Then she came back and got us children. She had an old man to stay
there with us until she come back and got us. We couldn't stay there with them ha'nts dancing 'round and carryin' us
a merry gait.
"At Churchill's place my mother made cotton and corn. I don't know what they give her for the work, but I know
they paid her. She was a hustling old lady. The war was still goin' on. Churchill was a Yankee. He went off and left
the plantation in the hands of his oldest son. His son was named Jim Churchill. That is the old war; that is the first
war ever got up--the Civil War. Ma stayed at Churchill's long enough to make two or three crops. I don't know just
how long. Churchill and them wanted to own her--them and John Addison.
"There was three of us big enough to work and help her in the field. Three--I made four. There was my oldest sister,
my brother, and my next to my oldest sister, and myself--Annie, John, Martha, and me.
I chopped cotton and corn. I used to tote the leadin' row. Me and my company walked out ahead. I was young then,
but my company helped me pick that cotton. That nigger could pick cotton too. None of the res' of them could pick
anything for looking at him.
"Mother stayed at Churchill's till plumb after the war. My father died before the war was over. They paid my mother
some money and said she would get the balance. That means there was more to come, doesn't it? But they didn't no
more come. They all died and none of them got the balance. I ain't never got nothin' either. I gave my papers to
Adams and Singfield. I give them to Adams; Adams is a Negro that one-legged Wash Jordan sent to me. They all
say he's a big orook, but I didn't know it. Adams kept coming to my house until he got my papers and then when he
got the papers he didn't come no more.
"After Adams got the papers, he carried me down to Lawyer Singfield's. He said I had to be sworn in and it would
cost me one dollar. Singfield wrote down every child's name and everybody's age. When he got through writing, he
said that was all and me and Pearl made up one dollar between us and give it to him. And then we come on away.
We left Mr. Adams and Mr. Singfield in Singfield's office and we left the papers there in the office with them. They
didn't give me no receipt for the papers and they didn't give me no receipt for the dollar. Singfield's wife has been to
see me several times to sell me something. She wanted to git me to buy a grave, but she ain't never said nothin'
about those papers. You think she doesn't know 'bout 'em? I have seen Adams once down to Jim Perry's funeral on
Arch Street. I asked him about my papers and he said the Government hadn't answered him. He said, 'Who is you?' I
said, 'This is Mrs. Johnson.' Then he went on out. He told me when he got a answer, it will come right to my door.
"I never did no work before goin' on Churchill's plantation. Some of the oldest ones did, but I didn't. I learned how
to plow at John Addison's place. The war was goin' on then. I milked cows for him and churned and cleaned up. I
cooked some for him. Are you acquainted with Blass? I nursed Julian Blass. I didn't nurse him on Addison's place; I
nursed him at his father's house up on Main Street, after I come here. I nursed him and Essie both. I nursed her too. I
used to have a time with them chillen. They weren't nothin' but babies. The gal was about three months old and
Julian was walkin' 'round. That was after I come to Little Rock.
"My mother come to Little Rock right after the war. She brought all of us with her but the oldest. He come later.
"She went to work and cooked and washed and ironed here. I don't remember the nemes of the people she worked
for. They all dead--the old man and the old ladies.
"She sent me to school. I went to school at Philander and down to the end of town and in the country. We had a
white man first and then we had a colored woman teacher. The white man was rough. He would fight all the time. I
would read and spell without opening my book. They would have them blue-back spellers and McGuffy's reader.
They got more education then than they do now. Now they is busy fighting one another and killin' one another.
When you see anything in the paper, you don't know whether it is true or not. Florence Lacy's sister was one of my
teachers. I went to Union school once. ___________________ from P.5
"You remember Reuben White? They tried to bury him and he came to before they got him in the grave. He used to
own the First Baptist Church. He used to pastor it too. He sent for J. P. Robinson by me. He told Robinson he
wanted him to take the Church and keep it as long as he lived.
Robinson said he would keep it. Reuben White went to his brother's and died. They brought him back here and kept
his body in the First Baptist Church a whole week. J. P. carried on the meetin', and them sisters was fightin' him.
They went on terrible. He started out of the church and me and 'nother women stopped him. At last they voted
twice, and finally they elected J. P. He was a good pastor, but he hurrahed the people and they didn't like that.
"Reuben White didn't come back when they buried him the second time. They were letting the coffin down in the
grave when they buried him the first time, and he knocked at it on the inside, knock, knock. (Here the old lady
rapped on the doorsill with her knuckles--ed.) They drow that coffin up and opened it. How do I know? I was there.
I heard it and seen it. They took him out of the coffin and carried him back to his home in the ambulance. He lived
about three or four years after that.
"I had a member to die in my order and they sent for the undertaker and he found that she wasn't dead. They took
her down to the undertaker's shop, and found that she wasn't dead. They said she died after they embalmed her. That
lodge work ran my nerves down. I was in the Tabernacle then. Goodrich and Dubisson was the undertakers that had
the body. Lucy Tucker was the woman. I guess she died when they got her to the shop. They say the undertaker out
on her before he found that she was dead.
"I don't know how many grades I finished in school. I guess it was about three altogether. I had to git up and go to
work then.
"After I quit school, I nursed mighty nigh all the time. I cooked for Governor Rector part of the time. I cooked for
Dr. Lincoln, Woodruff. I cooked for a whole lot of white folks. I washed and ironed for them Anthonys down here.
She like to had a fit over me the last time she saw me.
She wanted me to come back, but my hand couldn't stand it. I cooked for Governor Rose's wife. That's been a long
time back. I wouldn't 'low nobody to come in the kitchen when I was working. I would say, 'You goin' to come in
this kitchen, I'll have to git out.' The Governor was awful good to me. They say he kicked the res' of them out. I
scalded his little grandson once. I picked up the teakettle. Didn't know it had water in it and it slipped and splashed
water over the little boy's hand. If'n it had been hot as it ought to have been, it would have burnt him bad. He went
out of that kitchen hollerin'. The Governor didn't say nothin' 'cept, 'Ella, please don't do it again.' I said, 'I guess
that'll teach him to stay out of that kitchen now.' I was boss of that kitchen when I worked there.
"We took the lock off the door once so the Governor couldn't git in it.
"I dressed up and come out once and somebody called the Governor and said, 'Look at your cook.' And he said,
'That ain't my cook.' That was Governor Rector. I went in and put on my rags and come in the kitchen to cook and
he said, 'That is my cook.' He sure wanted me to keep on cookin' for him, but I just got sick and couldn't stay.
"I hurt my hand over three years ago. My arm swelled and folks rubbed it and got all the swelling down in one place
in my hand. They told me to put fat meat on it. I put it on and the meat hurt so I had to take it off. Then they said put
the white of an egg on it. I did that too and it was a little better. Then they rubbed the place until it busted. But it
never did cure up. I poisoned it by goin' out pulling up greens in the garden. They tell me I got dew poisoning.
"I don't git no help from the Welfare or from the Government. My husband works on the relief sometimes. He's on
the relief now.
"I married--oh, Lordy, lemme see when I did marry. It's been a long time ago, more 'n thirty years it's been. It's been
longer than that. We married up here on Twelfth and State Street, right here in Little Rock. I had a big wedding. I
had to go to Thompson's hall. That was on Tenth and State Street. They had to go to git all them people in. They had
a big time that night.
"I lived in J. P. Robinson's house twenty-two years. And then I lived in front of Dunbar School. It wasn't Dunbar
then. I know all the people that worked at the school. I been living here about six months."
Ella Johnson is about eighty-five years old. Her father went to war when the War first broke out. Her mother ran
away then and went to Churchill's farm not later than 1862. Ella Johnson learned to plow then and she was at least
nine years old she says and perhaps older when she learned to plow. So she must be at least eighty-five.
Interviewer Mary D. Hudgins"
