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2203 W. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 77
"I heered the people say I was born in time of slavery. I was born durin' of the War.
"And when we went back home they said we had been freed four years.
"My father's last owner was named Crawford. He was a awful large man. That was in Monroe County, Mississippi.
"I know they was good to us 'cause we stayed right there after freedom till my father died in 1889. And mama
stayed a year or two, then she come to Arkansas.
"After my husband died in 1919, I went to Memphis. Then this girl I raised--her mother willed her to me--I come
here to Arkansas to live with her after I got down with the rheumatism so I couldn't wash and iron.
"In my husband's lifetime I didn't do nothin' but farm. And after I went to Memphis I cooked. Then I worked for a
Italian lady, but she did her own cookin'. And oh, I thought she could make the best spaghetti.
"I used to spin and make soap. My last husband and I was married fifteen years and eight months and we never did
buy a bar of soap. I used to be a good soap maker. And knit all my own socks and stockin's.
"I used to go to a school-teacher named Thomas Jordan. I remember he used to have us sing a song
'I am a happy bluebird
Sober as you see;
Pure cold water Is the drink for me.
I'll take a drink here
And take a drink there,
Make the woods ring
With my temperance prayer.'
We'd all sing it; that was our school song. I believe that's the onliest one I can remember.
" 'Bout this younger generation--well, I tell you, it's hard for me to say. It just puts me to a wonder. They gone a way
back there. Seem like they don't have any 'gard for anything.
"I heard 'em 'fore I left Mississippi singin'
'Everybody's doin' it, doin' it.'
" 'Co'se when I was young they was a few that was wild, but seem like now they is all wild. But I feels sorry for
'em."
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
