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Near Biscoe and Brinkley, Arkansas
Age 79
"I was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Mother was cooking. Her name was Marilla Harris and she took my pa's name,
Brown. He was Francis Brown. I was three years old when the surrender come on. Then grandma, my mama and pa
and me and my brother come with a family to Biscoe. There wasn't no Biscoe but that's where we come to anyhow.
Mama and grandma cooked for a woman. They bought a big farm and started clearing. Some of it was cleared.
Mama's been dead forty years. I farmed all my whole life. I don't know nothing else.
"Grandma had a right smart to say during slavery times. She was cooking for her mistress and had a family. She'd
hide good things to take to her children. The mistress kept a polly parrot about in the kitchen. Polly would tell on
grandma. Caused grandma to get whoopings. She talked like a good many of 'em. She got sick. The woman what
married grandma's brother was to take her place. She wasn't going to be getting no whoopings. She sewed the parrot
up. He got to dwindling. They doctored him. She clipped his tongue at the same time so he never could do no good
talking. He died. They never found out his trouble. Grandma said they worried about the parrot but she never did;
she knowed what been done. Grandma come from Paris, Tennessee but I think the same folks fetched 'er. I don't
think she said she was sold. She said slavery times was hard. Mama didn't see as hard times as grandma had.
Grandma shielded her in the work part a whole heap to get to live where she did. They loved to be together. She's
been dead and left me forty odd years. I works and support myself, and my kin folks help all they can."
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
