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3006 W. Tenth Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 88
"Well, here's one of em. Born down in Drew County.
"Simpson Dabney was old master and his wife named Miss Adeline.
"I reckon I do remember bout the War. Yes ma'am, the Yankees come and they had me scared. I wouldn't know
when they got in the yard till they was all around me. Had me holdin' the bridles.
"My young missis' husband was in the War and when they fought the last battle at Princeton, she had me drive the
carriage. When I heard them guns I said we better go back, so I turned round and made them horses step so fast my
dress tail stood out straight. I thought they was goin' to kill us all. And when we got home all the windows was
broke. Miss Nancy say, 'Cyntha, somebody come and broke all my windows,' but it was them guns broke em.
"Old master was a doctor but my young missis' husband wasn't nothin' but a hunter till they carried him to war. He
was so skeered they had to most drag him.
"I seen two wars and heered tell of another.
"I member when the Yankees come and took things I just fussed at em. I thought what was my white folks' things
was mine too. But when they got my old master's horse my daddy went amongst em and got it back cause he had
charge of the stock. I don't know whether he got em at night or not but I know he went in the daytime and come
back in the daytime.
"Old master's children and my father's children worked in the field just alike. He wouldn't low a overseer on the
place, or a patroller either.
"Dr. Dabney and his sister raised my mother. They brought her from some furrin' country to Arkansas. And when he
married, my mother suckled every one of his children.
"I just worked in the house and nussed. Never worked in the field till I was grown and married. I was nineteen when
I married the fust time. I stayed right there in that settlemant till the second year of surrender.
"When I was twenty-one they had me fixed up for a midwife. Old Dr. Clark was the one started me. I never went to
school a minute in my life but the doctors would read to me out of their doctor books till I could get a license. I got
so I could read print till my eyes got so bad. Old Dr. Clark was the one learned me most and since he died I ain't
never had a doctor mess with me.
"In fifteen years I had 299 babies on record right there in Rison. That's where I was fixed up at--under five doctors.
And anybody don't believe it, they can go down there and look up the record.
"We had plenty to eat in slave times. Didn't have to go to the store and buy it by the dribble like they does now. Just
go to the smokehouse and get it.
"I got such a big mind and will I wants to get about and raise something to eat now so we wouldn't have to buy
everything, but I ain't able now. I've had twenty-one children but if I had em now they'd starve to death.
"I been married four times but they all dead--every one of em.
"When freedom come my old master give my mother $500 cause she saved his money for him when the Yankees
come. She put it in the bed and slept on it. He had four farms and he told her she could have ary one of em and any
of the stock, but my father had done spoke for a place in Cleveland County--he, had done bought him a place.
"And old master on his dying bed, he asked my mother to take his two youngest children and raise am cause their
mother was sickly, but she didn't do it.
"I don't know hardly what to think of this younger generation. Used to be they'd go to Sunday school barefooted but
nowadays, time they is born they got shoes and stockin's on am.
"I used to spin, knit and weave. I even spun thread to make these ropes they use to plow. I could spin a thread you
could sew with, and weave cloth with stripes and flowers. Have to know how to dye the thread. That's all done in
the warp. Call the other the filler.
"Now let me tell you, when that was goin' on and you raised your meat and corn and potatoes, that was livin'!"
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
