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1017 Dennison, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age 72
"I was born on the twenty-second of March, 1866, in Van Buren, Arkansas. I had six children. All of them were
bred and born at the same place.
"I was born in a frame house. My father used to live in the country, but I was born in the town. He bought it just as
soon as he come out of the army and married right away and bought this home. I don't know where he got his
money from. I guess he saved it. He served in the Union army; he wasn't a servant. He was a soldier, and drawed his
pay. He never run through his money like most people do. I don't know whether he made any money in slavery or
not but he was a carpenter during slave times and they say he always had plenty of money. I guess he had saved
some of that too.
"My mother was married twice. Her name was Louisa Buchanan. My father was named Abraham Riley. My
stepfather was named Moses Buchanan. My father was a soldier in the old original war (the Civil War)--the war
they ended in 1865.
"I disremember who my mother's master was but I think it was a man named Johnson. I didn't know my father's
people. She married him from White County up here. Her and him, they corresponded mostly in letters because he
traveled lots. He looked like an Indian. He had straight hair and was tall and rawboned and wore a Texas hat. I had
his picture but the pictures fade away. My father was a sergeant. He died sometime after the war.
I don't remember when because I wasn't old enough. I can just remember looking at the corpse. I was too small to
do any grieving.
"My mother was a nurse in slavery times. She nursed the white folks and their children. She did the housework and
such like. She was a good cook too. After freedom, when the old folks died out, she cooked for Zeb Ward--you
know him, head of the penitentiary. She used to cook for the Jews and gentiles. That her kind of work. That was her
occupation--good cook. She could make all kinds of provisions. She could make preserves and they had a big
orchard everywhere she worked.
"I have heard my mother talk about pateroles, jayhawkers, and Ku Klux, but I never knew of them myself. I have
heard say they were awful bad--the Ku Klux or somethin".
"My mother's white folks sold her. I don't know who they sold her to or from. They sold her from her mother. I
don't know how she got free. I think she got free after the war ceased. But she had a good time all her life. She had a
good time because she was a good cook, and a good nurse, and she had good white folks. My grandma, she had
good folks too. They was free before they were free, my ma and grandma. They was just as free before freedom as
they were afterwards. My mother had seven children and two sets of twins among them. But I am the only one
living.
"They say that I'm too old to work now; so I can't make nothin' to keep my home goin'. I have five children living.
Two are away from here--one in Michigan, and another in Illinois. I have three others but they don't make enough to
help me much. I used to work 'round the laundries. Then I used to work 'round with these colored restaurants.
I worked with a colored woman down by the station for twelve or fifteen years. I first helped her wash and iron. She
ironed and hired other girls to wait table and wash dishes and so on. Them times wasn't like they are now. They'd
hire you and keep you. Then I worked at a white boarding house on Second and Cross. I quit working at the
laundries because of the steady work in the restaurants. After the restaurants I went to work in private families and
worked with them till I got so I couldn't work no more. Maybe I could do plenty of things, but they won't give me a
chance.
"I have been married twice. My second husband was John Jones. He always went by the name of his white folks.
They were named Ivory. He came from up in Searcy. I got acquainted with him and we started going together. He'd
been married before and had children up in Searcy. He got his leg cut off in a accident. He was working over to the
shop lifting ties with another helper and this man helping him gave way on his side and let his ond fall. It fell across
my husband's foot and blood poison set in and caused him to lose his foot and leg. He had his foot cut off at the
county hospital and made himself a peg-leg. He cut it out hisself while he was at the hospital. He lived a long while
after that. He died on Tenth and Victory. My first husband was Henry White. He was a shop worker too--the Iron
Mountain.
"We went to school together. I lost my health before I married, and I had to stop going to school. The doctor was a
German and lived on Cross between Fifth and Sixth. He said that he ought to have written the history of my life to
show what I was cured of because I was paralyzed two years. My head was drawed 'way back between my
shoulders. I lived with my first husband about six years. He died with T.B. in Memphis, Tennessee.
He had married again when he died. We got so we couldn't agree, so I thought it was best for him to live with his
mother and me to live with mine. We quit under good conditions. I had a boy after he was separated from me.
"I don't know what to say about the people now. I don't get 'round much. They aren't like they used to be. The young
people don't like to have you 'round them. I never did object to any of my children gettin' married because my
mother didn't object to me.
"I know Mr. Gillespie. (He passed at the time--ed.) He comes to see me now and then. All my people are dead now
'cept my children."
Brother Gillespie has a story turned in previously. Evidently he is making eyes at the old lady; but the romance is
not likely to bud. She has lost the sight of one eye apparently through a cataract which has spread over the larger
part of the iris. Nevertheless, she is more active than he is, and apparently more competent, and she isn't figuring on
making her lot any harder than it is.
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
Jones, Mary -- Additional Interview
509 E. 23rd Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 78
"I was born three weeks 'fore Christmas in South Carolina.
"I 'member one time the Yankees come along and I run to the door. I know ma made me go back but I pesped out
the window. You know how children is. They wore great big old hats and blue coats.
" 'Nother time we saw them a comin' and said, 'Yonder come the Yankees' and we run. Ma said, 'Don't run, them's
the Yankees what freed you.'
"Old mis' was named Joanna Long and old master was Joe Long. I can't remember much, I just went by what ma
said.
"I went to school now and then on account we had to work.
"We had done sold out in South Carolina and was down at the station when some of the old folks said if we was
goin' to the Mississippi bottoms where the panthers and wolves was we would never come back. We thought we
was comin' to Arkansas but when we found out we was in the Mississippi bottoms. We stayed there and made two
crops, then we come to Arkansas.
"The way the younger generation is livin' now, the Lord can't bless 'em. They know how to do right but they won't
do it. Yes ma'am."
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
