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Helena, Arkansas
Age 76
"I was born in Georgia. My mama was brought from Virginia to one of the Carolina states, then to Georgia. She was
sold twice. I don't recollect but one of her masters. I heard her speak of Master Bracknell. His wife, now I remember
her well. She nursed me. I was sickly and they needed her to work in the crop so bad. She done had a baby leetle
older then I was, so I nursed one breast and Jim the other. She raised me and Jim together. Mama was name Sallie
and papa Mathew Bracknell. They celled him Mat Bracknell. I don't know my master's name. They had other
children.
"Me and Jim dug wells out in the yard and buried all the little ducks and chickens and made graves. We had a
regular burying ground we made. They treated us pretty good as fur as I knowed. I never heard mama complain. She
lived till I was forty years old. Papa died a few years after freedom. He had typhoid fever. He was great to fish. I
believe now he got some bad water to drink out fishing. There was six of us and three half children. I'm the onliest
one living as I knows of. One sister died in 1923 in Atlanta. She come to see me. She lived with big rich folks there.
She was a white man's girl. She never had so much bad luck as we dark skin children the way it was. My papa had
to go to war with some of Master Bracknell's kin folks, maybe his wife's kin folks, and they took him to wait on
them at the battle-fields. Some soldiers camped by at the last of the War. They stole her out. She went to take
something to a sick widow woman for old mistress. She never got back for a week. She said she was so seared and
one day when her man, the man that claimed her, went off on a scout trip she asked a man, seemed to be a big boss,
could she go to that thicket and get some black gum toothbrushes. He let her ride a little old broken down horse out
there. She had a bridle but she was bare back. She come home through the pasture and one of the colored boys took
the horse back nearly to the camps and turned him loose. 'Fo'e my own papa got back she had a white chile. Master
Bracknell was proud of her. Papa didn't make no difference in her and his children. After the War he bought a
whole bolt of cloth when he went to town. Mama would make us all a dress alike. The Yankees whooped mama at
their camp. She said she was afraid to try to get away and that come in her mind. Old mistress thought that widow
woman was keeping her to wait on her and take care of her small children. She wasn't uneasy and they took care of
me.
"I don't recollect freedom. I heard mama say a drove come by and ask her to come go to Atlanta; they said Yankees
give 'em Atlanta. She said she knowed if she went off papa wouldn't know where she was. She told 'em she had two
young children she couldn't leave. They went on. She told old mistress and she said she done right not to go.
"The Yankees stole mama's feather bed. Old mistress had great big high feather beds and big pillows. Mama had a
bed in a/shed room open out on the back piazza. They put them big beds across their horses and some took pillows
and down the road they went. It was cold and the ground froze. They made cotton beds then and the Yankees done
got all the geese and chickens. They nearly starved. The Yankees took all the cows and stock.
"Master Bracknell was cripple. He had a store at Cross Roads. It was twenty-five miles from Marietta, Georgia.
They never troubled him like they did old mistress. She was seared of them. She knowed if they come and caught
her gone they would set fire to the house. No, they never burned nothing on our place but they did some in sight. I
can remember seeing big fires about at night and day time too.
"We lived on Master Bracknell's place till I was eight years old and my sister five. We come to South, Alabama,
then to Mississippi and then up the river to Helena. I married in Jackson, Mississippi. A white boy married us. We
lived on his place and he was going to preach. He wasn't a preacher then. Richard Moore was his name. It took him
several weeks to learn what to say. He practiced on us. He thought a heap of me and he ask Jesse if he could marry
us. He brought us a big fine cake his mother cooked for us when he come. My husband named Jesse Lawsom. He
was raised in Louisiana. We lived together till he died. My mother went blind before she died. His mother lived
there, then we took care of them and after he died his mother lived with me. Now I lives with this niece here some
and my daughter in Jackson. I had fourteen children. I just got one left and grandchildren I go to see. I make the
rounds. Some of 'em good and some of them ain't no account at tall.
"I used to take advice. They get up and leave the place. They don't went old folks to advise 'em. If they can't get
their price they sit around and go hungry. They won't work for what I used to be glad to get. I keep my girl on the
right path and that is all I can do. My niece don't work out but her husband works on the farm all the time. She helps
him. They go out and live till the work is done. He is off now ploughing. Times is fast sure as you born, girl. Faster
'an ever I seen."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
