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On the C.R.I. Ry. west of Brinkley, Arkansas
Age 49
"Grandma was a slave woman. Her name was Emma Harper. She was born in Chesterville, Mississippi. Her young
master was Jim and Miss Corrie Dozier. The old man was John Dozier. I chanced to see them once. I seen both
Miss Corrie and Mr. Jim. My grandparents was never sold. They left out after freedom. They stayed there a long
time but they left.
"The first of the War was like dis: Our colored folks was having a dance. The Yankees come in and was dancing.
Some 'foy boys' come scattered them. The next day they was all in the field and heard something. They went to the
house and told the white folks there was cane a fire. They heard it. Mist be close about. Master told them it was war.
Miss Louiza was crying. They heard blood run in streams at Harrisburg where they could hear the shooting.
"They put the slaves to digging. They dug two weeks. They buried their meat and money and a whole heap of
things. They never found it. A little white chile, Mollie, was out where they was digging. She went in the house. She
said, 'Mama, is the devil coming? They said he was.' Master had them come to him. He questioned them. They told
him they got so tired one of them said he believe when the dev'lish Yankees come he'd tell them where all this was,
but he was jus' talking. But when the Yankees did come they was so scared they never got close to a Yankee. They
was scared to death. They never found the meat and money. They passed and cut the turkeys' heads off and the
turkey fall off the rail fence, the head drap on one side and the body on the other. They milked a cow and cut both
hind quarters off and leave the rest of the cow there and the cow not dead yet.
"Mr. South Strange at Chesterville, Mississippi had a pony named Emma. The Yankees hemmed him and four more
men in at Malone Creek and killed the four men. Emma rared up on hind legs and went up a steep cliff and run three
miles. Mr. Strange's coat was cut off him. It was a gray coat. Mr. Strange was a white man.
"Uncle Frank Genes was forty years old when they gathered him up out of the woods and put him in the battle lines.
All the runaway black folks in the woods was hunted out and put in the Yankee lines. Uncle Frank lived in a cave
up till about then. His master made him mean. He got better as he got old. His master would sell him and tell him to
run away and come back to his cave. He'd feed him. He never worked and he went up for his provisions. He was
sold over and over and over. His master learnt him in books and to cuss. He learnt him how to trick the dogs and tap
trees like a coon. At the and of the trail the dogs would turn on the huntsmen. Uncle Frank was active when he was
old. He was hired out to race other boys sometimes. He never wore glasses. He could see well when he was old. He
told me he was raised out from England, Arkansas.
"When freedom was told 'em Uncle Frank said all them in the camps hollered and danced, and marched and sung.
They was so glad the War was done and so glad they been freed.
"Grandma was sold in South Carolina to Mississippi and sold again to Dr. Shelton. Now that was my father's father
and mother. She said they rode and walked all the way. They come on ox wagons, She said on the way they passed
some children. They was playing. A little white boy was up in a persimmon tree settin' on a limb eating
persimmons. He was so pretty and clean. Grandma says, 'You think you is some pumpkin, don't you, honey child.'
He says, 'Some pumpkin and some 'simmon too.' Grandma was a house girl. She got to keep her baby and brought
him. He was my father. Uncle was born later. Then they was freed. Grandma lived to be ninety-five years old. Mrs.
Dolphy Wooly and Mrs. Shelton was her young mistresses. They kept her till she died. They kept her well.
"Grandma told us about freedom. She was hired out to the Browns to make sausage and dry out lard. Five girls was
in the field burning brush. They was white girls---Mrs. Brown's girls. They come to the house and said some Blue
Coats come by and said, 'You free.' They told them back, 'That's no news, us was born free. Grandma said that night
she melted pewter and made dots on her best dress. It was shiny. She wore it home next day 'cause she was free, and
she never left from about her own white folks till she died and left them.
"Times seem very good on black folks till hard cold winter and spring come, then times is mighty, mighty bad. It is
so hard to keep warm fires and enough to sat. Times have been good. Black folks in the young generation need
more heart training and less book learning. Times is so fast the young set is too greedy. They is wasteful too. Some
is hard workers and tries to live right.
"I wash and irons and keep a woman's little chile so she can work. I owns my home."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
