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Route 4, near airport, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 81
"I'm certainly one of em, canse I was in the big homes. When Miss Liza married they give sister to her and I stayed
with Miss Metts. Her name was Drunetta Rawls. That was in Mississippi. We come to Arkansas when I was small.
"I remember when they run us to Texas, and we stayed there till freedom come. I remember hearin' em read the free
papers. Mama died in Texas and they buried her the day they read the free papers. I know. I was out playin' and
Miss Lucy, that was my young mistress, come out and say, 'Jane, you go in and see your mother, she wants you.' I
was busy playin' and didn't want to go in and I member Miss Lucy say, 'Poor little fool nigger don't know her
mother's dyin'.' I want in then and said, 'Mama, is you dyin'?' She say, 'No, I ain't; I died when you was a baby.' You
know, she meant she had died in sin. She was a christian.
"Me and Lucy played together all the time --- round about the house and in the kitchen. Little Marse Henry, that was
big old Mares Henry's son, he was a captain in the army. We all called him Little Marse Henry. Old mistress was
good to us. Us chillun called her Miss Metta. Best woman I over seed. Me and Lucy growed up together. Looks like
I can see just the way the house looked and how we used to go down to the big gate and play. I sits here and studies
and wonders if I'd know that place today. That's what I study bout.
"I used to hear on say we only stayed in Texas nine months and the white folks brought us back.
"My uncle Simon Rawls, he took me after the war. Then I worked for Mrs. Adkins.
"I went to school a little and learned to read print. The teacher tried to get me to write but I wouldn't do it. And since
then I have wished so much I had learned to write. Oh marey! Old folks would tell me, 'Well, when you get up the
road, you'll wish you had.' I didn't know what they meant but I know now they meant when I get old.
"I was married when I was young --- I don't think I was fiftees.
"Yes ma'am, I've worked hard. I've always lived in the sountry.
"I can remember when the white folks refageed us to Texas. Oh we did hate the Yankees. If I ever seed a Yankee I
didn't know it but I heard the white folks talkin' bout own.
"I used to hear on talk bout old Jeff Davis and Abe Lincoln.
"Bradley County was where we lived fore we want to Texas and afterward. Colonel Ed Hampton's plantation jined
the Rawls plastation on the Arkansas River where it overflowed the lead. I loved that better than any place I ever
seed in my life.
"I couldn't say what I think of the young folks now. They is different from what we was. Yes, Lord, they is
different. Sometimes I think they is better and sometimes wuss. I just thanks the Lord that I'm here --- have come
this far.
"When I bought this place from Mr. R. M. Knox he said, 'When I'm in my grave you'll thank me that you took my
advice and put your savings in a home.' I do thank him. I been here thirty years and I get along. God bless you."
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
