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Aged 75
Home 617 Wade Street, Hot Springs.
"Emma Sanderson"--- "Wade Street". That was all the prospective inte viewer could learn. "Emma
Sanderson--ex-slave!" "Wade Street"---"Why it's way off that way. You go sort of thatta way, and then thatta way."
A city map disclosed no Wade Street. Maps belonging to a local abstractor helped not a whit. "Insurance maps are
in more detail." someone advised. "Wade Street," mused the young woman at the desk, "I've heard of it. We have
written a policy for someone there. The head of the department was new to the city, but he was eager to help. After
about five minutes search --from wall maps to bound volumes of blocks and back again it appeared that "Wade
Street" more frequently known as "Washington street" meanders wanderingly from Silver Street, in the colored
section out to the "Gorge Addition" inhabited by low economic level whites.
Down Malvern Avenue (Hot Springs' Beale Street) went the interviewer. On she went past the offices of a large
Chicago packing house. For better than a block she trudged by dilapidated shops which a few seasons back had
housed one of the key transient centers of the U.S.A. Down the street she walked, pausing for a moment to note that
coffee colored faces decorated the placards in the beauty shop window---two well groomed mulatto girls sitting
inside, evidently operators. Her course took her past sandwich joints and pool halls. Nails, she noted as she drifted
along, had been driven into the projection beneath the plate glass window of the brick bank ( closed during the
depression--a building and bank built, owned and opera ed b negro capital) to keep loungers away. The colored
theater ( negroes are admitted only to the balconies of theaters in Hot Springs--one section of the balcony at the
legitemate theater) she noticed was now serving as a religious gathering place. The well built and excellently
maintained Pythian Bath house ( where the hot waters are made available to colored folk) with the Alice Eve
Hospital ( 45 beds, 5 nurses, 2 resident physicians--negro doctors thruout the town coopersting--surgical work a
specialty) stood out in quiet dignity. For the rest, buildings were an indiscriminate hodge-podge of homes, apartmen
houses, shacks,
and chain groceries. At the corner where "the street turns white" the interviewer turned east.
The Langston Eigh School ( for colored--with a reputation for turning out good cooks, football players and
acedemicians) stands on Silver Stret. A few paces from the building the interviewer met a couple of plump colored
omen laughing and talking loudly.
"I bag your pardon," was her greeting, "can you tell me where Wade Street is?" They could and did. They were so
frankly interested in knowing why the white woman wanted Emma Sanderson that she told them her mission. They
were not aken aback---there was no servility---no resentment they were frankly charmed with the idea. Their
directions for finding Mrs. Sanderson became even more explicit.
When the proper turn off was found the question of Wade versus Washington Stret was settled. A topsy-turvy sign
at the intersection announced that Wade Street was ahead. Emma Sanderson's grandson lived a couple of blocks
down the road.
Only the fact that she could hear someone inside moving about kept the interviewer hammering on the door. Finally
she was rewarded by a voice. "Is that somebody a' knockin' ?" In a moment the door opened. The question, "Were
you a slave" no matter now delicately put is a difficult one to ask, but Mrs. Sanderson was helpful, if doubtful that
her story would do much good. "I was just so little when it all happened." But the interviewer was invited in and
placed in a chair near the fire.
"No ma'am. He ain't my grandson-----I's the third grandmother. No son, you ain't three-----you's five. Don't you
remember what I told you? Yes, he stays with me, ma'am. I take care of him while the rest of 'em works.
It's hard for me to remember. I was just so little. Yes ma'am, I was born a slave--but I was so little. Seems to me like
I remember a big, big house. We was sort of out in the country--out from Memphis. I know ther was my father and
my mother and my uncles and my aunts. I know there was that many. How many more of us old man Doc Walker
had--I just don't know. They must have took good care of us tho. My mother was a house niggah.
When the war was ready to quit they gave us our pick. We could stay on and work for wages or we could go.
The folks decided that the'd go on in to Memphis. My Mother and Father didn't live together none after we went to
town. First I lived with Mother and then when she died my Father took me. My mother died when I was 9. She
worked at cooking and washing. When I was big enough I went to school. I kept on going to school after my Father
took mel He died when I was about 15. By that time I was old enough to look out after myself.
What did I do? I stayed in folkses houses. I cooked and I washed. Then when I was about 18, I married. After that I
had a man to take care of me. He was a carpenter.
We been here in Hot Springs a long time-----you maybe heared of Sanderson-----he took up platering and he was
good too. How long I been in Hot Springs--law I don't know ----- 'cept I was a full grown woman when we come.
I's had four children--all of 'em is dead. I lives with my grandson. The little fellow, he'll be old enough to go to
school in a year or two. A dime for him ma'am -----an' 2 cents besides? Now son you keep the dime and you can
spend the pennies. I always tries to teach him to save. Then when he gets big he'll know what to do."
Dining room and living room joined one another by means of a high and wide arch. The stove was sensibly set up in
this passage. Both rooms were comfortably furnished with products which had in all probability been bought new.
The child stocd close by thruout the entire conversation. There was no whit of timidity shout him, nor was he the
least impertinent. He was frankly interested and wanted to know what was being said. He received the dime and the
pennies with a pleasant grin and a ( grandmother prompted) "Thank you" But the gift didn't startle him. Dimes must
have been a fairly usual part of his life. But a few minutes before the interviewer left she dropped her pencil. It was
new and long and yellow. The child's eyes clung to it as he returned it. "Would you like to have it." the young
woman asked, "would you like a pencil of your very own, to draw with?" Would he! The child's whole face
beamed. Dimes were as nothing compared to shiney new pencils. the third grandchild" was overjoyed with his new
plaything. Ella Sanderson was delighted with her great grandchild's pleasure. The interviewer received a warm anid
friendly "Good-bye"
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
