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823 West 13th Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 85?
"Yes mam, I was here during that Civil War. I was fifteen years old then. I was born in Tennessee.
"My boss man carried all the best hands to Texas and carried the scrub hands across Oypress Creek here in
Arkansas, and that's where I come. I was fifteen when the Yankees come in on my boss man's place, so you know
now I ain't no baby. I thank God that He left me here to get old.
"Before the war, I nussed two babies --- my mistress' baby and her sister's baby. Yes'm we had a good master and
mistress. We didn't suffer for nothin' and we didn't have no overseer over us. Colonel Kaples was my master. No'm
he wasn't no soldier --- that was the name his mother give him.
"When my folks first come to Arkansas we lived in a cabin that just had a balin' sack hangin' in the door and one
night a bear come in and my brother and I broke a board off the side and fell right out in the cane. We all hollered
so some folks come down and shot the bear. I ain't never seed a bear before and I didn't know what it was.
"I 'member when the Yankess come to my boss man's place. They wanted to shake hands but he was scared to death
and wouldn't do it. Another time the Yankess captured him and kept him three months.
They took his horse and he finally come home on a mule that didn't have but three legs. I guess the Yankees give
him the mule. He turned the old mule loose and said he never wanted to see another Yankee. If he saw any kind of a
white man comin' down the road he run in the house and hid between the feather bed and the nattress.
"One time the Yankees come and drunk the sweet milk and took all the butter, turkeys and hogs and then broke the
powder horn against the maple tree.
"The cook say 'I'm gwine tell Marse Joe you drink all this milk.' The Yankees say, 'Let the dawn fool alone --- here
we are tryin' to free her and she ain't got no sense.' They said there wouldn't be any more hard times after the war.
"But I sure have seen some hard times. I have washed and cooked and done 'bout everything.
"When I get up in the morning I got the limburger (lumbago) in my back so I ain't able to do much. Sometimes I
have something to eat and sometimes I don't."
(Mrs. Carol Graham, Mrs. Mildred Thompson, El Dorado District)
Fannie Sims. Customs "How ole is ah? Ise about 78. Yes'm ah was live durin de wah. Mah ole moster was Mistuh
Jake Dumas we lived near de Ouachita rivuh bout five miles fum El Dorado landin. Ah mombush dat we washed at
de spring way, way fum de house. What dat yo say? Does ah know Ca'line. Ca'line, lawsy, me yes. Ca'line
Washington we use tuh call huh, she was one uv Mr. Dumas niggers. We washed fuh de soldiers. Had tuh carry dey
clo'es tuh dem aftuh dark. Me an Ca'line had tuh carry dem. We had tuh hide de horse tuh keep de soldiers fum
gittin him. When we would take de horse tuh de plum orchard we would stay dah all day to dark wid "Blackie." Dat
was de horse's name. Mah job mostly was tuh watch de chillun an feed mah mistress chickens.
Ah kin recollect when dey took us an started tuh Texas an got as fun as El Dorado and found out dat us niggers was
free. We went back an grandwa's mistress's son took us home wid him fuh stretches and stretches. He lived on de
ole Camden road.
In mah days ah've done plenty uv work but ah don' do nothing now but piece quilts. Dat's whut ah've been doing fuh
mah white fokes since ah been heah. Ah jes finished piecing and quiltin two uv em. De Glove and de Begger. Mah
husban' been dead 31 years dis pas' August. How ah counts is by dese twins ah raised. One uv em lives in dis heah
place right heah. Ah aint much count now. Sometime mah laig gets so big ah jes had tuh sloop mah foot erlong."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
