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3210 W. Sixteenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age Between 50 and 60 ?
"My mother's name was Mahala McKlory. Her master's name was Wiley McKlroy. She was living in Howard
County, Arkansas near Nashville. She worked in the field, and sewed in the house for her mistress. One time she
said she never would forget about slavery was a time when she was thirteen years old, and the overseer beat her.
"My mother was a real bright woman with great long black hair. Her master was her father. She told me that the
overseer grabbed her by her hair and would it 'round his arm and then grabbed her by the roots of it and jerked her
down to the ground and beat her till the blood ran out of her nose and mouth. She was 'fraid to holler.
"Mother married when she was fourteen. I can't remember the name of her husband. The preacher was an old man, a
faith doctor, who read the ceremony. His name was Lewis Hill.
"I heard mother say they beat my brother-in-law (his name was Dave Denver) till he was bloody as a hog. Then they
washed him down in salt and water. Then they beat him again because he hollered.
"She told us how the slaves used to try to pray. They were so scared that the overseer would see them that early in
the morning while they were going to their work in the field at daybreak that they would fall down on one knee and
pray. They were so 'fraid that the overseer would catch then that they would be watching for him with one eye and
looking for God with the other. But the Lord understood.
"My mother was seventy years old when she died. She has been dead thirty years."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
