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Forrest City, Arkansas
Age 67
"Pa was sold twice to my knowing. He was sold to McCoy, then to Alexander. He was Virginian. Then he was
carried to Alabama and brought to Holly Grove by the Mayos. I have wore four names, Alexander, Adams, Morgan,
and Tabon.
"My mother's owners was Kllis from Alabama. She said she was sold from de Scales to Ellis. Her father, sister, and
two brothers was sold from Ellis. She never seen them no more. They found Uncle Charles Kllis dead in the field.
They never knowed how it come.
"My parents had hard times during slavery. Ma had a big scar on her shoulder where the overseer struck her with a
whoop. She was chopping cotton. She either wasn't doing to suit him or wasn't getting along fast enough to suit him.
"Ma had so many little ones to raise she give me to Nancy Bennett. I love her soul in her grave. I helped her to do
all her work she taught me. She'd leave me with her little boy and go to church and I'd make cakes and bread. She
brag on me. We'd have biscuits on Sunday morning. They was a rarity.
"One day she had company. She told me to bake some potatoes with the jackets on. I washed the potatoes and
wrapped them up in rags and boiled them. It made her so mad she wet the towel and whooped me with it. I
unwrapped the potatoes and we had them that way for dinner.
That was the maddest she ever got at me. She learned me to cook and keep a nice house and to sew good as
anybody. I rather know how to work than be educated.
"Mr. Ash give me a lot of scraps from his garment factory. I made them up in quilts. He give me enough to make
three dresses. I needed dresses so bad." (One dress has sixty-six pieces in it but it didn't look like that. They sent it
to Little Rock and St. Louis for the county fairs. Her dresses looked fairly well.)
"I was born at Holly Grove, Arkensas. Alexander was the name my pa went by and that was my maiden name."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robartson"
