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Scott Street, Forrest City, Arkansas
Age 45 or 47
"This is what my father, Isaac Johnson, always told us:
"I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mama died and left three of us children and my papa. He was a blacksmith.'
I don't recollect grandpa's name now.
'A man come to buy me. I was a twin. My sisters cried and cried but I didn't cry. I wanted to ride in the surrey. I was
sold and taken to Montgomery, Alabama.'
"Angeline was his oldest sister and Ermaline was his twin sister. He never seen any of his people again. He forgot
their names. His old master that bought him died soon after he come back from North Carolina.
"His young master didn't even know his age. He tried to get in the army and he did get in the navy. They said he
was younger than he told his age. He enlisted for three years. He was in a scrimmage with the Indians once and got
wounded. He got twenty dollars then fifty dollars for his services till he died.
"He wasn't old enough to be in the Civil War. He said he remembered his mistress crying and they said Lincoln was
to sign a freedom treaty. His young master told him he was free. The colored folks was having a jubilee. He had
nowheres to go. He went back to the big house and sot around. They called him to eat, and he went on sleeping
where he been sleeping. He had nowheres to go. He stayed there till he joined the navy.
Then he come to Mississippi and married Sallie Bratcher and he went back to Alabama and taught school. He went
to school at night after the Civil War till he went to the navy. He was a light-brown skin.
"Grandma, Jene Cash, was one brought from Huntingdon, Tennessee in a gang and sold at auction in Memphis,
Tennessee. She said her mother, father, the baby, her brother and two sisters and herself was sold, divided out and
separated. Grandma said one of her sisters had a suckling baby. She couldn't keep it from crying. They stopped and
made her give it away.
"Then grandma fell in the hands of the Walls at Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was a good breeder, so she didn't
have to work so hard. They wouldn't let her work when she was pregnant.
"Mrs. Walls buried her silver in the front yard. She had an old trusty colored man to dig a hole and bury it. No one
ever found it. The soldiers took their meat and let the molasses run out on the ground. They ransacked her house.
Mr. Walls wasn't there.
"My auntie, Eliza Williamson, was half white. She was one of her master's son's children. Her first master put her
and her husband together. She lives near Conway, Arkansas now and is very old.
"Grandma was living at Menifee, Arkansas, and a man from De Valls Bluff, Arkansas come to her house. She saw a
scar on his arm. He was marked by gingerbread. She asked him some questions. Epps was his name and he was
older than herself. He told her about the sale in Memphis. He remembered some things she didn't. He knowd where
they all went. Her sister was Mary Wright at Milan, Tennessee. Grandma was twelve years old when that sale come
off. She shouted and they cried. She couldn't eat for a week.
"She said old man Walls was good to than. When my mama was a little girl she was short and fat and light color.
Old men Walls Would call them in his parlor, all dress up and show them to his company. He was proud of them.
He'd give than big dances ever so often. In the evening they had their own preaching in white folks' church.
Grandma was good with the needle. She sewed for the mistress and her own family too. She had twelve children I
think they said. They said her mistress had a large family too.
"Grandpa belong to Mike Cash. He give her husband what he made on Saturday evening. I think grandpa was sold
from the Walls to Mike Cash. He took the Cash name and my mother was a Cash and she married Isaac Johnson.
She was raised in Arkansas. Papa was married twice. I was raised around Holly Grove, Arkansas. That is where my
falks lived in the last of slavery---that is name's folks. Papa come to Arkansas as a later time.
"I think times is queer. I work and makes the best of 'em. (Ten dollars a month house renv.) I work all the time
washing and ironing. (She has washed for the same families years and years. She is a light milatto --- ed.)
"Young folks is lost respect for the truth. Not dependeble. That is their very worst fault, I think.
"No-ocm, I wouldn't vote no quicker 'en I'd smoke a cigarette. But I haben never smoked narry one."
