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Forrest City, Arkansas
Age 74
"I was born at Monticello, Arkansas at the last of the Cibil (Civil) War. My parents' names was Richard and Ann
Allen. They had thirteen children. Mother was a house girl and papa a blacksmith and farmer.
"My great-grandma and grandpa was killed in Indian Nation (Alabama) by Sam and Will Allen. They was coming
west long 'fo'e the war from one of the Carolinas. I disremembers which they told me. Great-grandpa was a chief.
They was shot and all the children run but they caught my Grandma Evaline and put her in the wagon and brought
her to Monticelle, Arkansas. They fixed her so she couldn't get loose from them. She was a little full-blood Indian
girl then. They got her fer my great-grandpa a wife. He seen her and thought she was so pretty.
"She was wild. She wouldn't sat much else but meat and raw at that. She had a child 'fo'e ever she'd eat bread. They
tamed her. Grandpa's pa that wanted the Indian wife was full-blood African. Mama was little lighter than
'gingercake' color.
"My Indian grandma was mean. I was fraid of 'er. She run us down and ketch us and whoop us. She was tall slender
woman. She was mean as she could be. She'd cut a cat's head off for no cause or tell. Grandpa was kind. He'd bring
me candy back if he went off. I cried after him. I played with his girl. We was about the same size. Her name was
Annie Mathis. He was a Mathis. He was a blacksmith too at Monticello and later he bought a farm three and
one-half miles out. I was raised on a farm.
Papa died there. I washed and done field work all my life. Grandma married Bob Mathis.
"Our owner was Sam and Lizzie Allen. William Allen was his brother. I think Sam had eight children. There was a
Claude Allen in Monticello and some grandchildren, Eva Allen and Lens Allen. Eva married Robert Lawson. I lived
at Round Pond seventeen or eighteen years, then come to Forrest City. I been away from them Allen's and Mathis'
and Bill's so long and 'bout forgot 'em. They wasn't none too good to nobody---selfish. They'd make trouble, then
crap out of it. Pack it on anybody. They wasn't none too good to do nothing. Some of 'em lazy as ever was white
men and woman. Some of 'em I know wasn't rich---poor as 'Jobe's stucky.' I don't know nothing 'bout 'em now.
They wasn't good.
"I was a baby at freedom and I don't know about that nor the Ku Klux. Grandpa started a blacksmith shop at
Monticello after freedom.
"My pa was a white man. Richard Allen was mama's husband.
"Me and my husband gets ten dollars from the Old Age Pension. He is ninety-six years old. He do a little about. I
had a stroke and ain't been no 'count since. He can tell you about the Cibil War."
I missed her husband twice. It was a long ways out there but I will see him another time.
Interviewer Mrs, Bernice Bowden"
