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My mother's name was Mary Melvina Daniels. Kolb Wilkerson was her owner. He was her father. He was a full
blooded Irishman.
I don't know anything about my father. His name was Israel Jones. My mother was young you know and I think he
seduced her. I was born on the 8th of May 1867 and she was seventeen the next July.
This seducin' business been going on ever since the world began, hasn't it?
I think my mother was born in Virginia and went to Tennessee. That's where I was born - Bolivar, Tennessee. Yes
ma'm. We left Tennessee in 'seventy four and come to Pine Bluff. We laid over in Little Rock a little while. When
we left Tennessee my stepfather left to go to Texarkana and when we got to Little Rock somebody sighted him to
Pine Bluff and he come here.
My stepfather's name was Millidgeville Daniels. That was his name but everybody called him Milt an Milton. He
was a blacksmith. Captain McKinney was the man he worked for.
Yes ma'm, my stepfather was born in slavery. He fought in the war. He fought with the Secessionists. He didn't do it
of his own volition - his master made him.
He used to tell some wonderful stories about the war but I can't remember them.
He used to say his owner tried to whip him but he wouldn't stand for that. He was mean as the devil, but he was
good in some ways. He provided for his family---I give him credit for that. We had plenty to eat and plenty to wear.
Why, when you'd go in the smoke house it would look like a young store.
Whenever he got a beef he'd get a whole one. Pickle some of it and jerk some.
He bought me good clothes and plenty of them. And when it come to school clothes, wasn't anybody looked any
better than I did.
I heard my mother say one time her owner was gone and the overseer ordered her to wash some socks and she
wouldn't do it cause she was not under his supervision and he struck her and knocked her out.
She was the mother of six children, but only three of them alive---me and my two sisters. She died in 'eighty-nine in
her thirty-ninth year. After she died I took care of my two sisters. Stayed there till I got the older one married when
she was thirteen.
My stepfather married again in August after my mother died.
I got my other sister married too before I married.
Yes'm. I went to school, I just lacked three weeks gettin' my diploma. Seemed like I just lost all energy after my
mother died.
I graduated from the preparatory school and got my sheepskin. My diploma. Then I went to the Branch Normal in
eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven and eighty-eight.
I taught in country schools in the summer and went to the Branch Normal in the fall and winter. I went to the
Branch Normal when it was over here on Fourth where the Missouri Pacific Park is. I think David L. Trimble was
the county examiner then. The last school I taught was in Louisiana.
I married in September 1893 and I never taught any more after that. My husband and I farmed in 1901, 1902, 1903
and 1904 but mostly he was a public man. He worked in planning mills. I don't know whether he was skilled or not
but he worked behind machines.
I use to sew---take in sewing, and teach music---piano and organ.
Before my mother died there was an old gentlemen---a colored man---lived with us, was a graduate of a
conservatory in Michigan. He told my stepfather if he would buy an organ that he would give me lessons. Professor
R.W. Wright was his name. All I know about music I learned in six weeks. He said I learned faster than any pupil
he ever had. I just went crazy about it---played night and day.
I'm the pianist at our church. For twenty-six years now I've been out here at Ward's Chapel A.M.E. Church. I love to
play "himes" (hymns).
I can say I have been wonderfully blest to be here because when I was young I spent so many sick days. My mother
said I wore my baby clothes when I was three years old.
My husband was paralyzed and he died last summer and now I just get a little help from the Bureau.
Hattie Douglas
Route 6, Box 3
Occupation---None---supported by Welfare Department, Age 71.
Bernice Bowden (December 21, 1938)
