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Clarendon, Arkansas
Age 88
"I was born close to Hernando, Mississippi. My parents was Cassie Cillahm and Ely Gillahm. My master was John
Gillahm. I fell to John Gillahm and Tim bought me from him so I could be with my mother. I was a young baby.
Bill Gillahm was our old master. He might had a big farm but I was raised on a small farm. White folks raised me.
They put me to sewing young. I sewed with my fingers. I could sew mighty nice. My mistress had a machine she
screwed on a table.
"All the Gillahms went to Louisiana in war time and left the woman with youngest white master. They was trying to
keep their slaves from scattering. They were so sure that the War would be lost.
"The Yankees camped close to us but didn't bother my white folks to hurt them. They et them out time and ag'in. I
seen the Yankees every day. I seen the cannons and cavalry a mile long. The sound was like eternity had turned
loose. Everything shook like earthquakes day and night. The light was bright and red and smoke terrible.
"Mother cooked and we et from our master's table.
"We was all scared when the War was on and glad it was over. Mama died at the close. Me and my sister
sharecropped and made seven bales of cotton in one year.
"When freedom come on, our master and mistress told us. We all cried. Miss Mollie was next to our own mother.
She raised us. We kept on their place.
"I cooked for Joe Campbell at Forrest City. He had one boy I help to raise. They think well of me."
Very light mulatto, Hed fast and had two rolls and a cup of coffee. Had been alone all day except when Home Aid
girls bathed and cleaned her bed. She is paralyzed. She said she was hungry.
Interviewer Mrs. Barnice Bowden
Negro(Apparently octoroon or quadroon)
Address 2804 West fifteenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas.
Occupation Formerly field hand and housekeeper AGE 79 "Captain Ellie' wife was named Minerva. She was my
mother's mother. She's been dead years. I got children older than she was when she died. She died in Mississippi. I
got a cousin named Molly Spight. She's dead. My mother's sister was named Emmaline; she is dead now too.
"My mother was colored. I don't know nothin' about my father, and my mother never taught me nothin' 'bout him.
"My step father and mother were both field hands. They worked in the field.
"I don't know just when I was born, but I am just sure that it was before the war. I remember hearing people talk
about things in the war.
"My mother's master was named Whitely, I think, because she was named Whitley before she married.
"I have been married three times. The first man I married was 'Lijah Gibbs. The second time I married, I married Joe
Finger. The third time I married Will Reese. He warn't no husband at all. They're all dead. Folks always called me
Finger after my second husband died, because I didn't live with my third husband long.
"They had log houses. You would never see no brick chimney nor nothing of that kind. The logs were notched
down and kinds kivered flat--- no roof like now. They might have rafters on them, but the top was almost flat.
Wouldn't be any steep like they is now. In them times they wouldn't have many rooms. Sometimes they would have
two.
They wouldn't have so many windows. Just old dirt chimneys. They'd take and dig a hole and stick sticks up in it.
Then they'd make up the dirt and put water in it and pull grass and mix it in the dirt. They'd build a frame on the
sticks and then put the mud on. The chimney couldn't catch fire till the house got old and the mud would fall off.
When it got old and the mud got to fallin off, then they would be a fire. I've seen that since I been in Arkansas.
"Sometimes they would get big rocks and put them inside the fireplace to take the place of bricks. You could get
rocks in the forest.
"Used to have ropes and they would cord the bed stead. The cords would act in place of springs. When you move
you would have a heap of trouble because all that would have to be undone and done up a gain. You have to take
the cords out and them put it together again. The cords 'ould be run through the sides of the bed and stuck in with
page.
"They used to have spinning wheels and looms. They made clothes 'nd they made the cloth for the clothes and they
spun the thread they made the cloth our of. They'd card and spin the thread. There's lots of other things I can't
remember.
"The Yankees used to come in and have the people cook for them. They'd kill chickens and geese and things. The
old people used to take their horses out and tie them out in the woods.---hiding them out to keep the Yankees from
getting them. The Yankees would ride up, take a good horses and leave the old worn-out one.
"There never was any fighting round where I lived. None of my folks was soldiers in the war.
"I don't remember just what my folks did right after the war. They were field hands and I guess they did that. My
mother worked in the field that's all I know.
"I have been in Arkansas a long time. I have been here ever since I left Mississippi. My first marriage was in
Mississippi. The second and last ones was in Arkansas ---Forrest City. My second husband had been dead since
1921. I don't know that I count Reese. We married in June and separated in September. He's dead now, and I don't
hold nothin' against him.
"I'em not able to work now. I do a little 'round the house and dig a little in the garden. I haven't worked in the field
since way before 1921. I don't get no help at all from the Welfare. My daughter does what she can for me. I always
have lived before I ever heard about the old age pension and I suppose God will take care of me yet somehow.
"I'm puny and no'count. Aint able to do much. But I was crippled. I had a hurting in my leg and I couldn't walk
without a stick. Finally, one day I went to go out and pick some turnips. I was visiting my son in Palestine. My log
hurt so bad that I talked to the Lord about it. And it seemed to me, he said 'Put down your stick.' I put it down and I
aint used it since. I put it down right thar and I aint used it since. God is a momentary God. God knowed what I
wanted and he said, 'Put down that sick,' and I aint been crippled since. It done me so much good. Looks like to me
when I get to talking about the Lord, aint nobody a stranger to me.
"I know I been converted but that made me stronger. My son is a siner. He knowed about how I was crippled. He
said you ought use your stick. He didn't know what to think about it. Young folks don't believe because they aint
had no experience with prayer and they don't know what can happen.
"I done told you all I know. I don't want to tell you anything I don't know. If you don't know nothing, it is best to
say you don't.
Everything which Orleans Finger states has the earmarks of being true. There are a great many things which she
does not state which I believe that she could state if she wished. She evidently has a long list of things which she
things should be unmentioned. She has two magic phrases with which she dismisses all subjects which she does not
wich to discuss:
"I don't remember that."
"I better quit talking now before I start lying."
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson"
