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Clarendon, Arkansas
Ex school-teacher
Age 62
"My mother was named Isabel Porter Smith. She come from Springville. Rev. Porter brought her to Mississippi
close to Holly Springs. Then she come to Batesville, Arkansas. He owned her. He was a circuit rider. I think he was
a Presbyterian minister. I heard her say they brought her to Arkansas when she was a small girl. She nursed and
cooked all the time. After freedom she went with Reverend Porter's relatives to work for them. I know so very little
about what she said about slavery.
"My father was raised in North Carolina. His name was Jerry Smith and his master he called Judge Smith. My father
made all he ever had farmin'. He knew how to raise cotton. He owned a home. This is his home (a nice home on
River Street in Clarendon) and 80 acres. He sold this farm two miles from here after he had paralasis, to live co.
"My parents had two girls and two boys. They all dead but me. My mother's favorite song was "Oh How I Love
Jesus Because He First Loved Me." They come here because my mother had a brother down here and she heard it
was such fine farmin' land.
"When I was a little girl my father was a Presbyterian so he sent me to boardin' school in Cotton Plant and then sent
me to Jacksonville, Illinois. I worked my board out up there. Mrs. Dr. Carroll got me a place to work. My sister
learned to sew. She sewed for the public till her death. She sewed for both black and white folks. I stretches curtains
now if I can got any to stretch and I irons. It give me rheumatism to wash. I used to wash and iron.
"My husband cooks on a Government derrick boat. He gets $1.25 and his board. They have the very best things to
eat. He likes the work if he can stay well. He can cook pies and fancy cookin". They like that. Say they can't hardly
get somebody work long because they want to be in town every night.
"We have one child. I used to be a primary teacher here at Clarendon.
"I never have voted. My husband votes but I don't know what he thinks about it.
"I try to look at the present conditions in an encouraging way. The young people are so extravagant. The old folks in
need. The thing most discouraging is the strangers come in and get jobs home folks could do and need and they
can't get jobs and got no money to leave on nor no place to go. People that able to work don't work hard as they
ought and people could and willin' to work can't get jobs. Some of the young folks do sure live wild lives. They
think only of the present times. A few young folks are buying homes but not half of them got a home. They work
where they let 'on have a room or a house. Different folks live all kinds of ways."
Interviewer Samuel S. Taylor"
