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712 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age 75 Occupation Field hand
"I was born three miles west of Hamburg in Ashley County, Arkansas, in the year 1859, in the month of October. I
don't know just what day of the month it was.
"My mother was named Indiana Simms and my father was named Burrell Simms. My father's mother was named
Ony Simms, and my mother's mother was named Maria Young. I don't know what the names of their parents was.
"My mother's master was named Robert Tucker. My father's master was named Hartwell Simms. Their plantations
were pretty close together, but I don't know how my father and my mother got together. I guess they just happened
to meet up with each other. The slaves from the two plantations were allowed to visit one another. Arter their
marriage, the two continued to belong to different masters. Every Sunday, they would visit one another. My father
used to come to visit his wife every Sunday and through the week at night.
"My mother had ten children.
"I was born in a log house with one room. It was built with a stick and dirt chimney. It had plank floors. They didn't
have nothin' much in the way of furniture---homemade beds, stools, tables. We had common pans and tin plates and
tin cans to use for dishes. The cabin had one window and one door.
"I have heard my mother and father tell many a story of the pateroles. But I can't remember them. My father said
they used to go into the slave cabins and take folks out and whip them. They'd go at night and get 'em out and whip
'em.
"I was so little that I don't know much about how freedom came. I just know he took us all and went somewheres
and made him a crop. Went to another man. Didn't stay on the place where he was a slave. He never got anything
when he was freed. I never heard of any of the slaves getting anything.
"I went to free school after the War. I just went along during the vacation when they weren't doing any farming.
That is all the education I got. I can't tell how many seasons I went---four or five, I reckon. I never did go any whole
season. I never had much chance to go to school. People didn't send their children to school much in those days. I
went to school in Monticello, but most of my schooling was in country schools.
"When I first went to work, I picked cotton. That is at a place out near Hamburg. I picked cotton about ten or fifteen
years. Then I went to town---Monticello. I washed and ironed. About forty-five years ago, I came to Little Rock,
and have been here every since. Washing and ironing has been my support. I have sometimes cooked.
"I don't know what I think about the young people. Seems to me they coming to nothing. Lot of them do wrong just
because they got a chance to do it. I'm a christian. I belong to the A. M. K.'s. You know how they do.
I belong to the band
That good old christian band
Thank God I belong to the band.
Steal away home to Jesus I ain't got long to stay here.
There'll I'll meet my mother,
My good old christian mother,
Mother, how do you do?
Thank God I belong to the band.
I can't remember the music. But that's an old song we used to sing 'way back yonder. I can't remember any more of
the verses. You got enough anyhow."
Interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden"
