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1200 N. Magnolia, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age 80
"Yes'm, I was born in time of slavery---seven years before surrender. No'm, I wasn't born in Arkansas. Born in
Claiborne Parish, Louisiana.
"I remember hearin' the big guns shoot. I was small and I didn't know what it was only by what they told me.
"My parents belonged to the Harts. My mother run off and left me, a year-old baby.
"I remember better when I was young than I do now.
"After I got big enough---you know, a little old nasty somethin' runnin' around in the yard---after I got big enough,
they took me in the house to rock the cradle, and I stayed there till I was twenty-three. I would a stayed longer but
they was so cruel to me.
"I didn't know nothin'. I run off and stayed with a colored preacher and his family not far away. You know I was
crazy. One day the preacher said some of his members was objectin' to me stayin' there and he was goin' to tell my
white folks where I was. And sure enough, he did, and one morning I was out in the field and I saw the son-in-law
comin'. So I went back and worked for him and his wife.
"Me? All I did do was farmin' when I was young.
"Oh, I been in Arkansas 'bout fifty years. My oldest boy was fourteen when I come here and he is sixty-four now.
"No, honey, I can't cook now. I'd burn it up. I used to cook. It's a poor dog that won't wag its own tall.
"All I know is I had a hard time. I been married three times. My last husband was a preacher and he was so mean I
left him. I told him if all preachers was like him, hell was full of 'em.
"I went to Chicago and lived with my son a while but I didn't like it, so I come back here and I been here right in the
yard with Mrs. O'Neal eight years washin' and ironin'---anything come to hand.
"Now if there's goin' to be a death in my family, I can see that 'fore it happens. I was out in the potato patch one day
and it started to rain and I come in and somethin' just bores down on me and I started to cry. I didn't know why. I
thought, 'Oh, Lord, is somethin' goin' to happen to my son?' But instead it was my grandson. He got killed that
evenin'."
Name of interviewer Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Subject Birthmarks
"I know I marked one of my babies with beer. It was 'cause I wanted some beer and couldn't get it. And when it was
born it had a place on the back of its neck looked like beer and she just foamed at the mouth. And when she was
about a week old I got some beer and give it to her with a teaspoon and she quit foamin'.
"And another time there was a boy on the place had a finger that the doctor had done took the bone out. He and I
used to love to rassle (wrestle) and one day he said, 'Oh, Emma, you hurt my finger.' And like a fool, you know I
took his hand and just rubbed that finger. And do you know, when my baby was born it had six fingers on each
hand."
This information given by Emma Foster
Place of residence 1200 N. Magnolia Street, Pine Hluff, Arkansas
Occupation Laundress Age 80
Interviewer Mrs. Earnice Bowden"
