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MOTHER ANNE CLARK, 112 years old, lives at 3602 Alameda Ave., El Paso, Texas. She is too crippled to walk,
but a smile lights up the tired old eyes that still see to sew without glasses. One tooth of a third set is in her upper
gum. She is deaf, but can hear if you speak close to her ear. She says, "Lemme git my ears open, bofe of 'em," wets
her finger, then pulls so hard on the ex lobes it seems they would be injured.
"I'll be 112 years old, come first day of June(1937). Bo'n in Mississippi. I had two marsters, but I've been free nearly
80 years. I was freed in Memphis.
"My marster was a Yankee. He took me to Louisiana and made a slave outta me. But he had to go to war. He got in
a quarrel one day and grabbed two six-shooters, but a old white man got him down and nearly kilt him. Our men got
him and gave him to the Yankees.
"Capt. Clark, my second marster, took a shot at him and he couldn' come south no more. You don' know what a
time I seen! I don' wanna see no more war. Why, we made the United States rich but the Yankees come and tuk it.
They buried money and when you bury money it goes fu'ther down, down, down, and then you cain't fin' it.
"You know, the white folks hated to give us up worse thing in the world. I ploughed, hood, split rails. I done the
hardest work ever a man ever did. I was so strong, iffen he needed me I'd pull them down so the marster could
handcuff 'em.
They'd whop us with a bullwhip. We got up at 3 o'clock, at 4 we done et and hitched up the mules and went to the
fiel's. We worked all day pullin' fodder and choppin' cotton. Marster'd say, 'I wan' you to lead dat fiel' today, and if
you don' do it I'll put you in de stocks.' Then he'd whop me iffen I didn' know he was talkin' to me.
"My poppa was strong. He never had a lick in his life. He helped the marster, but one day the marster says. 'Si, you
got to have a whoppin',' and my poppa says, 'I never had a whoppin' and you cain't whop me.' An' the marster says,
'But I kin kill you,' an' he shot my poppa down. My mama tuk him in the cabin and put him on a pallet. He died.
"My mama did the washin' for the big house. She tuk a big tub on her head and a bucket of water in her hand. My
mama had two white chillen by marster and they were sold as slaves. I had two chillen, too. I never married. They
allus said we'd steal, but I didn' take a thing. Why, they'd put me on a hose with money to take into town and I'd take
it to the store in town, and when I'd git back, marster'd say, 'Anne, you didn' take a thing.'
"When women was with child they'd dig a hole in the groun' and put their stomach in the hole, and then beat 'em.
They'd allus whop us."
"Don' bring me anything fine to wear for my birthday. I jus' van' some candy. I'm lookin' for Him to take me away
from here."
