George said his mother cooked for the Gemes the first he could remember of her.  That was all she had time to do.  It was five miles to Marshall.  They lived in Harrison County and they could buy somethings to eat there if they didn’t raise enough.  They bought cheese by the cases in round boxes and flour in barrels and sugar in barrels.  They had fine clothes for Sunday.  After his mother left the Gemes they worked in the field or did anything she could for a living.

George married after he came to Arkansas and bought a farm 140 acres of land 4 miles north of Hazen and a white man, —­ —–­ closed a mortgage out on him and took it.  He paid $300.00 for a house in town in which he now lives.  His son was killed in the World War and he gets his son’s insurance every month.

George said when he came to Arkansas it was easy to live if you liked to hunt.  Ship the skins and get some money when you couldn’t be farming.  Could get all the wood you would cut and then clear out land and farm.  He hunted 7 or 8 years with Colonel A.F.  Yopp and fed Colonel’s dogs.  He hunted with Mr. Yopp but he didn’t think Colonel was a very good man.  I gathered from George that he didn’t approve of wickedness.

It is bad luck to dig a grave the day before a person is buried, or any time before the day of the burying.  Uncle George has dug or helped to dig lots of graves.  It is bad luck to the family of the dead person.  The grave ought not to be “left open” it is called.  He has always heard this and believes it, yet he can’t remember when he first heard it.

He thinks there are spirits that direct your life and if you do wrong the evil fates let you be punished.  He believes in good and evil spirits.  Spirits right here among us.  He says there is “bound to be spirits” or “something like ’em.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  George Braddox, Hazen, Arkansas
Age:  81

Most of the old songs were religious.  I don’t remember none much.  When the war broke out my papa jess left and went on off with some people and joined the Yankee army.  I went to see him since I been at Hazen.  He lived in Chicago.  Yes mam he’s been dead a long time ago.  Gus Taylor and Peter Calloway (white) took my papa with them for their helper.  He left them and went with the Yankee army soon as he heard what they was fighting about.  Peter Calloway lived on a big track of land joining Dave Genes land.  It show was a big farm.  Peter Calloway owned my papa and Dave Genes my mama.  Gus Taylor was Dave Genes overseer.  Peter Calloway never come back from the war.  My folks come from Alabama with Dave Genes and his son John Genes.  I was born in Harrison county, Texas.  Gus Taylor was a great big man.  He was mean to us all.  The Yankees camped there.  It was near Marshall.  I had some good friends among the Yankees.  They kept me posted all time the war went on.  Nobody never learnt me nothing.  I can cipher a little and count money.  I took that up.  I learned after I was grown a few things.  Just learned it myself.  I never went to school a day in my life.  The Genes had a brick, big red brick house.  They sent their children to schools.  They had stock, peafowls, cows, guineas, geese, ducks and chickens, hogs and everything.  Old woman on the place just milked and churned.  That is all she done.