“I still knits my winter stockings.  I got knitting needles and cards my own mother had and used.  I got use for them.  I wears clothes on my body in cold weather.  One reason you young folks ain’t no ’count you don’t wear enough clothes when it is cold.  I wear flannel clothes if I can get holt of them.

“Education done ruint the world.  I learnt to read a little.  I never went to school.  I learnt to work.  I learnt my boys to go with me to the field and not to be ashamed to sweat.  It’s healthy.  They all works.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed:  Mattie Aldridge
Age:  60?  Hazen, Arkansas

“My mother’s old owner named Master Sanders.  She born somewhere in Tennessee.  I heard her say she lived in Mississippi.  I was born in Tennessee.  My pa was born in Mississippi.  I know he belong to the Duncans.  His name George Washington Duncan.  There ain’t nary drap white blood in none us.  I got four brothers.  I do remembers grandma.  She set and tell us tales bout old times like you want to know.  Been so long I forgotten.  Ma was a house girl and pa a field hand.  Way grandma talked it must of been hard to find out what white folks wanted em to do, cause she couldn’t tell what you say some times.  She never did talk plain.

“They was glad when freedom declared.  They said they was hard on em.  Whoop em.  Pa was killed in Crittenden County in Arkansas.  He was clearin’ new ground.  A storm come up and a limb hit him.  It killed him.  Grandma and ma allus say like if you build a house you want to put all the winders in you ever goin’ to want.  It bad luck to cut in and put in nother one.  Sign of a death.  I ain’t got no business tellin’ you bout that.  White folks don’t believe in signs.

“I been raisin’ up childern—­’dopted childern, washin’, ironin’, scourin’, hoein’, gatherin’ corn, pickin’ cotton, patchin’, cookin’.  They ain’t nothin’ what I ain’t done.

“No’m, I sure ain’t voted.  I don’t believe in women votin’.  They don’t know who to vote for.  The men don’t know neither.  If folks visited they would care more bout the other an wouldn’t be so much devilment goin’ on.”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor. 
Person Interviewed:  Amsy O. Alexander
                    2422 Center Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  74

[HW:  Helps Build Railroad]

“I was born in the country several miles from Charlotte in Macklenberg, County, North Carolina in 1864.

“My father’s name was John Alexander and my mother was Esther McColley.  That was her maiden name of course.

“My father’s master was named Silas Alexander and my mother belonged to Hugh Reed.  I don’t know just how she and my father happened to meet.  These two slaveholders were adjoining neighbors, you might say.

“My father and my mother married during the war.  I was the first child.  I had three half brothers and three half sisters from the father’s side.  I didn’t have no whole brothers and sisters.  I am the only one on my mother’s side.  My father was not in the war.