House

“In Richmond, they lived in a little log cabin.  Before I had so much trouble I could tell you all about it, but I never forget that little log cabin.  That is near Oak Grove where Lincoln and Garfield and Nat Turner met and talked about slavery.

Furniture

“We had oak furniture.  We had a tall bed with a looking glass in the back of it, long bolsters, long pillow cases just like we used to make long infant dresses.  There were four rooms in the cabin.  It was in the city.  The kitchen was a little off from the house.  You reached it by going through a little portico.

Food

“We ate bananas, oranges, hazelnuts, apples, fruit for every month in the year for breakfast, batter cakes, egg bread.  The mornings we had egg bread we had flesh.  For dinner and supper we had milk and butter and some kind of sweetness, and bread, of course.  We had a boiled dinner.  We raised everything-even peanuts.

Clothes

“We made everything we wore.  Raised and made the cloth and the leather, and the clothes and the shoes.

Contacts with Slaves and Slave Owners

“I don’t know nothin’ about slavery.  I didn’t have nothin’ to do with them folks.  We picked em up on our way in our travels and they had been treated like dogs and hadn’t been told they were free.  We’d tell em they was free and let em go.

Leaving Richmond

“All I can tell you is that we come on down and never stopped until we got to Memphis, and we tarried there twenty-five years.  We came through Louisiana and Georgia on our way out here and picked up many slaves who didn’t know they was free.  They was using these little boats when we came out here.  In Louisiana and Georgia when we came out here, they weren’t thinkin’ bout telling the niggers they were free.  And they weren’t in Clarksville either.  We landed in Little Rock and made it our headquarters.

Occupations

“Christian work has been the banner of my life-labor work, giving messages about the Bible, teaching.  Mostly they kept me riding—­I mean with the doctors.  When we were riding, the doctors didn’t go in a mother’s room; he sent the rider in.  They call em nurses now and handle them indifferently.  The doctor jus’ stopped in the parlor and made his money jus’ sitting there and we women did all the work.  In 1912, I gave up my riding license.  It was too rough for me in Arkansas.  And then they wouldn’t allow me anything either.