“I went to Mississippi and married.  Folks got grown earlier than they do now and I married when I was a young girl ’bout seventeen.  We come to Arkansas.  I sewed for white and colored.  I cooked some.  I taught school in the public schools.  I taught opportunity school two years.  I had a class at the church in day and at the schoolhouse at night.  I had two classes.

“John Hays was mama’s owner in Tennessee.”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  Lucretia Alexander
                    1708 High Street.  Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  89

“I been married three times and my last name was Lucretia Alexander.  I was twelve years old when the War began.  My mother died at seventy-three or seventy-five.  That was in August 1865—­August the ninth.  She was buried August twelfth.  The reason they kept her was they had refugeed her children off to different places to keep them from the Yankees.  They couldn’t get them back.  My mother and her children were heir property.  Her first master was Toliver.  My mother was named Agnes Toliver.  She had a boy and a girl both older than I were.  My brother come home in ’65.  I never got to see my sister till 1869.

“My father died in 1881 and some say he was one hundred twelve and some say one hundred six.  His name was Beasley, John Beasley, and he went by John Beasley till he died.

“My mother died and left four living children.  I was the youngest.

“I got religion in 1865.  I was baptized seventy-three years ago this August.

“I ain’t got nary living child.  My oldest child would have been sixty-four if he were living.  They claim my baby boy is living, but I don’t know.  I have four children.

“The first overseer I remember was named Kurt Johnson.  The next was named Mack McKenzie.  The next one was named Pink Womack.  And the next was named Tom Phipps.  Mean!  Liked meanness!  Mean a man as he could be.  I’ve seen him take them down and whip them till the blood run out of them.

“I got ten head of grandchildren.  And I been grandmother to eleven head.  I been great-grandmother to twelve head of great-grandchildren.  I got one twenty-three and another nineteen or twenty.  Her father’s father was in the army.  She is the oldest.  Lotas Robinson, my granddaughter, has four children that are my great-grandchildren.  Gayden Jenkins, my grandson, has two girls.  I got a grandson named Dan Jenkins.  He is the father of three boys.  He lives in Cleveland.  He got a grandson named Mark Jenkins in Memphis who has one boy.  The youngest granddaughter—­I don’t remember her husband’s name—­has one boy.  There are four generations of us.

“I been here.  You see I took care of myself when I was young and tried to do right.  The Lord has helped me too.  Yes, I am going on now.  I been here a long time but I try to take care of myself.  I was out visiting the sick last time you come here.  That’s the reason I missed you.  I tries to do the best I can.