pullman to the coach where the colored persons had to ride to see about me.  We went out to visit Sister (Bess Hudgins Clayton) and Bud.  While we were there, Barnum and Bailey came to Los Angeles.  It seemed so funny.  There we were—­away out in California—­all the children grown up and off to themselves.  There we were—­all of us—­seeing the show we had planned to see way back in Arkansas, years and years before.

You know, Honey, that doll Ann has—­she got it for her seventh birthday (Elisabeth Ann Wiggans—­daughter of Helen Hudgins Wiggans).  It was restrung for her, and was once before for her mother.  But it’s the same doll Baby Dean (Dean Hudgins) carried out of that fire in Hot Springs in 1895.  Everybody loves Ann.  She makes the fifth generation I’ve cared for.  When Helen is going out she brings Ann down here or I go up there.  It’s usually down here tho.  Because since we turned the old home into apartments I take care of them, and it’s best for me to be here most of the time.

All the people in the apartments are mighty nice to me.  Often for days at a time they bring me so much to eat that I don’t have to cook for myself.  A boy going to the University has a room here and tends to the furnace.  He’s a nice boy.  I like him.

My life’s been a full one, Honey, and an interesting one.  I can’t really say which part of it is best.  I can’t decide whether it’s a better world now or then.  I’ve had lots of hard work, and lots of friends, lots of fun and I’ve gone lots of places.  Life is interesting.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Vera Roy Bobo (Mulatto, almost white)
                    Holly Grove, Arkansas
Age:  62

“My parents come from Macon, Georgia.  My mother was Margaret Cobb.  Her people were owned by the Cobbs.  They reared her.  She was a house girl and a seamstress.  She sewed for both white and black.  She was light color.

“My father was St. Roy Holmes.  He was a C.M.E. preacher in Georgia and later in Arkansas.  He came on the train to Forrest City, 1885.  He crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry boat.  Later he preached at Wynne.  He was light color.

“I never heard them say very much about slavery.  This was their own home.

“My husband’s father was the son of a white man also—­Randall Bobo.  He used to visit us from Bobo, Mississippi.  The Bobo a owned that town and were considered rich people.  My husband was some darker and was born at Indian Bay, Arkansas.  He was William Bobo.  I never knew him till two months before I married him.  We had a home wedding and a wedding supper in this house.”

(This may be continued)

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Liddie Boechus, (second interview)
                    Madison, Arkansas
Age:  73

“I was born in West Point, Mississippi.  My own dear mother’s owner was Pool.  His wife was Mistress Patty Pool.  Old man Pool raised our set.  He was an old soldier, I think.  He was old when I came to know him.