“My own papa’s pa was Smith.  After he came back from the Civil War he took back his Smith name.  He changed it back from Pool to Smith.

“I was a small child when my own dear mother died.  My stepmother had some children of her own, so papa hired me out by the year to nurse for my board and clothes.  My stepmother didn’t care for me right.  White folks raised me.

“I married when I was fifteen years old to a man twenty years old or more.  White folks was good to me but I didn’t have no sense.  I lef’ ’em.  I married too young.  I lived wid him little over twelve years, and I had twelve children by him.  Then I married a preacher.  We had two more children.  My first husband was trifling.  I ploughed, hoed, split wood to raise my babies.

“My daughter come from Louisiana to stay with me last winter when I was sick.  I got eight dollars, now I gets six dollars from the Welfare.  My daughter here now.

“I went to one white teacher a few days—­Miss Perkins.  I never got to go enough to learn.  I took up reading and writing from my children.  I write mighty poor I tell you.

“I used to be a midwife and got ten dollars a case.  They won’t pay off now.  I do a little of that work, but I don’t get nothing for it.  They have a doctor or won’t pay.

“My husband was a good man.  He was a preacher.  I’m a Baptist.

“I don’t know what to think about young folks.  Every feller is for his own self.  Times is hard with old folks.  I had a stroke they said.  This new generation ain’t got no strength.  I think it is because they set around so much.  What would a heap of them do?  A long day’s work in the field would kill some of them.  It would!  Some folks don’t work ’nough to be healthy.  I don’t know, but though, I really believes education and automobiles is the whole cause.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Maggie (Bunny) Bond, Madison, Arkansas
Age:  Well up in 80’s

“I was born at Magnolia, North Carolina.  Lou Nash named me Maggie after my mistress.  That was her name.  They had a rabbit they called Bunny.  It died.  They started calling me Bunny.  Our old mistress was a Mallory from Virginia.  She was the old head of all these at Forrest City. (A big family of people are descendants at Forrest City.)

School During the War

“Mrs. Eddy Williams said to my mother, ’Let her go to school and play with the children.’  I was young.  I don’t know how old I was.  I was washed, my hair combed, and clean dresses put on me.  I went to school four or five days.  I set by different ones.  They used slates.  It was a log schoolhouse.  It had a platform the teacher sat on.  They preached in it on Sunday.  Where Mt.  Vernon Cemetery now stands.  The teacher was Mrs. McCallis.  She rode horseback from out of the bottoms.  The families of children that come there were:  Mallorys, Izards, Nashs, Dawsons, Kittrells, and Pruitts.