“I’m just an old darky and can’t ’spress myself but I try to do what’s right and I think that’s the reason the Lord has let me live so long.”

Interviewer’s Comment

Husband was a soldier in the Spanish-American War and she receives a pension.

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Rosena Hunt Williams
                    R.F.D., Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  56

“My mother was Amanda McVey.  She was born two years, six months after freedom in Corinth, Mississippi.  My father was born in slavery.  Grandma lived with us at her death.  Her name was Emily McVey.  She was sold in her girlhood days.  Uncle George was sold to a man in the settlement named Lee.  His name was Joe Lee (Lea?).  Another of my uncles was sold to a man named Washington.  His name was George Washington.  They were sold at different times.  Being sold was their biggest dread.  Some of them wanted to be sold trusting to be treated better.

“Mother and grandma didn’t have a hard time like my father said he come up under.  He said he was brought up hard.  He was raised (reared) at Jackson, Tennessee.  He was never sold.  Master Alf Hunt owned him and his young master, Willie Hunt, inherited him.  He said they never put him in the field till he was twelve years old.  He started ploughing a third part of a day.  A girl about grown and another boy a little older took turns to do a ‘buck’s’ (a grown man) work.  They was lotted of a certain tract and if it stay clear a certain time to get it all done.  He said they got whooped and half fed.  When the War was on, his white folks had to half feed their own selves.  He talked like if the War had lasted much longer it would been a famine in the land.  He hit this world in time to have a hard time of it.  After freedom was worse time in his life.

“In August when the crops was laid by Master Hunt called them to the house at one o’clock by so many taps of the farm bell.  It hung in a great big tree.  He read a paper from his side porch telling them they free.  They been free several months then and didn’t a one of them know it.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  “Soldier” Williams, Forrest City, Arkansas
Age:  98

“My name is William Ball Williams III.  I was born in Greensburg.  My owners was Robert and Mary Ball.  They had four children I knowd.  Old man Ball bought ma and two children for one thousand five hundred dollars.  I never was sold.  I want to live to be a hundred years old.  I’m ninety-eight years old now.

“Ma was Margarett Ball.  Pa was William Anderson.  Ma was a cook and pa a field hand.  They whooped a plenty on the place where I come up.  Some of ’em run off.  Some they tied to a tree.  Bob Ball didn’t use no dogs.  When they got starved out they’d come outen the woods.  Of course they would.  Bob Ball raised fine tobacco, fine Negroes, fine horses.  He made us go to church.  Four or five of us would walk to the white folks’ Baptist church.  The master and his family rode.  It was a good piece.  We had dances in the cabins every once in a while.  We dance more in winter time so we could turn a pot down in the door to drown out the noise.  We had plenty plain grub to eat.