“Papa was a soldier.  He sent for us.  We come to Memphis, Tennessee in a wagon.  We lived there five or six years.  Pa got a pension till he died.  Both my parents was field hands in slavery.  Ma took in washing and ironing in Memphis.

“I was born in De Sota County, Mississippi.  I remember Forrest’s battle in Memphis.  I didn’t have sense to be scared.  I seen black and white dead in the streets and alleys.  We went to the magazine house for protection, and we played and stayed there.  They tried to open the magazine house but couldn’t.

“When freedom come, folks left home, out in the streets, crying, praying, singing, shouting, yelling, and knocking down everything.  Some shot off big guns.  Den come the calm.  It was sad then.  So many folks done dead, things tore up and nowheres to go and nothing to eat, nothing to do.  It got squally.  Folks got sick, so hungry.  Some folks starved nearly to death.  Times got hard.  We went to the washtub onliest way we all could live.  Ma was a cripple woman.  Pa couldn’t find work for so long when he mustered out.

“I do recollect the Civil War well.

“I live with my daughter.  I have a cough since I had flu and now I have chills and fever.  My daughter helps me all I get.  She lives with me.

“Some of the young folks is mighty good.  I reckon some is too loose acting.  Times is hard.  Harder in the winter than in summer time.  We has our garden and chickens to help us out in summer.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Ada Moorehead
                    2300 E. Barraque, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  82?

“I was here in slavery times, honey, but I don’t know exactly how old I am.  I was born in Huntsville, Alabama but you know in them days old folks didn’t tell the young folks no thin’ and I was so small when they brought me here.  I don’t know what year I was born but I believe I’m about eighty-two.  You know when a person ain’t able to work and dabble out his own clothes, you know he’s gone a long ways.

“My white folks was Ad White what owned me.  Called him Marse Ad.  Don’t call folks marse much now-days.

“My father was sold away from us in Alabama and we heard he was here in Pine Bluff so Aunt Fanny brought us here.  She just had a road full of us and brought us here to Arkansas.  We walked.  We was a week on the road.  I know we started here on Monday morning and we got here to the courthouse on the next Monday round about noon.  That was that old courthouse.  I reckon that ground is in the river now.

“When we got here I saw my father.  He took me to his sister—­that was my Aunt Savannah—­and dropped me down.

“Mrs. Reynolds raised me.  She come to Aunt Savannah’s house and hired me the very same day I got here.  I nursed Miss Katie.  She was bout a month old.  You know—­a little long dress baby.  Don’t wear then long dresses now—­gettin’ wiser.