Vocational Experiences

“When I was able to work, I worked in the railroad shops—­boiler maker’s helper.  Before that I farmed and did other things.  Went from trackman to machinist’s helper and boilermaker’s helper.

Opinions

“Young folks Just need the right handlin’.

“I don’t mix in politics.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Mary Tabon, Forrest City, Arkansas
Age:  67

“Pa was sold twice to my knowing.  He was sold to McCoy, then to Alexander.  He was Virginian.  Then he was carried to Alabama and brought to Holly Grove by the Mayos.  I have wore four names, Alexander, Adams, Morgan, and Tabon.

“My mother’s owners was Ellis from Alabama.  She said she was sold from the Scales to Ellis.  Her father, sister, and two brothers was sold from Ellis.  She never seen them no more.  They found Uncle Charles Ellis dead in the field.  They never knowed how it come.

“My parents had hard times during slavery.  Ma had a big scar on her shoulder where the overseer struck her with a whoop.  She was chopping cotton.  She either wasn’t doing to suit him or wasn’t getting along fast enough to suit him.

“Ma had so many little ones to raise she give me to Nancy Bennett.  I love her soul in her grave.  I helped her to do all her work she taught me.  She’d leave me with her little boy and go to church and I’d make cakes and corn bread.  She brag on me.  We’d have biscuits on Sunday morning.  They was a rarity.

“One day she had company.  She told me to bake some potatoes with the jackets on.  I washed the potatoes and wrapped them up in rags and boiled them.  It made her so mad she wet the towel and whooped me with it.  I unwrapped the potatoes and we had them that way for dinner.  That was the maddest she ever got at me.  She learned me to cook and keep a nice house and to sew good as anybody.  I rather know how to work than be educated.

“Mr. Ash give me a lot of scraps from his garment factory.  I made them up in quilts.  He give me enough to make three dresses.  I needed dresses so bad.” (One dress has sixty-six pieces in it but it didn’t look like that.  They sent it to Little Tock and St. Louis for the county fairs.  Her dresses looked fairly well.)

“I was born at Holly Grove, Arkansas.  Alexander was the name my pa went by and that was my maiden name.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Liza Moore Tanner, Helena, Arkansas
Age:  79