Occupational Experiences

“When I got old enough, I worked a farm—­picked cotton, hoed, plowed, pulled corn—­all such things.  That is about all I ever did—­farming.  Farming was always my regular occupation.  I never did anything else—­not for no regular thing.

Marriage

“I married in 1879.  My father and mother married each other too after freedom.  I remember that.  It was when the government was making all those that had been slaves marry.  I have been married just the one time.  My wife died in April 1927.

Present Condition

“I am not able to do anything now.  I don’t even tote a chair across the room, or spade up the ground for a garden, or hoe up the weeds in it.  I am ruptured and the doctor says it is the funniest rupture he ever seen.  He says that there’s a rupture and fat hanging down in the rupture.  They have to keep me packed with ice all the time.  The least little thing brings it down.  I can’t hold myself nor nothing.  Have to wear something under my clothes.

“I don’t get a pension.”

Interviewer’s Comment

Smith is sensitive about his first name—­doesn’t like to give it—­and about his condition.  He doesn’t like to mention it or to have it referred to.

He has an excellent memory for some things and a rather poor one for some others.  He got angry when his granddaughter supplied data about his wife which he apparently could not recall.

His physical condition is deplorable and his circumstances extremely straitened.

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  John H. Smith
                    2602 W. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  81

“I reckon I was here, I member seein’ the smoke from the guns look like a cloud.

“I was born in Missouri in 1856.  I member way back.  Yes’m.  I’m old—­I’m old.

“I member seein’ the soldiers—­Yankees—­eight or ten in a squad and they asked me did I want to ride with em?  Old mistress say, ‘That’s my boy!’ I member way back when they used to put the folks upon a block and sell em.  I member one night we was in the cabin and the Ku Klux come up on horses.  And I member when they was hollerin’ peace was declared.

“Mama told me I was born in 1856.  Mama had all our ages in that big Bible.

“We stayed in St. Louis six years then we went to Chrystal City.  Missouri and I went to the glass factory and went to work.

“Did I vote?  Me?  Yes’m, I voted many a time—­Republican.  I’m still a Republican—­always will be I reckon.  I haven’t voted for a long time but I think everybody ought to have the liberty to vote.

“I like to live in the North better cause the white folks treats you better.  They treats me all right here cause I don’t do nothin’.