“My oldest brother, one older en me, burned to death.  My mother was a field hand.  She was at work in the field.  When she come to the house, the cabin burned up and the baby burned up too.  That grieved her mighty bad and when Miss Neely tell her soon as I got big nough she was goner sell me mighty near break her heart.

“The first year after the surrender my father, Buck Rogers, left my mother in her bad condition.  She said she followed him crying and begging him not to leave her to Montgomery Bridge, in Alabama.  The last she seen him he was on Montgomery Bridge.

“They just expected freedom.  My mother left her mistress and moved to the Doyl place.  She didn’t get nothing but her few clothes.  I was born at the Doyl place.  She worked for Moster Bob Doyl, a young man.  They share cropped.  We had a plenty I reckon of what we raised and a little money.

“I worked on Colonel Nuckles place when I got up grown.  I worked on the Lunatic Asylum at Bolivar and loaded tires and ditched for the I.C.  Railroad a long time.

“I don’t recollect that the Ku Klux ever bothered us.

“My stepfather voted Republican ticket.  I haven’t voted for a good many years—­not since Garfield or McKinley was our President.

“I come to Arkansas in 1887.  I married in Arkansas.  I heard that Arkansas was a rich country.  My mother was dead.  My stepfather had been out here.  I come on the train, paid my own way.  Come to Palestine the first night then on to Brinkley.  I been close to Brinkley ever since.

“The old man died what learned me how to walk rice levies.  I still work on the place.  Everybody don’t know how to walk levies.  It will kill an old man.  Your feet stay wet and cold all time.  I do wear hip boots but my feet stay cold and damp.  I got down with the rheumatism and jes’ now got so I can walk.

“I got a wife and three living children.  They all married and gone.

“Times is hard for old folks and changed so much.  Children used to get jobs and take care of the granny folks and the old parents.  They can’t take care of themselves no more it look like.  I don’t know how to take the young generation.  They are drifting along with the fast times.

“I applied but don’t get no pension.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Willie Doyld (male), Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  78
[—­ —­ 1938]

“I was born in Grenada, Mississippi.  My parents belong to the same family of white folks.  My moster was Jim Doyld.  His wife was Mistress Karoline Doyld.  Well as I recollect they had four childen.  My parent’s name was Hannah and William Doyld.  I’m named for em.  They was three of us childen.  They belong to same family of white folks for a fact.  I heard em say Moster Jim bought em offen the block at the same time.  He got em at Galveston, Texas.  He kept five families of slaves on his place well as I recollect.