Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Ira Foster
                    2000 W. Eureka Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  76

“I was born in slavery because when the people come back from the War I was a pretty good sized yellin’ boy when freedom come.

“I heerd ’em tellin’ ‘bout my young master comin’ back from the War.

“Yes ma’am, I was sure born in Arkansas; I won’t tell no lie ’bout that.

“My mother’s old master was named Foster and after she married she belonged to Hezekiah Bursey.

“She was born in Alabama and she said she was pretty badly treated.

“She was the cook and then she was the weaver and the spinner.

“I never have been to school.  Never did learn nothin’.  My father put me to work soon as I was big enough.

“I always done farm work all my life till ’bout twenty years ago as near as I can come at it.  I went to saw millin’ and I didn’t do nothin’ but manufacture lumber.  I worked for the Camden Lumber Company eighteen years and never caused ’em a minute’s trouble.

“If I just had enough to live on I wouldn’t do a thing but just sit around ’cause I think I done worked my share.  Why, some of the white folks say, ’Foster, you ought to have a pension of thirty or forty dollars a month.’  And I say, ‘Why?’ And they say, ’Cause you look just like a darky that has worked hard in this world.’

“I suffers with the rheumatism in my right leg clear up and down.  Seems like sometimes I can’t hardly get around.”

FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Subject:  Songs of Pre-War Days
Story:—­Information

This information given by:  Ira Foster
Place of residence:  2000 W. Eureka, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Occupation:  None
Age:  76
[TR:  Personal information moved from bottom of first page.]

  “’You may call me Raggedy Pat
   ’Cause I wear this raggedy hat,
   And you may think I’m a workin’
   But I ain’t.’

I used to hear my uncle sing that.  That’s all the words I can remember.”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  Leonard Franklin
         Temporary:  301 Ridgeway, Little Rock, Arkansas
         Permanent:  Warren, Arkansas
Age:  70

[HW:  Mother Whipped Overseer]

“I don’t know exactly the year I was born.  But my father told me I was born since the Civil War.  I am seventy years old.  They always tell me when my birthday come ’round it will be in January—­the eighteenth of January.

“My father’s name was Abe Franklin and my mother’s name was Lucy
Franklin.  I know my father’s mother but I didn’t ever know his father. 
His mother’s name was Maria Franklin.  My mother’s father was Harris
Pennington.  I never did see her mother and never did see her.

“I was born in Warren, Arkansas.  My mother and father were born in Warren.  That is on the outer edge of Warren.  My mother’s slavery farm was on what they called Big Creek.  It is named Franklin Creek.  Two or three miles of it ran through Franklin’s Farm.