Her age is not less than ninety, because she hoed cotton and plowed before the War.  If anything, it is more than the ninety which she claims.  Those who know her well say she must be at least ninety-five.

She has a good memory although she complains of her health.  She seems to be pretty well dependent on herself and the Welfare and is asking for old clothes and shoes as you will note by the story.

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed:  Isaac Crawford
                    Brinkley, Ark. 
Age:  75

“I was born the first year of the Civil War.  I was born and raised and married in Holmes County, Mississippi.  My parents was named Harriett and James Crawford.  They belong to a widow woman, Miss Sallie Crawford.  She had a girl named Bettie and three sons named Sam, Mack, Gus.  Mack and Gus was heavy drinkers.  Moster Sam would drink but he wasn’t so bad.  They wasn’t mean to the Negroes on the place.  They had eight or nine families scattered around over their land.

“I farmed till I was eighteen then they made me foreman over the hands on the place I stayed till after I married.

“I know Sam was in the war and come home cripple.  He was in the war five years.  He couldn’t get home from the war.  I drove his hack and toted him to it.  I toted him in the house.  He said he never rode in the war; he always had to walk and tote his baggage.  His feet got frost bit and raw.  They never got well.  He lived.  They lived close to Goodman, Mississippi.

“I heard my mother say she was mixed with Creole Indian.  She was some French.  My father was pure African.  Now what am I?

“Ole mistress wasn’t mean to none of us.  She wrung my ears and talked to me.  I minded her pretty good.

“The children set on the steps to eat and about under the trees.  Some folks kept their children looking good.  Some let em go.  They fed em—­set a big pot and dip em out greens.  Give em a cup of milk.  We all had plenty coarse victuals.  We all had to work.  It done you no good to be fraid er sweat in them days.

“I didn’t know bout freedom and I didn’t care bout it.  They didn’t give no land nor no mules away as I ever know’d of.

“The Ku Klux never come on our place.  I heard about em all the time.  I seen em in the road.  They look like hants.

“I been farming all my life.  I come here to farm.  Better land and no fence law.

“I come to ’ply to the P.W.A. today.  That is the very reason you caught me in town today.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Mary Crosby
                    1216 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  76

“Good morning.  I don’t know anybody ’round here that was born in slavery times ’cept me.  I don’t know exactly when I was born in Georgia but I can remember my mama said her old master, Mat Fields, sent my father and all the other men folks to Arkansas the second year of the war.  After the war, I remember there was a colored man named Mose come from Mississippi to Georgia and told the colored folks they could shake money off the trees in Mississippi.  Of course they was just ignorant as cattle and they believed him.  I know I thought what a good time I would have.  I can remember seeing old master crying cause his colored folks all leaving, but Mose emigrated all of us to Mississippi.