“There is some of the meanest white people in the United States in Mississippi up there on the Yellow Dog River.  That’s where the Devil makes meanness.

“There’s some pretty mean colored folks too.  There is some of them right here in Little Rock.  Them boys from Dunbar give me a lot of trouble.  They ride by on their bicycles and holler at us.  If we say anything to them, they say, ‘Shut up, old gray head.’  Sometimes they say worse.  I used to live by Brother Love.  Christmas the boys threw at the house and gave me sass when I spoke to them.  So I got out of that settlement.  Here it is quiet because it is among the white folks.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Carol Graham, El Dorado Division
Person interviewed:  Zenia Culp
Age:  Over 80
[Jan 29 1938]

“Yas’m, my name is Zenia, Zenia Culp ’tis now since I married.  My old master’s name was Billy Newton.  Him and three more brothers come here and settled in this county years ago and Master Billy settled this farm.  I was born and raised here and ain’t never lived nowheres else.  I used to be nurse girl and lived up at the big house.  You know up there where Mr. John Dunbar’s widow lives now.  And the family burying groun’ is jus’ a little south of the house where you sees them trees and tomb stones out in the middle of the field.

“Master Billy’s folks was so good to me and I sure thought a heap of young Master Billy.  Believe I told you I was the nurse girl.  Well, young Master Billy was my special care.  And he was a live one too.  I sure had a time keepin’ up wid that young rascal.  I would get him ready for bed every night.  In summer time he went barefoot like all little chaps does and course I would wash his foots before I put him to bed.  That little fellow would be so sleepy sometime that he would say:  ’Don’t wash em, Zenia, jes’ wet em.’  Oh, he was a sight, young Master Billy was.

“Does you know Miss Pearl?  She live there in El Dorado.  She is young master’s widow.  Miss Pearl comes out to see me sometime and we talks lots bout young Master Billy.

“Yas’m, I’se always lived here where I was born.  Never moved way from de old plantation.  Course things is changed lots since the days when old Master Billy was livin’.  When he went off to the war he took most of the men black folks and the womens stayed home to take care of mistress and the chillun.

“My husban’ been dead a long, long time and I live here wid my son.  His wife is gone from home dis evenin’.  So I thought I’d come out and pick off some peanuts jes’ to git out in the sunshine awhile.  That’s my son out there makin’ sorghum.  My daughter-in-law is so good to me.  She treats me like I was a baby.

“You asks me to tell you something bout slave days, and how we done our work then.  Well, as I tell you, my job was nurse girl and all I had to do was to keep up wid young Master Billy and that wasn’t no work tall, that was just fun.  But while I’d be followin’ roun’ after him I’d see how the others would be doin’ things.