,
Little Rock, Ark.
Age: 79

Idiom and dialect are lacking in this recorded interview. Mrs. White's
conversation was entirely free from either. On being questioned about
this she explained that she was reared in a home where fairly correct
English was used.

My cousin Emanuel Armstead could read and write, and he kept the records
of our family. At one time he was a school director. Of course, that was
back in the early days, soon after the war closed.

My father was named James Page Jackson because he was born on the old
Jackson plantation in Lancaster county, Virginia. He named one of his
daughters Lancaster for a middle name in memory of his old home. Clarice
Lancaster Jackson was her full name. A man named Galloway bought my
father and brought him to Arkansas. Some called him by the name of
Galloway, but my father always had all his children keep the name
Jackson. There were fourteen of us, but only ten lived to grow up. He
belonged to Mr. Galloway at the time of my birth, but even at that, I
did not take the name Galloway as it would seem like I should. My father
was a good carpenter; he was a fine cook, too; learned that back in
Virginia. I'll tell you something interesting. The first cook stove ever
brought to this town was one my father had his master to bring. He was
cook at the Anthony House. You know about that, don't you? It was the
first real fine hotel in Little Rock. When father went there to be head
cook, all they had to cook on was big fireplaces and the big old Dutch
ovens. Father just kept on telling about the stoves they had in
Virginia, and at last they sent and got him one; it had to come by boat
and took a long time. My father was proud that he was the one who set
the first table ever spread in the Anthony House.

You see, it was different with us, from lots of slave folks. Some
masters hired their slaves out. I remember a drug store on the corner of
Main and Markham; it was McAlmont's drug store. Once my father worked
there; the money he earned, it went to Mr. Galloway, of course. He said
it was to pay board for mother and us little children.

My mother came from a fine family,--the Beebe family. Angeline Beebe was
her name. You've heard of the Beebe family, of course. Roswell Beebe at
one time owned all the land that Little Rock now sets on. I was born in
a log cabin where Fifth and Spring streets meet. The Jewish Synagogue is
on the exact spot. Once we lived at Thir