pioneers, they suffered all the hardships and dangers
incident to the settling of the new country more than three-fourths of a
century ago.

Emmeline always had good care. She worked hard and faithfully and was
amply rewarded.

[HW: High]

Circumstances of Interview
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Blanche Edwards
ADDRESS--Lonoke, Arkansas
DATE--October 20, 1938
SUBJECT--An Old Slave [TR: Emiline Waddell]
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

1. Name and address of informant--Mrs. John G. High, living nine miles
north of Lonoke, Arkansas.

2. Date and time of interview--October 20, 1938

3. Place of interview--At the home of Mrs. John G. High, nine miles
north of Lonoke.

4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with
informant--

5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you--

6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.

Text of Interview

Emiline Waddell, a former slave of the L.W. Waddell family, lived to be
106 years old, and was active up to her death.

She was born a slave in 1826 at Haben county, Georgia, a slave of
Claybourne Waddell, who emigrated to Brownsville, in 1851, in covered
wagons, oxen drawn.

Her "white folks" were three weeks making the trip from the ferry across
the Mississippi to old Brownsville; after traveling all day through the
bad and boggy woods, at the end of their rough journey at eventide, the
movers dismounted and began hasty preparations for the night. While the
men were feeding the stock and providing temporary quarters, the women
assisted the slaves in preparing the evening meal, of hoe-cake, fried
venison and coffee. Then the women and children would sleep in the
wagons while the men kept watch for wild life.

Mammy Emiline was a faithful old black mammy, true to life and
traditions, and refused her freedom, at the close of the war, as wanted
to stay and raise "Old Massa's chilluns," which she did, for she was
nursing her sixth generation in the Waddell family at the time of her
death. Even to that generation there was a close tie between the
southern child and his or her black mammy. A strange almost unbelievable
thing happened to Emiline; she was born a deaf mute, but her hearing and
speech was restored many years before her death, when lightening struck
a tree under which she was standing.

Superstitious beliefs were strong in her and her tales of "hants" were
to "her little white chilluns",