ll woman, long hair and high cheek bones. She wore a shawl big as a
sheet purty nigh all time and smoked a pipe. I was born in Batesville.

"My mother spoke of her one long journey on the steamboat and
stagecoach. That was when she was brought to Arkansas. It made a
memorable picture in her mind.

"Dr. and Mrs. Porter told her she was free and she could go or stay. And
she had nowheres to go and she had always lived with them white folks.
She never did like black folks' ways and she raised us near like she was
raised as she could.

"She used to tell us how funny they dressed and how they rode at night
all through the country. She seen them and she could name men acted as
Ku Kluxes but they never bothered her and she wasn't afraid of them.

"I cooked all my life till I got disabled. I never had a child. I wish I
had a girl. I've been considered a fine cook all of my life."

Circumstances of Interview
STATE--Arkansas
NAME OF WORKER--Bernice Bowden
ADDRESS--1006 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
DATE--November 4, 1938
SUBJECT--Ex-slaves
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

1. Name and address of informant--Sarah Sexton, Route 4, Box 685, Pine
Bluff

2. Date and time of interview--November 3, 1958, 10:00 a.m.

3. Place of interview--Route 4, Box 685, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with
informant--Georgia Caldwell, Route 6, Box 128, Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you--None.

6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.--Frame house, front
porch with two swings. Fence around yard. Chinaberry tree and Tree of
Paradise, Coxcomb in yard. Southeast of Norton-Wheeler Stave Mill just
off Highway 65.

Text of Interview

"Prewitt Tiller bought my mother and I belonged to young master. In
slavery I was a good-sized-young girl, mama said. Big enough to put the
table cloths on the best I could. After freedom I did all the cookin'
and milkin' and washin'.

"Now listen, this young master was Prewitt's son.

"Grandpa's name was Ned Peeples and grandma was Sally Peeples. My mother
was Dorcas. Well, my papa, I ain't never seed him but his name was Josh
Allen. You see, they just sold 'em around. That's what I'm talkin'
about--they went by the name of their owners.

"I'm seventy-eight or seventy-nine or eighty. That's what the insurance
man got me up.

"I been in a car wreck and I had high