g else they could do for me. I told them I couldn't go back and
forth to git the meals. I have the ticket now. I couldn't git to the
place to use it none, so I keep it for a keepsake. It is 'round here
somewheres or other. I was past the pension age. I ain't been able to do
no steady work since the war. I was too old for the war--the World War."
Interviewer's Comment [HW: omit]
The spelling of the name Sunnaville is phonetic. I don't recognize the
name and he couldn't spell it of course.
When I called, he had potatoes that weighed at least seven pounds. They
were laid out on the porch for sale. He had a small patch in his yard
which he cultivated, and had gotten about ten bushels from it.
His account of slavery times is so vivid that you would consider his age
nearer eighty than sixty-eight. A little questioning reveals that he
has no idea of his age although he readily gives it as sixty-eight--a
memorized figure.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Lula Taylor, R.F.D., east of town,
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 71
"My mother was sold five times. She was sold when she was too little to
remember her mother. Her mother was Charity Linnerman. They favored. She
was dark and granny was light colored. My mother didn't love her mother
like I loved her.
"Granny lived in a house behind the white church (?) in Helena. After
freedom we kept writing till we got in tetch with her. We finally got
granny with us on the Jefferies place at Clarendon.
"A man (Negro) come by and conjured my mother. She was with Miss Betty
Reed (or Reid) up north of Lonoke. They was my mother's last owners.
That old man made out like she stole things when he stole them his own
black self. He'd make her hide out like she stole things. She had a
sweetheart and him and his wife. She had to live with them. They stole
her off from her last owner, Miss Betty Reed. They didn't like her
sweetheart. They was going to marry. He bought all her wedding clothes.
When she didn't marry him she let him have back all the weddin' clothes
and he buried his sister in them. This old man was a conjurer. He give
my mother a cup of some kind of herbs and made her drink it. He tole her
all her love would go to Henry Deal. He liked him. He was my papa. Her
love sure did leave her sweetheart and go to my papa. He bought her some
nice clothes. She married in the clothes he got her. She was so glad
to let go that old man and
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