e all from Richmond, Virginia. I was just four years old
when they come here. My father was in charge of all the machinery. He
ran the gin. Didn't do anything else. My mother was a house girl. The
kids learned her everything they learned in school. She knew everything.
My father died when I was young. My mother lived till she was eighty.
But the time she was fifty, I bought her a home and sat her down on
Pulaski Street in that home. And that is why I have so little trouble.

"My ma belonged to Hoffman. He sold her to Wiley Adams. He carried her
to Mississippi. She stayed there for a short time and then came to
Arkansas. He settled in a little place called Tulip, Arkansas. Then
freedom came and we came to Little Rock and settled at what is now
Seventh and Ringo Streets; but then it was just a stage road leading to
Benton, Arkadelphia, and other places. Stages passed twice a day with
passengers and freight. No railroads at all then. The government kept
the roads up. They had the arsenal hall where the city park is and had
a regiment of soldiers there. The work on that road was kept up by the
soldiers. That was under Grant's administration. I never saw but
three presidents--three Democratic presidents--Cleveland, Wilson, and
Roosevelt.

"My father's master was named Lee. He married my mother back in
Virginia. My daddy's people when he was freed was named Taylor. He died
when I was young and he never gave me any details about them.

Good Masters

"The Adamses were good to my mother. And they help her even after
freedom. Charlie Adams and Mack Adams of Malvern, Arkansas. John was the
sheriff and ran a store. Mack was a drummer for the Penzl Grocery. When
my mother was ill, he used to bring her thirty dollars at a time. Every
two months she had to go down to Malvern when she was well and carry an
empty trunk and when she would come back it would be full. My mother was
wet-nurse to the Adamses and they thought the world and all of her.

Marriage

"They had a good opinion of their house servants. That is how she and my
father came to belong to different families. One white man would say to
the other, 'I got a good boy. I'm going to let him come over to see your
girl.' He would be talking about a Negro man that worked around his
house and a Negro girl that worked for the other man. That would be all
right. So that's the way my father went to see my mother. He was married
in the way they always married in those days. Yo