ven grunt. Me and
Fannie had to be locked up so long. It was dark. We both went to sleep
but we was afraid to stir. The Yankees come then but I didn't get to see
them. I didn't want to be took away by 'em. I was big enough to know
that. I heard 'em say we was near 'bout eat out at the closing of the
War. I thought it muster been the Yankees from what they was talking
about, eating us out.

"I been washing and ironing and still doing it. All my life I been doing
that 'ceptin' when I worked in the field.

"Me and my daughter is paying on this house (a good house). I been
making my own living--hard or easy. I don't get no relief aid. Never
have. I 'plied for the old people's pension. Don't get it."

Interviewer's Comment

This must be Myers Bogan, yet she told me Bogan Myers. Later she said
Dr. Bogan of Forrest City was thus and so.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Fannie Alexander, Helena, Arkansas
Age: 62

"I was an orphant child. My mother-in-law told me during slavery she was
a field hand. One day the overseer was going to whoop one of the women
'bout sompin or other and all the women started with the hoes to him and
run him clear out of the field. They would killed him if he hadn't got
out of the way. She said the master hadn't put a overseer over them for
a long time. Some of 'em wouldn't do their part and he put one of the
men on the place over the women. He was a colored foreman. The women
worked together and the men worked together in different fields. My
mother-in-law was named Alice Drummond. She said they would cut the
hoecakes in half and put that in your pan, then pour the beef stew on
top. She said on Christmas day they had hot biscuits. They give them
flour and things to make biscuit at home on Sundays. When they got
through eating they take their plate and say, 'Thank God for what I
received.' She said they had plenty milk. The churns was up high--five
gallon churns. Some churns was cedar wood. The children would churn
standing on a little stool. It would take two to churn. They would
change about and one brushed away the flies. She lived close to Meridian
and Canton.

"My mother talked the bright side to her children. She was born in
Tennessee. She had two older sisters sold from her. She never seen them
no more. They was took to Missouri. Mother was never sold. She was real
bright color. She died when I was real little. From what I know I think
my parents was ind