Well, I think it is bad."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Mary Jones
1017 Dennison, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 72

"I was born on the twenty-second of March, 1866, in Van Buren,
Arkansas. I had six children. All of them were bred and born at the
same place.

"I was born in a frame house. My father used to live in the country,
but I was born in the town. He bought it just as soon as he come out
of the army and married right away and bought this home. I don't know
where he got his money from. I guess he saved it. He served in the
Union army; he wasn't a servant. He was a soldier, and drawed his pay.
He never run through his money like most people do. I don't know
whether he made any money in slavery or not but he was a carpenter
during slave times and they say he always had plenty of money. I guess
he had saved some of that too.

"My mother was married twice. Her name was Louisa Buchanan. My father
was named Abraham Riley. My stepfather was named Moses Buchanan. My
father was a soldier in the old original war (the Civil War)--the war
they ended in 1865.

"I disremember who my mother's master was but I think it was a man
named Johnson. I didn't know my father's people. She married him from
White County up here. Her and him, they corresponded mostly in letters
because he traveled lots. He looked like an Indian. He had straight
hair and was tall and rawboned and wore a Texas hat. I had his picture
but the pictures fade away. My father was a sergeant. He died sometime
after the war. I don't remember when because I wasn't old enough. I
can just remember looking at the corpse. I was too small to do any
grieving.

"My mother was a nurse in slavery times. She nursed the white folks
and their children. She did the housework and such like. She was a
good cook too. After freedom, when the old folks died out, she cooked
for Zeb Ward--you know him, head of the penitentiary. She used to cook
for the Jews and gentiles. That her kind of work. That was her
occupation--good cook. She could make all kinds of provisions. She
could make preserves and they had a big orchard everywhere she worked.

"I have heard my mother talk about pateroles, jayhawkers, and Ku Klux,
but I never knew of them myself. I have heard say they were awful
bad--the Ku Klux or somethin'.

"My mother's white folks sold her. I don't know who they sold her to
or from. They sold her from her mother. I don't know ho