FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45  
46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   >>   >|  
so old. He talked more about the War and slavery. I always have farmed. Farmed all my life. "I don't farm now. I got asthma and cripple with rheumatism. What my wife and children can't do ain't done now. [Three children.] I don't get no help but I applied for it. "Present times is all right where a man can work. The present generation rather do on heap less and do less work. They ain't got manners and raisin' like I had. They don't know how to be polite. We tries to learn 'em [their children] how to do." NOTE: The woman was black and so was the cripple Negro man; their house was clean, floors, bed, tables, chairs. Very good warm house. They couldn't remember the old tales the father told to tell them to me. Interviewer: Thomas Elmore Lucy Person interviewed: Nellie James, Russellville, Arkansas Age: 72 "Nellie James is my name. Yes, Mr. D. B. James was my husband, and he remembered you very kindly. They call me 'Aunt Nellie.' I was born in Starkville, Ouachita County, Mississippi the twenty-ninth of March, in 1866, just a year after the War closed. My parents were both owned by a plantation farmer in Ouachita County, Mississippi, but we came to Arkansas a good many years ago. "My husband was principal of the colored school here at Russellville for thirty-five years, and people, both white and black, thought a great deal of him. We raised a family of six children, five boys and a girl, and they now live in different states, some of them in California. One of my sons is a doctor in Chicago and is doing well. They were all well educated. Mr. James saw to that of course. "So far as I remember from what my parents said, the master was reasonably kind to all his slaves, and my husband said the same thing about his own master although he was quite young at the time they were freed. (Yes sir, you see he was born in slavery.) "I was too young to remember much about the Ku Klux Klan, but I remember we used to be afraid of them and we children would run and hide when we heard they were coming. "No sir, I have never voted, because we always had to pay a dollar for the privilege--and I never seemed to have the dollar (laughingly) to spare at election time. Mr. James voted the Republican ticket regularly though. "All our family were Missionary Baptists. I united with the Baptist church when I [HW: was] thirteen years old. "I think the young people of both races are growing wil
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45  
46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

children

 

remember

 
husband
 

Nellie

 

County

 

Ouachita

 

Mississippi

 
slavery
 

Russellville

 

Arkansas


master

 

people

 

cripple

 
family
 
parents
 

dollar

 

doctor

 
raised
 

California

 

educated


Chicago
 

states

 
regularly
 

ticket

 

Republican

 

election

 

privilege

 

laughingly

 

Missionary

 
Baptists

growing

 

thirteen

 

united

 
Baptist
 

church

 
thought
 
slaves
 

coming

 

afraid

 
polite

raisin

 
manners
 
generation
 

floors

 

tables

 

chairs

 

present

 
talked
 
asthma
 

rheumatism