the War

"Right after the war, my mother and father hired out to work. They did
most any kind of work--whatever they could get to do. Mother cooked.
Father would generally do house cleaning. Mother didn't live long after
the war.

Blood Poisoning

"I lost my finger because of blood poisoning. I had a scratch on my
finger. Pulled a hangnail out of it. I went around a lady who had a high
fever and she asked me to sponge her off and I did it. I got the finger
in the water that I sponged with and it got blood poisoned. I like to
have died.

Father's Death

"I was married and had three children when my father died. I don't know
what he died with nor what year.

"My mother had had seven children--all girls. I had seven children. But
three of mine were boys and four were girls. Ain't none of them living
now.

Little Rock

"My son was living in Little Rock and he kept after me to come here and
I come. After I come, he left and went to Kansas City. He died there. I
used to do laundry work. I quit that. I commenced to do sellin' for
different companies. I sold for Mack Brady, Crawford & Reeves, and a lot
of 'em.

Opinions

"I don't know what I think about the young people. They ain't nothin'
like I was when I was a gal. Things have changed since I come along. I
better not say what I think."

Interviewer's Comment

The interviewee says she is eighty-four, and her story hangs together.
Her husband died thirteen years ago, and they had been married fifty
years when he died. She "recollects" being about twenty years old when
she married. She says she was about twelve years old when her mother
died, one year after the close of the Civil War. This data seems to be
rather conclusive on the age of eighty-four.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Sarah Williams Wells, Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: Born 1866

"I jess can't tell much; my memory fails me. My white folks was John and
Mary Williams but I was born two years after the surrender. Soon after
the surrender they went to Lebanon, Tennessee. My folks stayed on wha I
was born round in Murry County. My father was killed after the war but I
was little. My mother died same year I married. I heard em say there was
John and Frank. They may be living over there now. I heard em talking
bout war times. They said my father was a blacksmith in the war. I come
here wid four little children on a ticket to Crocketts Bluff. We was
sick all that year