stand straight up on the floor."

Interviewer's Comments

Mary Ann King, mother of Dora Holmes, was the original owner of the
dresses. She died at the age of ninety-eight two or three years ago. One
of the dresses is still in the possession of the daughter. It has a
skirt with nine gores and a twelve-inch headed ruffle.

The petticoat is of white muslin with a fifty-two yard lace ruffle in
sixteen tiers of lace with beading at the top. It was worn just after
the Civil War.

There are also a baby dress and a baby petticoat fifty-six years old.

MAY 31 1938
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Elijah Henry Hopkins
13081/2 Ringo Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 81

"My father's master was old Tom Willingham, an awful big farmer who
owned farms in Georgia and South Carolina, both. He lived in southwest
Georgia in Baker County. Old man Willingham's wife was Phoebe Hopkins.
Her mother was old lady Hopkins. I don't know what the rest of her name
was. We never called her nothin' but old lady Hopkins or Mother Hopkins.
She was one of the richest women in the state. When she died, her estate
was divided among her children and grandchildren. Her slaves were part
of her estate. They were divided among her children and grandchildren,
too. Tom Willingham's family come in for its part. He had three sons,
Tom, Jr., John, and Robert. My father already belonged to Tom
Willingham, Sr., so he stayed with him. But my mother belonged to old
lady Hopkins, and she went to Robert, so my daddy and mother were
separated before I knew my daddy. My father stayed with old man
Willingham until freedom.

"Robert Willingham was my mother's master. He never married. When he
died he willed all his slaves free. But his relatives got together and
broke the will and never did let 'em go.

"When I saw my father to know him, I saw him out in Georgia. They told
me that was my father. Then he had another wife and a lot of children.
My mother brought me up and my father taken charge of me after she died
and after freedom--about a year after. It was close to emancipation
because the states were still under martial law.

"I was born May 15, 1856, in the Barnwell district, South Carolina. They
used to call them districts then. It would be Barnwell County now. They
changed and started calling 'em counties in 1866 [HW: 1868?] or
thereabouts. I was running around when they mustered the men in for the