he moved to Little Rock. Them
is my own dear white folks. Honey, I can't help but love them, they part
of me. They raised me. They learned me how to do everything.

"My son live with me and I raising my little great-grandson. We can't
throw him away. My baby's mother is way off in St. Louis. He is three
years old.

"Mother never talked much about slavery other than I have told you. She
said during of the War women split and sawed rails and laid fences all
winter like men. Food got scarce. They sent milk to the soldiers. Meat
was scarce. After she was free she went on like she had been living at
John McAlway's. She said she didn't know how to start doing for herself.

"Some of our young generation is all right and some of them is too
thoughtless. Times is too fast. Folks is shortening their days by fast
living. Hurting their own bodies. Forty years ago folks lived like we
ought to be living now."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Pauline Howell Nickname Pearl
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 65 or 70?

"I was born in Paris, Tennessee and come to Arkansas when I was a child.
I don't know how old I am but my mama knowed 'bout when I was born. It
warnt long after the war. I past sixty-five and it is nearer seventy
from what she said. She ain't been dead long. She was about a hundred
years old. I. C. switch killed her. She was going cross there to Fisher
Body and the switch engine struck her head. She dropped something and
stooped to pick it up or the engine wouldn't touched her. She lived in
Memphis.

"She was born at Oaks, Tennessee. She took me down to see the cabin
locks where she was born. They had rotted down and somebody lived in the
big house. It had gone to rack then pretty bad. My father's master was
George Harris. He was Governor of Tennessee. My mother's mistress at
Oaks was Miss Ann LaGuion (or maybe Gwion). I never heard her husband's
name. They had several farms and on each farm was the cabin locks
(little houses all in a row or two rows). The houses was exactly alike.
Grandma cooked for the white folks and mama nursed. The baby was a big
fat heavy sort, a boy, and it was so heavy she couldn't hardly pick it
up. She had to carry it around all day long. When night come she was
wore out. There was several of them. When she go to their houses in
Memphis they honor her. They take her down town and buy her shoes and
dresses. Buy her whatever she say she want.