d under that headin'. Sold it to the colored folks and lots o' these
Bohemians. They sho is fine people to live by--so accommodatin'.

"Then I came here to Pine Bluff in 1921. I hauled wood for two years.
Then I put in my application at the Cotton Belt Shops. That was in 1923
and I worked there fifteen years. I retired from the shops this year and
took a half pension. I think I'll get about fifteen dollars a month.
That's my thoughts.

"I have two daughters in Camden. One teaches school and one operates a
beauty parlor.

"All six of my children finished high school and three graduated from
college.

"I think the younger generation is livin' too fast. I know one thing,
they has done--they 'bout wore out the old folks. Old folks educate 'em
and can't accumulate anything.

"They don't settle much now till they marry. Seems like the young folks
don't have much accommodation.

"I'll tell you another thing, the children aren't carryin' out things
like they use to. I think when us old folks plays out this world is
goin' to be in a bad shape.

"I belong out here to the Catholic Church--the oldest church in the
world. I use to belong to the Methodist Church, but they got along so
bad I got tired, so I went to the Catholic. I like it out
there--everthing so quiet and nice."

Name of Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Rachel Bradley. 1103 State Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 107?

Upon arriving at the humble unpainted home of Rachel Bradley I found her
sitting in the doorway on a typical split-oak bottomed chair watching
the traffic of State Street, one of our busiest streets out of the high
rent district. It is a mixture of white and Negro stores and homes.

After asking her name to be sure I was really talking to Rachel Bradley,
I said I had been told she was a former slave. "Yes'm, I used to be a
slave." She smiled broadly displaying nearly a full set of teeth. She is
of a cheerful, happy disposition and seemed glad to answer my questions.
As to her age, she said she was "a little girl on the floor whan the
stars fell." I looked this up at the public library and found that
falling stars or showers of meteors occur in cycles of thirty-three
years. One such display was recorded in 1833 and another in 1866. So if
Rachel Bradley is really 107 years old, she was born in 1830. It is a
question in my mind whether or not she could have remembered falling
stars at the age of three, but on the ot