"They didn't use rav'lin's in slave time. They spun the thread. Then
they balled it. Then they twisted it, and then they sew with it. They
didn't use rav'lin's then, but they used them right after the War.

"My mama used to say, 'Come here, Lugenia.' She and me would work
together. She wanted me to reel for her. Ain't you never seen these
reels? They turn like a spinning-wheel, but it is made indifferent.
You turn till the thing pops, then you tie it; then it's ready to go
to the loom. It is in hanks after it leaves the reel and it is pretty,
too.

Present Condition

"I used to live in a four-room house. They charged me seven dollars
and a half a month for it. They fixed it all up and then they wanted
to charge ten dollars, and it wouldn't have been long before they went
up to fifteen. So I moved. This place ain't so much. I pays five
dollars and a half for it. When it rains, I have to go outside to keep
from gittin' too wet. But I cut down the weeds all around the place. I
planted some flowers in the front yard, and some vegetables in the
back. That all helps me out. When I go to git commodities, I walk to
the place. I can't stand the way these people act on the cars. Of
course, when I have a bundle, I have to use the car to come back. I
just put it on my head and walk down to the car line and git on. Lord,
my mother used to carry some bundles on her head."

Interviewer's Comment

According to the marriage license issued at the time of her last
marriage in 1922, Andrew Jackson was sixty years old, and sister
Jackson was fifty-two. But Andrew Jackson was eighty when sister
Jackson married him, she says. Who can blame him for saying sixty to
the clerk? Sister Jackson admits that she was six years old during the
War and states freely and accurately details of those times, but what
wife whose husband puts only sixty in writing would be willing to
write down more than fifty-two for herself?

Right now at more than seventy-nine, she is spry and jaunty and witty
and good humored. Her house is as clean as a pin, and her yard is the
same.

The McGuffy's Primer which she thinks is used now is a modernized
McGuffy printed in 1908. The book bought for her by her first husband
is an original McGuffy's Second Reader.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Lula Jackson (supplement) [HW: cf. 30600]
1808 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 79
Occupation: Field hand

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