"The young people are too much for me. Women are awful now. The young ones are too wild for me. The old ones allow them too much freedom. They are not given proper instruction and training by their elders."
Interviewer's Comment
Dortch's grandfather on the father's side was a white man and either his master or someone closely connected with his master—his first master. His last master was the father of his half-sister, Cordelia, born before any of the other members of his family. These facts account largely for the good treatment accorded his mother and father in slave time and for the friendly attitude toward them subsequent to slavery.
Dortch's whole sister, Adrianna, is living next door to him, and is eighty-five years old going on eighty-six. She has a clearer memory than Dortch, and has also a clear vigorous mentality. She never went to school but uses excellent English and thinks straight. I have not made Dortch's interview any longer because I am spending the rest of this period on his sister's, and there was no need of taking some material which would be common to both and more clearly stated by her. I have already finished ten pages of her story.
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Fannie Dorum
423 W. Twenty-Fourth Street
North Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 94
[TR: Some word pronunciation was marked in this interview. Letters surrounded by [] represent long vowels, and by () short vowels.]
[HW: Church Holds Old Age Contest]
"I was here in slavery time. Know the years I plowed. Ginned cotton in slavery time. My daddy was the ginner. His name was Hamp High. Stayed down in Lonoke County.