"Mama had twelve sisters and they was all sold. They took them to Texas. She never seen one of them again. Mama had scrofula and her owners let a woman take her North. She cured her. She wanted to keep her but they didn't let her. They kept her till freedom.
"The owners told them they was free. Stayed on a while. We never have got very fur off from where I was born. I had thirteen children of my own. Three living now.
"I know times was mighty hard when I was a child. Biscuits was big rarity as cake is now. I don't have much cake. Little cornbread and meat, molasses and proud to get that. We didn't have much clothes but we had plenty wood. We had wood to keep up the fire in the fireplace all night. They saw the back sticks in the woods and roll em up. In the coldest part of the winter they throw on a back log of green wood and pull the seats, had benches, didn't have chairs, way back in the middle of the room. It be snow and ice all over the ground. I got wood many a day. Yes, I plowed many a day. I done all kinds of field work, cook and wash and iron. Mid-wife is my talent. I been big and strong and work was the least of my worries.
"I can barely recollect seeing soldiers. They must have just got home from the war. The shiny buttons is about all I can recollect.
"I recollect the Ku Klux. They rode at night, some dressed in dark and some white clothes. They come through our house one time. I got under the cover. I was scared nearly to death.
"Near Cotton Plant there was a log cabin (Methodist?) church—Negro church two and one-half miles northeast direction. They had a Negro preacher. When they went to church they whooped and hollowed along the road. White people lived close to the road. The Ku Klux planned to break it up. They went down there and went in during their preaching, broke up and scattered their seats. One was killed. He may have acted 'smarty' or saucy or he may have been the leader."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Mattie Fannen, Forrest City, Arkansas
Age: 87
"My mother was named Silla Davis. She had four children. Her owners was Jep Davis and Tempy Davis. She died and he married her niece, Sally Davis. He had fifteen children by his first wife and five more by his second wife. Wasn't that a plenty children doe? Mama was a field hand. She ploughed in slavery right along. My father was named Bob Lee (Lea?). I never knowed much about him. His folks moved and took him off. Mother was sold but not on a stand. She belong to Bill Davis. He was Jep's brother. They said Bill Davis drunk up mother and all her children. He sold Aunt Serina to a man in Elberton, Georgia and all he had left then was grandma. He couldn't sell her. She was too old and Aunt Kizziah and Aunt Martha lived with her. Mother was born in Georgia. When a child was sold it nearly grieved the mothers and brothers and sisters to death. It was bad as deaths in the families. Jep Davis had forty or fifty niggers. He had six boys. They all had to go to war. They was in the Confederate army. Billy Davis was his daddy's young overseer. He had been raised up with some of the nigger boys then come over them. They wouldn't mind his orders. He tried to whoop them. They'd fight him back, choke him, throw him on the ground. Then the old man would whoop them. We all wanted 'em all to come home but Billy. Billy Davis got killed at war and never come home. His sisters was afraid some of the nigger boys raised up with him on the place would kill him and wanted Jep to make him stay at the house. Jep Davis was a good master and he was bad enough.