Jinney, wife of Doc Flowers, is the daughter of the said Celia. "Yes'm," said Jinney, "Miss Liza, my old Missy, always had my mother right by her side all the time to wait on her. She were always good to all her colored folks. No'm she'd never let anybody be mean to her colored folks."
Jinney must have learned the art of house keeping from Miss Liza, for her little three-room home that she and Doc rent for $4 a month is spotless. Maybe the "path is growed up with weeds," but one just can't blame that on Jinney.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Frances Fluker, Edmondson, Arkansas
Age: 77
[May 11 1938]
"I was born the 25th day of December 1860 in Marshall County, Mississippi. Our owners was Dr. George Wilson and Mistress Mary. They had one son I knowed, Dr. Wilson at Coldwater, Mississippi. My parents was Viney Perry and Dock Bradley.
"I never seen my pa. I heard about him since I been grown. He left when the War was going on and never went back. Mama had ten children and I am all that's living now. Old mistress set my name and age down in her Bible. I sent back and my niece just cut it out and sent it to me so I could get my pension. I pasted it in the front of my Bible. I was never sold. It was freedom when I first recollect.
"Ma was the cook for the white folks. Grandma Perry come from North Carolina I heard 'em say. She was a widow woman. When company come they would send us out to play. They never talked to us children, no ma'am, not 'fore us neither. I come a woman 'fore I knowed what it was. My sisters knowed better than tell me. They didn't tell me nothin'.
"When it wasn't company at ma's they was at work and singing. At night we was all tired and went to bed 'cause we had to be up by daybreak—children and all. They said it caused children's j'ints to be stiff sleeping up in the day. All old folks could tell you that.
"This young set ain't got no strength neither. Ma cooked and washed and raised five children up grown. The slaves didn't get nary thing give 'em in the way of land nor stock. They got what clothes they had and some provisions.