Slave Houses
“I didn’t see no log houses when I growed up. Everything was frame.”
Right After the War
“Right after the War, my mother stayed around the house and continued to work for her master. I don’t know what they paid her. I can’t remember just how they got free but I think the soldiers gave ’em the notification. They stayed on the place till I was big enough to work. I didn’t do no work in slave time because I wasn’t old enough.”
Choked on Watermelon Seeds
“One day I was stealing watermelons with some big boys and I got choked on some seeds. The melon seeds got in my throat. I yelled for help and the boys ran away. Old Tom Brewer made me get on my hands and jump up and down to get the seeds out.”
Leaving Galveston
“I was a small boy, might have been seven or eight years old, when I left Galveston. We came to Bradley County, here in Arkansas. From Bradley my mother took me to Pine Bluff. After I got big I went back to Texas. Then I came from Texas here fifty-three years ago, and have been living here ever since, cooking for hotels and private families.
“I never was arrested in my life. I never been in trouble. I never had a fight. Been living in the same place ever since I first came here—right here at 1112 Park Street. I belong to the Christian Church at Thirteenth and Cross Streets. I quit working around the yard and the building because they wouldn’t pay me anything. They promised to pay me, but they wouldn’t do it.”