“You all chillun ain goin is you? Come back ter see ole Bill. Ah sholey hates to have mah white folks sit on the floor but mebby ole Bill’s foot will be bettuh next time an she can git her white fokes some cheers.”
Aunt Sally Fields said to be 106 years old lived in Mack Quarters about two and a half or three miles south of El Dorado. She is blind and lives with Hattie Moseley. During slavery days she belonged to the Patterson family and came with them from Alabama to Louisiana and later to Caledonia where she was living at the close of the Civil War. Her mind was wandering to such an extent that we could not get very much from her and when asked about slavery times she said:
“Slavery time is gone. The stars are passed. The white folks that raised me said: ‘I want you all to get up in the morning and tell me about the stars.’ Oh Lordy! The stars fell. Ole Missus would come say: ‘Ah want to be standing up behind the door. Ah don’ want to be buried.’ My ole missus was good to all the niggers.
“There was a big spring on marsters plantation. When we would start to the spring mistress would say: ‘Don’t go on the left hand side of the spring, go up the right hand side to the chinquapin tree.’”
It took Sally about twenty minutes to say that much so we didn’t stay longer.
Interviewer: Carol Graham
Person Interviewed: Pinkie Howard (Add)
El Dorado, Ark.
Age: ?
“Mornin’, honey! Here you is to see Aunt Pinkie again. What did you bring me? Didn’t you bring old Aunt Pinkie somethin’ good to eat?
“Lawsy, honey, its been so long I can’t member much bout plantation days. But I members the children on the plantation would ring up and play ring games. And we used to have the best things to eat back in them days. We used to take taters and grate them and make tater pudding. Made it in ovens. Made corn bread and light bread in ovens too and I used to bake the best biscuits anybody ever et and I didn’t put my scratchers in them neither. Old Miss taught me how. And we had lasses pone corn bread and them good old tater biscuits. We used to eat parched corn, and cornmeal dumplings was all the go back there.
“I worked all my life and hard, too, but I still is a pretty good old frame.