“My parents’ name Simpson Hatch and Jacob Hatch. They had thirteen children.”
Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person Interviewed: Mrs. Anna Huggins
Home: Pleasant at John Street.
“Miss Huggins? (pronounced hew–gins) Yes, ma’am she lives here. Oh Miss Huggins, Miss Huggins. They’s somebody to see you.”
The interviewer had approached an open door of an “L” kitchen attached to a “shot gun house”. Thru the dining room and a bed room she was conducted to the front bedroom. This was furnished simply but with a good deal of elaboration. The bed was gay with brightly colored pillows. Most of them had petal pillow tops made from brilliant crepe paper touched with silver and guilt. The room was evidently not occupied by Mrs. Huggins herself for late in the interview a colored girl entered the room. “Do you want your room now?” Mrs. Huggins inquired. “No indeed, there’s lots of time,” the girl replied politely. But the interviewer managed to terminate the interview quickly.
“So you knew Fanny McCarty. Well, well, so you knew Fanny. I don’t know when I’ve heard anybody speak about her. She’s not so much on looks, but Fanny is a good little woman, a mighty good little woman. She’s up in Michigan. You know she worked at one of the big hotels here—the Eastman it was. When they closed in the summer they sent her up to the big hotel on Mackinac. For a while she was here in the winter and up there for the summer season. Then she stayed on up there.
“You say she worked for you when you were a little girl? Before the fire of 1913? Now, I remember, you were just a little girl and you used to come over to my house sometimes with her. I remember.” (A delighted smile.) “Now I remember.
“No, I don’t remember very much about the war. It is mostly what I heard the older ones say. My grandmother used to tell me a lot about it. I was just a little thing in my mother’s arms when the war was over. Guess I was about four years old. We lived in St. Francis County and as soon as we were free pappa sent for us. He sent for us to come by boat to where he was. We went to Helena. I remember they were all lined up—the colored soldiers were. But I knew pappa. They all wondered how, hadn’t seen him in a long time. But I picked him out of all the line of men and I said, ‘There’s my pappa.’ Yes, my pappa was a soldier in the war. He was gone from home most of the time. I only saw him once in a while.
“My grandmother told me lots of things about slavery. She was born a free girl. But when she was just a little girl somebody stole her and brought her to Arkansas and sold her. No, from the things they told me—especially grandmother—they weren’t very good to them. Lots of times I’ve gone down on my knees to my grandmother to hear her tell about how mean they were to them.
“I’d say to her, ‘Grandmother, why didn’t you fight back?’ ‘You couldn’t fight back,’ she said, ‘you just had to take it.’ ‘I wouldn’t,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t take it.’ Guess there’s too much Indian blood in me. A white person never struck me but once. I was a girl—not so very big and I was taking care of a white lady’s little girl. She and a friend of hers were talking and I sneaked up to the door and tried to listen to what they were saying. She caught me and she scolded me—she struck at me with her fan—it was just a light tap, but it made me mad. I fought her and I ran off home, she came to get me too. I never would have gone back otherways. She said she never did see a girl better with children.