“The present generation is selfish and restless. I don’t know what goner become of em. Times is changing too fast for me. I jess look on and wonder what going to come on next.”
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ella Glespie
Brassfield, Arkansas
Age: 71
“I was born the third year after the surrender. I was born in Okolona, Mississippi. My parents was Jane Bowen and Henry Harrison. Ma had seven children. They lived on the Gates place at freedom. I’m the onliest one of my kin living anywheres ’bout now. Ma never was sold but pa was.
“Parson Caruthers brought pa from Alabama. He was a good runner and when he was little he throwd his hip outer j’int running races. Then Parson Caruthers learnt him a trade—a shoemaker. When he was still nothing but a lad he was sold for quite a sum of money. When emancipation come on he could read and write and make change.
“So den he was out in the world cripple. He started teaching school. He had been a preacher, too, durin’ slavery. He preached and taught school. He was justice of the peace and representative for two terms from Chickasaw County in the state legislature. I heard them talk about that and when I started to school Mr. Suggs was the white man principal. Pa was one teacher and there was some more teachers. He was a teacher a long time. He was eighty odd and ma was sixty odd when she died. Both died in Mississippi.
“My folks said Master Gates was good. I knowd my pa’s young Master Gates. Pa said he never got a whooping. They made a right smart of money outen his work. He said some of the boots he made brung high as twenty dollars. Pa had a good deal of Confederate bills as I recollects. Ma said some of them on Gates’ place got whoopings.
“When they would be at picnics and big corn shellings or shuckings either, all Gates’ black folks was called ‘Heavy Gates’; they was fed and treated so well. I visited back at home in Mississippi. Went to the quarters and all nineteen years ago. I heard them still talking about the ‘Heavy Gates’. I was one the offspring.
“Ma cooked for her old mistress years and years. Mrs. Rogers in South Carolina give ma to Miss Rebecca, her daughter, and said, ‘Take good care of her, you might need her.’ They come in ox wagons to Mississippi. Ma was a little girl then when Miss Rebecca married Dr. Bowen. Ma hated to leave Miss Rebecca Bowen ’cause in the first place she was her half-sister. She said Master Rogers was her own pa. Her ma was a cook and house girl ahead of her. Ma was a fine cook. Heap better than I ever was ’cause she never lacked the stuff to fix and I come short there.
“I heard ma tell this. Wherever she lived and worked, at Dr. Bowen’s, I reckon. The soldiers come one day and took their sharp swords from out their belts and cut off heads of turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, guineas, and took a load off and left some on the ground. They picked up the heads and what was left and made a big washpot full of dumplings. She said the soldiers wasted so much.