This information given by: Josephine Hamilton
Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas
Occupation: Field work and washwoman.
AGE:
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Pine Bluff District
Name of Interviewer: Martin—Pettigrew
Subject: Negro Customs
Story—Information (If not enough space on this page add page)
“My mother made three crops after she wuz freed, and I wuz born when she made her third crop, so I thinks I wuz born ’round 1868. I wuz born in Bolivar County, Mississippi. My mother and father were slaves and belonged to the Harris family. Only one I ’members is my sister, she died. My brothers went off and worked on ships, and I never saw them no mo’.
“After freedom, my mother kept working for her marster and misstis, and they paid them for their work. They stayed on the same plantation until I wuz almost grown.
“At Christmas time, we had heaps to eat, cakes, homemade molasses candy that you pulled, popcorn, horse apples which wuz good, mo’ better’n any apples we get these days.
“The white folks give gifts in the big house and mammy went to the house and the white folks give her the things to put in we nigger chilluns’ stockings.
“We hung up our stockings in our house and up at the white house too. ’Fore Christmas, the white folks would tell us if we stole chickens, eggs, ducks and things, or go in the apple orchard, and wuz bad, Santa Claus would not come to us. But if we were good, he would bring gifts to us. ’Fore Christmas, the white folks would make a Santa Claus out of clothes and stuff it, put a pack on his back, and stand him up in the road. Colored chillun feared to go near him.