“I went to school just a little after freedom. Mama and papa wasn’t able to send me. Wasn’t no colored teachers competent to teach then and we had to pay the white teacher a dollar a month.
“I had very strict parents and was made to mind. When I went out I knew when I was comin’ in. I had one daughter who died when she was eight years old and if I could bring her back now, I wouldn’t do it cause I know she would worry me to death.
“I used to sew a lot for people in Pine Bluff but I am too old now. I own my home and I have some rooms rented to three young men students and I get a little help from the Welfare so I manage to get along.
“Well good-bye—I’m glad you come.”
#748
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mary Jane Hardrige
1501 W. Barraque, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 79
“Well, I don’t believe in signs much. My sister was sick about a year once. They said she had the T. B. (tuberculosis). One day I was there and she said, ‘Sis, do you hear that peckerwood? He’s drivin’ a nail in my coffin.’ And sure enough she died not long after.
“But let me tell you I had a peculiar dream yesterday morning just before day. There’s a little child here. His mother died and left him, the baby child. I dreamt his mother brought him to me. She said, ‘I brought my boy here and I want you to keep him.’ I thought he come to me just as naked as he could be. He kept sayin’, ‘Come on, Mrs. Hardrige, and let’s go home, I’m cold.’ He didn’t have a garment on. His mother was with him and she’s dead you know.
“I mentioned it to one of my neighbors and she said it was a sign of some woman’s death.