"They used to talk 'bout ha'nts and squinch owls. Say it was a sign of somebody dead. But I don't believe in that. 'Course what I don't believe in somebody else does."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Evelyn Jones
815 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: Between 68 and 78?
"I was born in Lonoke County right here in Arkansas. My father's name—I don't know it. I don't know nothin' 'bout my father. My mother's name was Mary Davis.
"My daddy died when I was five weeks old. I don't know nothin' 'bout 'im. Just did manage to git here before he left. I don't know the date of my birth. I don't know nothin' 'bout it and I ain't goin' to tell no lie.
"I have nineteen children. My youngest living child is twenty-eight years old. My oldest living is fifty-three. I have four dead. I don't know how old the oldest one is. That one's dead.
"I have a cousin named Harry Jordan. He lives 'round here somewheres. You'll find him. I don't know where he lives. He says he knows just how old I am, and he says that I'm sixty-eight. My daughter here says I'm seventy. And my son thinks I'm older. Don't nobody know. My daddy never told me. My mama was near dead when I was born; what could she tell me? So how am I to know?
"My mother was born in slavery. She was a slave. I don't know nothin' 'bout it. My mother came from Tennessee. That's what she told me. I was born in a log cabin right here in Arkansas. I was born in a log cabin right in front of the white folks' big house. It was not far from the white folks' graveyard. You know they had a graveyard of their own. Old Bill Pemberton, that was the name of the man owned the place I was born on. But he wasn't my mother's owner.
"I don't know where my father come from. My mother said she had a good time in slavery. She spoke of lots of things but I don't remember them.