Occupation
"They say that I'm too old to work now; so I can't make nothin' to keep my home goin'. I have five children living. Two are away from here—one in Michigan, and another in Illinois. I have three others but they don't make enough to help me much. I used to work 'round the laundries. Then I used to work 'round with these colored restaurants. I worked with a colored woman down by the station for twelve or fifteen years. I first helped her wash and iron. She ironed and hired other girls to wait table and wash dishes and so on. Them times wasn't like they are now. They'd hire you and keep you. Then I worked at a white boarding house on Second and Cross. I quit working at the laundries because of the steady work in the restaurants. After the restaurants I went to work in private families and worked with them till I got so I couldn't work no more. Maybe I could do plenty of things, but they won't give me a chance.
"I have been married twice. My second husband was John Jones. He always went by the name of his white folks. They were named Ivory. He came from up in Searcy. I got acquainted with him and we started going together. He'd been married before and had children up in Searcy. He got his leg cut off in a accident. He was working over to the shop lifting ties with another helper and this man helping him gave way on his side and let his end fall. It fell across my husband's foot and blood poison set in and caused him to lose his foot and leg. He had his foot cut off at the county hospital and made himself a peg-leg. He cut it out hisself while he was at the hospital. He lived a long while after that. He died on Tenth and Victory. My first husband was Henry White. He was a shop worker too—the Iron Mountain.
"We went to school together. I lost my health before I married, and I had to stop going to school. The doctor was a German and lived on Cross between Fifth and Sixth. He said that he ought to have written the history of my life to show what I was cured of because I was paralyzed two years. My head was drawed 'way back between my shoulders. I lived with my first husband about six years. He died with T.B. in Memphis, Tennessee. He had married again when he died. We got so we couldn't agree, so I thought it was best for him to live with his mother and me to live with mine. We quit under good conditions. I had a boy after he was separated from me.
"I don't know what to say about the people now. I don't get 'round much. They aren't like they used to be. The young people don't like to have you 'round them. I never did object to any of my children gettin' married because my mother didn't object to me.
"I know Mr. Gillespie. (He passed at the time—ed.) He comes to see me now and then. All my people are dead now 'cept my children."
Interviewer's Comment
Brother Gillespie has a story turned in previously. Evidently he is making eyes at the old lady; but the romance is not likely to bud. She has lost the sight of one eye apparently through a cataract which has spread over the larger part of the iris. Nevertheless, she is more active than he is, and apparently more competent, and she isn't figuring on making her lot any harder than it is.