"The reason she got whipped that time, the overseer wanted her to help get a tree off the fence that had been blown down by a storm. She told him that wasn't her work and she wasn't goin' to do it. Old miss was away at that time. He hit her a few licks and she told old miss when she came back. Old 'White Ma' told the overseer, 'Don't never put your hands on her no more no matter what she does. That's more than I do. I don't hit her and you got no business to do it.'
"Her husband, my grandfather, was a blacksmith, and he never did work in the field. He made wagons, plows, plowstocks, buzzard wings—they call them turning plows now. They used to make and put them on the stocks. He made anything-handles, baskets. He could fill wagon wheels. He could sharpen tools. Anything that come under the line of blacksmith, that is what he did. He used to fix wagons all the time I knowed him. In harvest time in the fall he would drive from Bienville where they were slaves to Monroe in Ouachita Parish. He kept all the plows and was sharpening and fixing anything that got broke. He said he never did get no whipping.
"His name was Tom Eldridge. They called him 'Uncle Tom'. They was the mother and father of twelve children. Six lived and six died. One boy and five girls lived. And one girl and five boys died—half and half. He died at the age of seventy-five, June 6, 1908. She died January 1920.
"I came out here in January 1907. I lived in Pine Bluff. From Louisiana I came to Pine Bluff in 1906. In 1907 I went to Kerr in Lonoke County and lived there eight years and then I came to Little Rock. I farmed at Kerr and just worked 'round town those few months in Pine Bluff. Excusing the time I was in Pine Bluff and Little Rock I farmed. I farmed in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Nannie P. Madden,
West Memphis, Arkansas
Age: 69
"I am Martha Johnson's sister. I was born at Lake Village, Arkansas. I am 69 years old. I was born on Mr. Ike Wethingtons place. Pa was renting. Mother died in 1876 on this farm. We called it Red Leaf plantation. Father died at Martha Johnson's here in West Memphis when he was 88 years old.
"Mother was not counted a slave. Her master's Southern wife (white wife) disliked her very much but kept her till her death. Mother had three white children by her master. After freedom she married a black man and had four children by him. We are in the last set.
"We was born after slavery and all we know is from hearing our people talk. Father talked all time about slavery. He was a soldier. I couldn't tell you straight. I can give you some books on slavery: