"Some of the young folks won't work, some not able to work. If anybody saving a thing I don't hear about it."
Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Virginia Sims
1121 N. Magnolia
Pine Bluff, Ark.
Age: 93
Occupation: Retired Midwife
"I was born in 1844. I was twenty when peace was declared. I was born in Virginia. Yes ma'am, but I was sold, put up on a stump just like you sell hogs to the highest speculator. I was sold with my mother from a man named Joe Poindexter and bought by Tom Murphy and brought to Arkansas. My God, every Murphy round here knows me. Yes'm, my mother and me was sold. Papa wasn't sold, but he come here the second year after surrender.
"I was old enough to spin twelve cuts a day—had it to do. And I could weave cloth just like they do now.
"Had seven brothers and I'm the onliest girl.
"I can recollect when Miss Mary Poindexter died. They said I was two.
"My mistis in Arkansas was Mrs. Susan Murphy. That was out on the plantation, we didn't live in no city—my God, no!
"The way my people acts now, they looks foolish. I never heard a person curse till I come up here. I was a grown young lady nineteen years old when our master lowed us to get out and cote. You better not. The first husband I married I was nineteen goin' on twenty. My husband fought on the Southern side. His master sent him as a substitute.