"I am not able to do anything now. I don't even tote a chair across the room, or spade up the ground for a garden, or hoe up the weeds in it. I am ruptured and the doctor says it is the funniest rupture he ever seen. He says that there's a rupture and fat hanging down in the rupture. They have to keep me packed with ice all the time. The least little thing brings it down. I can't hold myself nor nothing. Have to wear something under my clothes.
"I don't get a pension."
Interviewer's Comment
Smith is sensitive about his first name—doesn't like to give it—and about his condition. He doesn't like to mention it or to have it referred to.
He has an excellent memory for some things and a rather poor one for some others. He got angry when his granddaughter supplied data about his wife which he apparently could not recall.
His physical condition is deplorable and his circumstances extremely straitened.
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: John H. Smith
2602 W. Twelfth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 81
"I reckon I was here, I member seein' the smoke from the guns look like a cloud.