He believes in herb medicine of all kinds but can't remember except garlic poultice is good for neuralgia. Sassafras is a good tea, a good blood purifier in the spring of the year.
He knows a weather sign that seldom or never falls. "Thunder in the morning, rain before noon." "Seldom rains at night in July in Arkansas."
He has seen lots of lucky things but doesn't remember them. "It's bad luck to carry hoes and rakes in the living house." "It's bad luck to spy the new moon through bushes or trees."
He doesn't believe in witches, but he believes in spirits that direct your course as long as you are good and do right. He goes to church all the time if they have preaching. Green Grove is a Baptist church. He is not afraid of dead people. "They can't hurt you if they are dead."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ellen Vaden
DeValls Bluff, Ark.
Age: 83
" I am 83 years old. My mother come from Georgia. She left all her kin. Our owner was Dave and Luiza Johnson. They had two girls and a boy--Meely, Colly and Tobe. My mother's aunt come to Memphis in slavery time and come to see us. She cooked and bought herself free. The folks what owned her hired her out till they got paid her worth. She died in Memphis. I never heard father say where he come from or who owned him. He lived close by somewhere.
"I don't remember freedom. I know the Ku Klux was bad around Augusta, Arkansas. One time when I was little a crowd of Ku Klux come at about dusk. They told Dave Johnson they wanted water. He told them there was a well full but not bother that woman and her children in the kitchen. Dave Johnson was a Ku Klux himself. They went on down the road and met a colored woman. She knowed their horses. She called some of them by name and they let her alone.
"One time a colored man was settin' by the fire. His wife was sick in bed. He seen the Ku Klux coming and said 'Lord God, here comes the devil.' He run off. They didn't bother her. She told them she was sick. When she got up and well she wouldn't live with that husband no more.