"Uncle Dock" Wilborn and his wife "Aunt Becky" are among the oldest citizens of Phillips County and have been married for sixty-seven years. Dan Wilborn performed their marriage ceremony. The only formality required in uniting them as man and wife was that each jump over a broom that had been placed on the floor between them. This old couple are the parents of four children, the eldest of whom is now sixty-three. They live alone in a small white-washed cabin only a mile or so from Marvell being supported only by a small pension they receive each month from the Social Security Board. They have a garden and a few chickens and a hog or two and are happy and content as they dip their snuff and recall those days long past during which they both contend that life was at its best, "Aunt Becky" is religious and a staunch believer, a long-time member of Mount Moriah Baptist Church while "Uncle Dock" who has never been affiliated with any religious organization is yet as he terms himself "a sinner man" and laughingly remarks that he is going to ride into Heaven on "Aunt Becky's" ticket to which comment she promptly replies that her ticket is good for only one passage and that if he hopes to get there he must arrange for one of his own.
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Bell Wilks, Holly Grove, Arkansas
Age: 80
"I was raised in Pulaski, Tennessee, Giles County. The post office was at one end of the town, bout half mile was the church down at the other end. Yes'm, that way Pulaski looked when I lived there. My father's master was Peter or Jerry Garn—I don't know which. They brothers? Yes'm.
"My mother's master was John Wilks and Miss Betty. Mama's name was Callie Wilks and papa's name was Freeman. Mama had seven children. She was a field hand. She said all on their place could do nearly anything. They took turns cooking. Seems like it was a week about they took milkin', doin' house work, field work, and she said sometimes they sewed.
"Father told my mother one day he was going to the Yankees. She didn't want him to go much. He went. They mustered out drilling one day. He had to squat right smart. He saw some cattle in the distance looked like army way off. He fell dead. They said it was heart disease. They brought him home and some of dem stood close to him drillin' told her that was way it happened.
"The man what owned my mother was sorter of a Yankee hisself. We all stayed till he wound up the crop. He sold his place and went to Collyoka on the L. and N. Railway. He give us two and one-half bushels corn, three bushels wheat, and some meat at the very first of freedom. When it played out we went and he give us more long as he stayed there.
"When mama left she went to a new sorter mill town and cooked there till 1869. She carried me to a young woman to nurse for her what she nursed at Mostor Wilks befo freedom. I stayed wid her till 1876. I sure does remember dem dates. (laughed)
"Yes'm, I was nursin' for Dr. Rothrock when that Ku Klux scare was all bout. They coma to our house huntin' a boy. They didn't find him. I cover up my head when they come bout our house. Some folks they scared nearly to death. I bein' in a strange place don't know much bout what all I heard they done.