Ella Johnson
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Ella Johnson
913-1/2 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 85
"I was born in Helena, Arkansas. Not exactly in the town but in hardly
not more than three blocks from the town. Have you heard about the
Grissoms down there? Well, them is my white folks. My maiden name was
Burke. But we never called ourselves any name 'cept Grissom.
"My mother's name was Sylvia Grissom. Her husband was named Jack
Burkes. He went to the Civil War. That was a long time ago. When they
got up the war, they sold out a lot of the colored folks. But they
didn't get a chance to sell my mother. She left. They tell me one of
them Grissom boys has been down here looking for me. He didn't find me
and he went on back.
My mother's mistress was named Sylvia Grissom too. All of us was named
after the white folks. All the old folks is dead, but the young ones
is living. I think my mother's master was named John. They had so many
of them that I forgit which is which. But they had all mama's children
named after them. My mother had three girls and three boys.
"When the war began and my father went to war, my mother left Helena
and came here. She run off from the Grissoms. They whipped her too
much, those white folks did. She got tired of all that beating. She
took all of us with her. All six of us children were born before the
war. I was the fourth.
"There is a place down here where the white folks used to whip and
hang the niggers. Baskin Lake they call it. Mother got that far. I
don't know how. I think that she came in a wagon. She stayed there a
little while and then she went to Churchill's place. Churchill's place
and John Addison's place is close together down there. That is old
time. Them folks is dead, dead, dead. Churchill's and Addison's places
joined near Horse Shoe Lake. They had hung and burnt people--killed
'em and destroyed 'em at Baskin Lake. We stayed there about four days
before we went on to Churchill's place. We couldn't stay there long.
"The ha'nts--the spirits--bothered us so we couldn't sleep. All them
people that had been killed there used to come back. We could hear
them tipping 'round in the house all the night long. They would blow
out the light. You would kiver up and they would git on top of the
kiver. Mama couldn't stand it; so she come down to General Churchill's
place and made arrangements to stay there. Then she came back and got
us children. She had an old man to stay there with us until she come
back and got us. We couldn't stay there with them ha'nts dancing
'round and carryin' us a merry gait.
"At Churchill's place my mother made cotton and corn. I don't know
what they give her for the work, but I know they paid her. She was a
hustling old lady. The war was still goin' on. Churchill was a Yankee.
He went off and left the plantation in the hands of his oldest son.
His son was named Jim Churchill. That is the old war; that is the
first war ever got up--the Civil War. Ma stayed at Churchill's long
enough to make two or three crops. I don't know just how long.
Churchill and them wanted to own her--them and John Addison.
"There was three of us big enough to work and help her in the field.
Three--I made four. There was my oldest sister, my brother, and my
next to my oldest sister, and myself--Annie, John, Martha, and me. I
chopped cotton and corn. I used to tote the leadin' row. Me and my
company walked out ahead. I was young then, but my company helped me
pick that cotton. That nigger could pick cotton too. None of the res'
of them could pick anything for looking at him.
"Mother stayed at Churchill's till plumb after the war. My father died
before the war was over. They paid my mother some money and said she
would get the balance. That means there was more to come, doesn't it?
But they didn't no more come. They all died and none of them got the
balance. I ain't never got nothin' either. I gave my papers to Adams
and Singfield. I give them to Adams; Adams is a Negro that one-legged
Wash Jordan sent to me. They all say he's a big crook, but I didn't
know it. Adams kept coming to my house until he got my papers and then
when he got the papers he didn't come no more.
"After Adams got the papers, he carried me down to Lawyer Singfield's.
He said I had to be sworn in and it would cost me one dollar.
Singfield wrote down every child's name and everybody's age. When he
got through writing, he said that was all and me and Pearl made up one
dollar between us and give it to him. And then we come on away. We
left Mr. Adams and Mr. Singfield in Singfield's office and we left the
papers there in the office with them. They didn't give me no receipt
for the papers and they didn't give me no receipt for the dollar.
Singfield's wife has been to see me several times to sell me
something. She wanted to git me to buy a grave, but she ain't never
said nothin' about those papers. You think she doesn't know 'bout 'em?
I have seen Adams once down to Jim Perry's funeral on Arch Street. I
asked him about my papers and he said the Government hadn't answered
him. He said, 'Who is you?' I said, 'This is Mrs. Johnson.' Then he
went on out. He told me when he got a answer, it will come right to my
door.
"I never did no work before goin' on Churchill's plantation. Some of
the oldest ones did, but I didn't. I learned how to plow at John
Addison's place. The war was goin' on then. I milked cows for him and
churned and cleaned up. I cooked some for him. Are you acquainted with
Blass? I nursed Julian Blass. I didn't nurse him on Addison's place; I
nursed him at his father's house up on Main Street, after I come here.
I nursed him and Essie both. I nursed her too. I used to have a time
with them chillen. They weren't nothin' but babies. The gal was about
three months old and Julian was walkin' 'round. That was after I come
to Little Rock.
"My mother come to Little Rock right after the war. She brought all of
us with her but the oldest. He come later.
"She want to work and cooked and washed and ironed here. I don't
remember the names of the people she worked for. They all dead--the
old man and the old ladies.
"She sent me to school. I went to school at Philander [HW: (Philander
Smith College?)] and down to the end of town and in the country. We
had a white man first and then we had a colored woman teacher. The
white man was rough. He would fight all the time. I would read and
spell without opening my book. They would have them blue-back spellers
and McGuffy's reader. They got more education then than they do now.
Now they is busy fighting one another and killin' one another. When
you see anything in the paper, you don't know whether it is true or
not. Florence Lacy's sister was one of my teachers. I went to Union
school once. [HW: ---- insert from P. 5]
"You remember Reuben White? They tried to bury him and he came to
before they got him in the grave. He used to own the First Baptist
Church. He used to pastor it too. He sent for J. P. Robinson by me. He
told Robinson he wanted him to take the Church and keep it as long as
he lived. Robinson said he would keep it. Reuben White went to his
brother's and died. They brought him back here and kept his body in
the First Baptist Church a whole week. J. P. carried on the meetin',
and them sisters was fightin' him. They went on terrible. He started
out of the church and me and 'nother woman stopped him. At last they
voted twice, and finally they elected J. P. He was a good pastor, but
he hurrahed the people and they didn't like that.
"Reuben White didn't come back when they buried him the second time.
They were letting the coffin down in the grave when they buried him
the first time, and he knocked at it on the inside, knock, knock.
(Here the old lady rapped on the doorsill with her knuckles--ed.) They
drew that coffin up and opened it. How do I know? I was there. I heard
it and seen it. They took him out of the coffin and carried him back
to his home in the ambulance. He lived about three or four years after
that.
"I had a member to die in my order and they sent for the undertaker
and he found that she wasn't dead. They took her down to the
undertaker's shop, and found that she wasn't dead. They said she died
after they embalmed her. That lodge work ran my nerves down. I was in
the Tabernacle then. Goodrich and Dubisson was the undertakers that
had the body. Lucy Tucker was the woman. I guess she died when they
got her to the shop. They say the undertaker cut on her before he
found that she was dead.
"I don't know how many grades I finished in school. I guess it was
about three altogether. I had to git up and go to work then. [TR: This
paragraph was marked with a line on the right; possibly it is the
paragraph to be inserted on the previous page.]
"After I quit school, I nursed mighty nigh all the time. I cooked for
Governor Rector part of the time. I cooked for Dr. Lincoln Woodruff. I
cooked for a whole lot of white folks. I washed and ironed for them
Anthonys down here. She like to had a fit over me the last time she
saw me. She wanted me to come back, but my hand couldn't stand it. I
cooked for Governor Rose's wife. That's been a long time back. I
wouldn't 'low nobody to come in the kitchen when I was working. I
would say, 'You goin' to come in this kitchen, I'll have to git out.'
The Governor was awful good to me. They say he kicked the res' of them
out. I scalded his little grandson once. I picked up the teakettle.
Didn't know it had water in it and it slipped and splashed water over
the little boy's hand. If'n it had been hot as it ought to have been,
it would have burnt him bad. He went out of that kitchen hollerin'.
The Governor didn't say nothin' 'cept, 'Ella, please don't do it
again.' I said, 'I guess that'll teach him to stay out of that kitchen
now.' I was boss of that kitchen when I worked there.
"We took the lock off the door once so the Governor couldn't git in
it.
"I dressed up and come out once and somebody called the Governor and
said, 'Look at your cook.' And he said, 'That ain't my cook.' That was
Governor Rector. I went in and put on my rags and come in the kitchen
to cook and he said, 'That is my cook.' He sure wanted me to keep on
cookin' for him, but I just got sick and couldn't stay.
"I hurt my hand over three years ago. My arm swelled and folks rubbed
it and got all the swelling down in one place in my hand. They told me
to put fat meat on it. I put it on and the meat hurt so I had to take
it off. Then they said put the white of an egg on it. I did that too
and it was a little better. Then they rubbed the place until it
busted. But it never did cure up. I poisoned it by goin' out pulling
up greens in the garden. They tell me I got dew poisoning.
"I don't git no help from the Welfare or from the Government. My
husband works on the relief sometimes. He's on the relief now.
"I married--oh, Lordy, lemme see when I did marry. It's been a long
time ago, more 'n thirty years it's been. It's been longer than that.
We married up here on Twelfth and State Street, right here in Little
Rock. I had a big wedding. I had to go to Thompson's hall. That was on
Tenth and State Street. They had to go to git all them people in. They
had a big time that night.
"I lived in J. P. Robinson's house twenty-two years. And then I lived
in front of Dunbar School. It wasn't Dunbar then. I know all the
people that worked at the school. I been living here about six
months."
Interviewer's Comment
Ella Johnson is about eighty-five years old. Her father went to war
when the War first broke out. Her mother ran away then and went to
Churchill's farm not later than 1862. Ella Johnson learned to plow
then and she was at least nine years old she says and perhaps older
when she learned to plow. So she must be at least eighty-five.
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Fanny Johnson
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Cinda Johnson
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