Frances Fluker
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Frances Fluker, Edmondson, Arkansas
Age: 77
[May 11 1938]
"I was born the 25th day of December 1860 in Marshall County,
Mississippi. Our owners was Dr. George Wilson and Mistress Mary. They
had one son I knowed, Dr. Wilson at Coldwater, Mississippi. My parents
was Viney Perry and Dock Bradley.
"I never seen my pa. I heard about him since I been grown. He left when
the War was going on and never went back. Mama had ten children and I am
all that's living now. Old mistress set my name and age down in her
Bible. I sent back and my niece just cut it out and sent it to me so I
could get my pension. I pasted it in the front of my Bible. I was never
sold. It was freedom when I first recollect.
"Ma was the cook for the white folks. Grandma Perry come from North
Carolina I heard 'em say. She was a widow woman. When company come they
would send us out to play. They never talked to us children, no ma'am,
not 'fore us neither. I come a woman 'fore I knowed what it was. My
sisters knowed better than tell me. They didn't tell me nothin'.
"When it wasn't company at ma's they was at work and singing. At night
we was all tired and went to bed 'cause we had to be up by
daybreak--children and all. They said it caused children's j'ints to be
stiff sleeping up in the day. All old folks could tell you that.
"This young set ain't got no strength neither. Ma cooked and washed and
raised five children up grown. The slaves didn't get nary thing give 'em
in the way of land nor stock. They got what clothes they had and some
provisions.
"Ma was ginger cake. They said pa was black. I don't know. Grandma was
reddish and lighter still than ma. They said she was part Cherokee
Indian. Her hair was smooth and pretty. She combed her hair with the
fine comb to bring the oil out on it and make it slick. I recollect her
combing her hair. It was long about on her shoulders.
"I heard about the Ku Klux but I never seed none of 'em. Ma said her
owners was good to her. Ma never had but one husband.
"I come to Arkansas 1921. Mr. Passler in Coldwater, Mississippi had
bought a farm at Onida. We had worked for him at Lula, Mississippi. Me
and my husband come here. My husband died the first year. I cooked some
in my younger days but field work and washing was my work mostly. I
like' field work long as I was able to go.
"My first husband cleared up eighty acres of land. He and myself done
it, we had help. We got in debt and lost it. He bought the place. That
was in Pinola County close to Sardis. I had four children. One daughter
living.
"What I think it was give me rheumatism was I picked cotton, broke it
off frozen two weeks on the sleet. I picked two hundred pounds a day. I
got numb and fell and they come by and got a doctor. He said it was from
overwork. I got over that but I had rheumatism ever since.
"I learned to read. I went to Shiloah School--and church too--several
terms. Mr. Will Dunlap was my first teacher. He was a white man. He run
the school a good while but I don't know how long. My name is Frances
Christiana Fluker. I been farming all my life, nothin' but farmin'.
Never thought 'bout gettin' sick 'cause I knowed I couldn't.
"I jus' get $6 and that is all. It cost more to send get the commodities
than it do to buy them. We don't get much of them. I needs
clothes--union suits. 'Course I wears 'em all summer. If they would give
me yarn and needles I could knit my socks. 'Course I can see and ain't
doing nothing else. I needs a dress. I ain't got but this one dress."
NOTE: The two old beds were filthy with slick dirt. They had two chairs
and a short bench around the stove and a trunk in which she kept the
little yellow torn to pieces Bible tied around the back with a string.
The large board door was kept wide open for light I suppose. There were
no windows to the room.
I heard the reason she gets only $6 was because her daughter lives there
and keeps two of her son's children and they try to get the young
grandson work and help out and support his children and mother at least.
Next:
Ida May Fluker
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Doc Flowers
