Ida Bryant
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ida Bryant, Hazea. Arkansas
(Very very black Negro woman)
Age: 61
"My mother was Hulda Williams. Grandpa was Jack Williams. Her mistress
was a widow woman in slavery times. They lived in Louisiana. I was born
close to Bastrop in Morehouse Parish. My father died when I was ten
years old. He was old. I was a child. Things look different to you then
you know. Grandpa was Hansen Terry, grandma Aggie Terry. They called pa
Major Terry but he belong to Bill Talbot. Hansen Terry was a free man.
He molded his own money. He died in South Carolina. Pa come from
Edgefield, South Carolina to Alabama. Stayed there awhile then come on
to Louisiana. He slipped off from his master. Between South Carolina and
Louisiana he walked forty miles. He rode all the other time. My folks
always farmed.
"Times have been getting some better all along since I was a chile.
Times is a heap better now than I ever seen in my life. The young men
depends on their wives to cook and make a living. They don't work
much--none of em. We old niggers doin' the wash in' and the young women
doin' cookin' and easy jobs. None of the men ain't workin' to do no
good! A few months in the year ain't no workin'.
"I get commodities. I owns this house now. I bout paid it out. I washes
three washin's a week. The rest of the time I pieces up quilts for
myself. I need cover."
Next:
Belle Buntin
Previous:
Maggie Broyles
