Lettie Nelson
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Lettie Nelson
St. Marys Street, Helena, Arkansas
Age: 55 or 56?
"Grandma was Patsy Smith. She said in slavery they had a certain amount
of cotton to pick. If they didn't have that amount they would put their
heads between the rails of the fences and whoop them. They whooped them
in the ebenin' when they weighed up the cotton. Grandma was raised in
Virginia. She was light. Mama was light. They was carried from Virginia
to Louisiana in wagons. They found clothes along the road people had
lost. She said several bundles of good clothes. They thought they had
dropped off of wagons ahead of them. They washed and wore the clothes.
Some of 'em fit so they wore them. Mama left her husband and brother in
Virginia. Ed Smith was her second husband. He was a light man. My
grandpa was a field man. I never heard if grandpa was sold. Jimmie
Stansberry was the man that bought or brought mama and grandma to
Louisiana. Mama cooked and worked in the field both. Grandma did too.
She cooked in Louisiana more than mama. They belong to Lou and Jimmie
Stansberry and they had two boys. They lived close to Minden, Louisiana.
I don't know so much about my parents and grandma talked but we didn't
pay enough attention to remember it all. She was old and got things
confused.
"They was glad when freedom come but they lived on with Jimmie
Stansberry. I remember them. Grandma raised me after my parents died.
Then she lived with me till she died. She was awful old when she died.
They would talk about how different Virginia and Louisiana was. It took
them a long time to make that trip."
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Mattie Nelson
Previous:
John Nelson
Informational
