Lidia Jones
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Lidia Jones
228 N. Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 94
Occupation: None--blind
"I was born in Mississippi and emigrated to Arkansas. Born on the
Peacock place. Old John Patterson was my old master.
"My first goin' out was to the cow pen, then to the kitchen, and then
they moved me to Mrs. Patterson's dining-room.
"I helped weave cloth. Dyed it? I wish you'd hush! My missis went to
the woods and got it. All I know is, she said it was indigo. She had a
great big kittle and she put her thread in that. No Lord, she never
bought her indigo--she raised it.
"Oh, Miss Fannie could do most anything. Made the prettiest
counter-panes I ever saw. Yes ma'am, she could do it and did do it.
"She had a loom half as big as this house. Lord a mercy, a many a time
I went dancin' from that old spinnin'-wheel.
"They made all the clothes for the colored folks. They'd be sewin' for
weeks and months.
"Miss Fannie and Miss Frances--that was her daughter--they wove such
pretty cloth for the colored. You know, they went and made themselves
dresses and the white and colored had the same kind of dresses.
"Yes Lord, they had some folks.
"Miss Frances wore hoops but Miss Fannie didn't.
"During of the War them Yankees come down the river; but to tell the
truth, we run and hid and never seen 'em no more.
"They took Mars John's fine saddle horse named Silver Heels. Yes
ma'am, took saddle and bridle and the horse on top of 'em. And he had
a mare named Buchanan and they took her too. He had done moved out of
the big house down into the woods. Called hisself hidin' I reckon. And
he had his horses tied down by the river and the Yankees slipped up on
him and took the horses.
"Yankees burned his house and gin house too and set fire to the
cotton. Oh Lord, I don't like to talk about it. Them Yankees was
rough.
"Right after freedom our white folks left this country and went to
Missouri and the last account I heard of 'em they was all dead.
"After freedom, folks scattered out just like sheep.
"I'm tryin' to study 'bout some songs but I can't think of nothin' but
Dixie."
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Lydia Jones
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John Jones
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