Louvenia Huff
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Louvenia Huff
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 64
"I was born third year after the surrender. There was thirteen children
in my family when I was a child. We was different sizes and the grown
children helped look after the little ones. My parents was field hands.
My parents belong to Dr. Hatch. He lived in Aberdeen, Mississippi. We
lived in the country on his place. He had five or six children. Ben and
Needham come out to the farm. He was an old man and we stayed on the
son's place--same place--till I come to Arkansas. We come in 1885. We
heard it was a better country and open stock range. Dr. Hatch was very
good to my folks.
"I don't think the Ku Klux bothered my folks but we was afraid of them.
"My father voted a Republican ticket. I never voted.
"My grandmother was real light skin. Mother was mixed with white. She
told us she was sold away from her mother when she was a little bitter
of a girl and never seen her no more till she was the mother of six
children. They didn't know one another when they met. Her mother knowed
who bought her and after freedom she kept asking about her and finally
heard where she was and come to her. There was no selling place at
Aberdeen so I don't know where she was bought. Dr. Hatch lived to be an
old man. He owned a lot of slaves and lots of land.
"Father's old master was Whitfield. He sold him to Dr. Hatch when he was
a young man. Father was a driver in the Civil War. He hauled soldiers
and dumped them in the river. The Union soldiers wouldn't give them time
to bury the other side. He took rations all but the times he hauled dead
soldiers. He got shot in his arm above the wrist. He died before they
give him a pension. He was a Union soldier. He talked a lot but that is
all I can tell straight. I don't know if he mustered out or not.
"I worked in the field, wash, iron, and cooked. We get $12 from the
Welfare. My husband had two strokes. He has been sick three years.
"My parents' name Simpson Hatch and Jacob Hatch. They had thirteen
children."
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Anna Huggins
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Charlie Huff
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