Lula Jackson
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Lula Jackson
1808 Valentine Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 79?
"I was born in Alabama, Russell County, on a place called Sand Ridge,
about seven miles out from Columbus, Georgia. Bred and born in
Alabama. Come out here a young gal. Wasn't married when I come out
here. Married when a boy from Alabama met me though. Got his picture.
Lula Williams! That was my name before I married. How many sisters do
you have? That's another question they ask all the time; I suppose you
want to know, too. Two. Where are they? That's another one of them
questions they always askin' me. You want to know it, too? I got one
in Clarksdale, Mississippi. And the other one is in Philadelphia; no,
I mean in Philipp city, Tallahatchie (county). Her name is Bertha
Owens and she lives in Philipp city. What state is Philipp city in?
That'll be the next question. It is in Mississippi, sir. Now is thar
anything else you'd like to know?
"My mother's name was Bertha Williams and my father's name was Fred
Williams. I don't know nothing 'bout mama's mother. Yes, her name was
Crecie. My father's mother was named Sarah. She got killed by
lightning. Crecie's husband was named John Oliver. Sarah's husband was
named William Daniel. Early Hurt was mama's master. He had an awful
name and he was an awful man. He whipped you till he'd bloodied you
and blistered you. Then he would cut open the blisters and drop
sealing-wax in them and in the open wounds made by the whips.
"When the Yankees come in, his wife run in and got in the bed between
the mattresses. I don't see why it didn't kill her. I don't know how
she stood it. Early died when the Yankees come in. He was already
sick. The Yankees come in and said, 'Did you know you are on the
Yankee line?'
"He said, 'No, by God, when did that happen?'
"They said, 'It happened tonight, G----D---- you.'
"And he turned right on over and done everything on hisself and died.
He had a eatin' cancer on his shoulder.
Schooling, Etc.
"My mother had so many children that I didn't get to go to school
much. She had nineteen children, and I had to stay home and work to
help take care of them. I can't write at all.
"I went to school in Alabama, 'round on a colored man's place--Mr.
Winters. That was near a little town called Fort Mitchell and Silver
Rim where they put the men in jail. I was a child. Mrs. Smith, a white
woman from the North, was the second teacher that I had. The first was
Mr. Croler. My third teacher was a man named Mr. Nelson. All of these
was white. They wasn't colored teachers. After the War, that was. I
have the book I used when I went to school. Here is the little
Arithmetic I used. Here is the Blue Back Speller. I have a McGuffy's
Primer too. I didn't use that. I got that out of the trash basket at
the white people's house where I work. One day they throwed it out.
That is what they use now, ain't it?
"Here is a book my husband give me. He bought it for me because I told
him I wanted a second reader. He said, 'Well, I'll go up to the store
and git you one.' Plantation store, you know. He had that charged to
his account.
"I used to study my lesson. I turned the whole class down once. It was
a class in spelling. I turned the class down on
'Publication'--p-u-b-l-i-c-a-t-i-o-n. They couldn't spell that. But
I'll tell the world they could spell it the next day.
"My teacher had a great big crocus sack, and when she got tired of
whipping them, she would put them in the sack. She never did put me in
that sack one time. I got a whipping mos' every day. I used to fight,
and when I wasn't fightin' for myself, I'd be fighting for other
children that would be scared to fight for theirselves, and I'd do
their fighting for them.
"That whippin' in your hand is the worst thing you ever got. Brother,
it hurts. I put a teacher in jail that'd whip one of my children in
the hand.
Occupational History and Family
"My mama said I was six years old when the War ended and that I was
born on the first day of October. During the War, I run up and down
the yard and played, and run up and down the street and played; and
when I would make too much noise, they'd whip me and send me back to
my mother and tell her not to whip me no more, because they had
already done it. I would help look after my mother's children. There
were five children younger than I was. Everywhere she went, the white
people would want me to nurse their children, because they said, 'That
little rawboneded one is goin' to be the smartest one you got. I want
her.' And my ma would say:
"'You ain't goin' to git 'er.' She had two other girls--Martha and
Sarah. They was older than me, and she would hire them out to do
nursing. They worked for their master during slave time, and they
worked for money after slavery.
"My mama's first husband was killed in a rasslin' (wrestling) match.
It used to be that one man would walk up to another and say, 'You
ain't no good.' And the other one would say, 'All right, le's see.'
And they would rassle.
"My mother's first husband was pretty old. His name was Myers. A young
man come up to him one Sunday morning when they were gettin'
commodities. They got sorghum, meat, meal, and flour; if what they got
wasn't enough, then they would go out and steal a hog. Sometime they'd
steal it anyhow; they got tired of eatin' the same thing all the time.
Hurt would whip them for it. Wouldn't let the overseer whip them. Whip
them hisself. 'Fraid the overseer wouldn't give them enough. They
never could find my grandfather's meat. That was Grandfather William
Down. They couldn't find his meat because he kept it hidden in a hole
in the ground. It was under the floor of the cabin.
"Old Myers made this young man rassle with him. The young fellow
didn't want to rassle with him; he said Myers was too old. Myers
wasn't my father; he was my mother's first husband. The young man
threw him. Myers wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted to rassle
again. The young man didn't want to rassle again. But Myers made him.
And the second time, the young man threw him so hard that he broke his
collar-bone. My mother was in a family way at the time. He lived about
a week after that, and died before the baby was born.
"My mother's second husband was named Fred Williams, and he was my
father. All this was in slavery times. I am his oldest child. He
raised all his children and all his stepchildren too. He and my mother
lived together for over forty years, until she was more than seventy.
He was much younger than she was--just eighteen years old when he
married her. And she was a woman with five children. But she was a
real wife to him. Him and her would fight, too. She was jealous of
him. Wouldn't be none of that with me. Honey, when you hit me once,
I'm gone. Ain't no beatin' on me and then sleepin' in the same bed
with you. But they fit and then they lived together right on. No
matter what happened, his clean clothes were ready whenever he got
ready to go out of the house--even if it was just to go to work. His
meals were ready whenever he got ready to eat. They were happy
together till she died.
"But when she died, he killed hisself courtin'. He was a young
preacher. He died of pneumonia. He was visiting his daughter and got
exposed to the weather and didn't take care of hisself.
"Right after the War, I was hired as a half-a-hand. After that I got
larger and was hired as a whole hand, me and the oldest girl. I worked
on one farm and then another for years. I married the first time when
I was fifteen years old. That was almost right after slave time. Four
couples of us were married at the same time. They lived close to me. I
didn't want my husband to git in the bed with me when I married the
first time. I didn't have no sense. I was a Christian girl.
"Frank Sampson was his name. It rained the day we married. I got my
feet wet. My husband brought me home and then he turned 'round and
went back to where the wedding was. They had a reception, and they
danced and had a good time. Sampson could dance, too, but I didn't. A
little before day, he come back and said to me--I was layin' in the
middle of the bed--'Git over.' I called to mother and told her he
wanted to git in the bed with me. She said, 'Well, let him git in.
He's yo'r husband now.'
"Frank Sampson and me lived together about twenty years before he got
killed, and then I married Andrew Jackson. He had children and
grandchildren. I don't know what was the matter with old man Jackson.
He was head deacon of the church. We only stayed together a year or
more.
"I have been single ever since 1923, jus' bumming 'round white folks
and tryin' to work for them and makin' them give me somethin' to eat.
I ain't been tryin' to fin' no man. When I can't fin' no cookin' and
washin' and ironin' to do, I used to farm. I can't farm now, and
'course I can't git no work to do to amount to nothin'. They say I'm
too old to work.
"The Welfare helps me. Don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for them. I
git some commodities too, but I don't git any wood. Some people says
they pay house rent, but they never paid none of mine. I had to go to
Marianna and git my application straight before I could git any help.
They charged me half a dollar to fix out the application. The Welfare
wanted to know how I got the money to pay for the application if I
didn't have money to live on. I had to git it, and I had to git the
money to go to Marianna, too. If I hadn't, I never would have got no
help.
Husband's Death
"I told you my first husband got killed. The mule run away with his
plow and throwed him a summerset. His head was where his heels should
have been, he said, and the mule dragged him. His chest was crushed,
and mashed. His face was cut and dirtied. He lived nine days and a
half after he was hurt and couldn't eat one grain of rice. I never
left his bedside 'cept to cook a little broth for him. That's all he
would eat--just a little broth.
"He said to his friend, 'See this little woman of mine? I hate to
leave her. She's just such a good little woman. She ain't got no
business in this world without a husband.'
"And his friend said to him, 'Well, you might as well make up your
mind you got to leave her, 'cause you goin' to do it.'
"He got hurt on Thursday and I couldn't git a doctor till Friday. Dr.
Harper, the plantation doctor, had got his house burned and his hands
hurt. So he couldn't come out to help us. Finally Dr. Hodges come. He
come from Sunnyside, Mississippi, and he charge me fourteen dollars.
He just made two trips and he didn't do nothin'.
"Bowls and pitchers were in style then. And I always kept a pitcher of
clean water in the house. I looked up and there was a bunch of men
comin' in the house. It was near dark then. They brought Sampson in
and carried him to the bed and put him down. I said, 'What's the
matter with Frank?' And they said, 'The mule drug him.' And they put
him on the bed and went on out. I dipped a handkerchief in the water
and wet it and put it in his mouth and took out great gobs of dust
where the mule had drug him in the dirt. They didn't nobody help me
with him then; I was there alone with him.
"I started to go for the doctor but he called me back and said it
wasn't no use for me to go. Couldn't git the doctor then, and if I
could, he'd charge too much and wouldn't be able to help him none
nohow. So we wasn't able to git the doctor till the next day, and then
it wasn't the plantation doctor. We had planted fifteen acres in
cotton, and we had ordered five hundred pounds of meat for our winter
supply and laid it up. But Frank never got to eat none of it. They
sent three or four hands over to git their meals with me, and they et
up all the meat and all the other supplies we had. I didn't want it.
It wasn't no use to me when Frank was gone. After they paid the
doctor's bill and took out for the supplies we was supposed to git,
they handed me thirty-three dollars and thirty-five cents. That was
all I got out of fifteen acres of cotton.
Ravelings
"I sew with rav'lin's. Here is some rav'lin's I use. I pull that out
of tobacco sacks, flour sacks, anything, when I don't have the money
to buy a spool of thread. I sew right on just as good with the
rav'lin's as if it was thread. Tobacco sacks make the best rav'lin's.
I got two bags full of tobacco sacks that I ain't unraveled yet. There
is a man down town who saves them for me. When a man pulls out a sack
he says, 'Save that sack for me, I got an old colored lady that makes
thread out of tobacco sacks.' These is what he has give me. (She
showed the interviewer a sack which had fully a gallon of little
tobacco sacks in it--ed.)
"They didn't use rav'lin's in slave time. They spun the thread. Then
they balled it. Then they twisted it, and then they sew with it. They
didn't use rav'lin's then, but they used them right after the War.
"My mama used to say, 'Come here, Lugenia.' She and me would work
together. She wanted me to reel for her. Ain't you never seen these
reels? They turn like a spinning-wheel, but it is made indifferent.
You turn till the thing pops, then you tie it; then it's ready to go
to the loom. It is in hanks after it leaves the reel and it is pretty,
too.
Present Condition
"I used to live in a four-room house. They charged me seven dollars
and a half a month for it. They fixed it all up and then they wanted
to charge ten dollars, and it wouldn't have been long before they went
up to fifteen. So I moved. This place ain't so much. I pays five
dollars and a half for it. When it rains, I have to go outside to keep
from gittin' too wet. But I cut down the weeds all around the place. I
planted some flowers in the front yard, and some vegetables in the
back. That all helps me out. When I go to git commodities, I walk to
the place. I can't stand the way these people act on the cars. Of
course, when I have a bundle, I have to use the car to come back. I
just put it on my head and walk down to the car line and git on. Lord,
my mother used to carry some bundles on her head."
Interviewer's Comment
According to the marriage license issued at the time of her last
marriage in 1922, Andrew Jackson was sixty years old, and sister
Jackson was fifty-two. But Andrew Jackson was eighty when sister
Jackson married him, she says. Who can blame him for saying sixty to
the clerk? Sister Jackson admits that she was six years old during the
War and states freely and accurately details of those times, but what
wife whose husband puts only sixty in writing would be willing to
write down more than fifty-two for herself?
Right now at more than seventy-nine, she is spry and jaunty and witty
and good humored. Her house is as clean as a pin, and her yard is the
same.
The McGuffy's Primer which she thinks is used now is a modernized
McGuffy printed in 1908. The book bought for her by her first husband
is an original McGuffy's Second Reader.
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Lula Jackson
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Israel Jackson
Informational
