Lydia Jones
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Lydia Jones
228 North Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 93
"My name's Lydia--Lydia Jones. Oh my God I'se born in Mississippi. I
wish you'd hush--I know all about slavery.
"I never had but one master. That was old John Patterson. No he want
good to me. I wish you'd hush! I had two young masters--Marse John and
Marse Edward. Marse John go off to war and say he gwine whip them
Yankees with his pocket knife, but he didn't do it. They said the
war was to keep the colored folks slaves. I tell you I've heard them
bull whips a ringin' from sun to sun.
"After the war when they told us we is free, they said to hire
ourselves out. They didn't give us a nickel when we left.
"I heered talk of the Ku Klux and they come close enough for us to be
skeered but I never seen none of 'em. We never had no slave uprisin's
on our plantation--old John Patterson would a shot 'em down. I tell
you he was a rabid man.
"I used to pick cotton and chop cotton and help weave the cloth. My
old mistress--Miss Fannie--used to go to the woods and get things to
dye the cloth. She would dye some blue and some red.
"Only song I 'member is Dixie. I heered talk of some others but God
knows I never fooled with 'em.
"Yes'm I believes in hants. Let me tell you something. My mama seen my
daddy after he been dead a long time. He come right up through the
crack by the fireplace and he said 'Don't you be afraid Emmaline' but
she was agoin'. They had to sing and pray in the house 'fore my mama
would go back but she never seen him again.
"I'se been blind now for three years and I lives with my granddaughter
but lady, I'll tell you the truth--I been around. Yes, madam, I is."
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