Mamie Thompson
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Mamie Thompson
Brinkley, Ark.
Age: 68
"I come here with my parents in 1887. Nothing much here in Brinkley then
but woods and three stores. My mother was a mix-breed. She was mixed
with Cherokee Indian and Negro. My father come from Virginia. He was
black--so black he shined. My mother was born in Cairo, Illinois. My
mother and father both died here in Brinkley. This town started from a
big saw mill."
"Understand, all I knows was told to me by my parents. Grandma's master
was Master Redman. He kept Aunt Emma and my mother. They never was sold.
My mother was put on the block but her mistress come took her down.
Master Redman had her in the field working. The overseer was a white
man. He tried to take her down and carry on with her. She led him to the
house. He wanted her whooped cause she had whooped him sort of. He
was mad cause he couldn't overpower her. Master Redman got her in the
kitchen to whoop her with a cow hide; she told him she would kill him;
she got a stick. He let her out and they come to buy her--a Negro
trader. Old Mistress--his wife--went out and led her down from there
in the house and told Master Redman if he sold Mattie she would quit
him--she meant leave him. Mistress Redman kept her with her and made a
house girl out of her. She tended to the children and cleaned the house.
Aunt Emma milked and churned.
"Grandma was a Molly Glaspy woman. She had straight wavy hair, small
eyes. She was a small woman. Grandpa was a tall big man. He was a full
blood Indian.
"My mother called whiskey 'jagger'--I don't know why.
"After Mr. Redman died, Miss Mary married Mr. Badgett. Me and George and
Sissy all growed up together. My mother was married twice too. She had
two of us by her first husband and eight children by her last husband.
"I heard them say they lived in Crittenden County, Arkansas during the
Civil War. They lived in west Tennessee not far from Memphis when I was
a child. Mrs. Badgett lived in Memphis after she got old. Mary's mother
visited her long as she lived. I did too. She has been dead several
years. She give me a sugar bowl when I was twelve years old--I still got
it. I won't sell it. I'll give it to my girl.
"I don't know about the Ku Klux. I never heard a great deal about them.
"I don't vote--not interested.
"Well, I sewed till the very day I was 65 years old. The foreman said I
was too old now, but sign up for the pension. I am crippled. I did. I
get commodities, but no money.
"I washed, ironed, cooked. I worked at Mrs. Jim Gunn's and I cooked nine
years for Mrs. Dora Gregg. I work whenever I can get work to be done. I
like to sew but they cut me off."
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Mike Thompson
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Hattie Thompson
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