Mary Mitchell
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Mary Mitchell, Hazen, Arkansas
Age: 60
"I was born in Trenton, Tennessee. My parents had five children. They
were named William and Charlotte Wells. My father ran away and left my
mother with all the children to raise. By birth mother was a
Mississippian. She had been a nurse and my father was a timber man and
farmer. My mother said she had her hardest time raising her little
children. She was taken from her parents when a small girl and put on a
block and sold. She never said if her owners was bad to her, but she
said they was rough on Uncle Peter. He would fight. She said they would
tie Uncle Peter and whoop him with a strap. From what she said there was
a gang of slaves on Mr. Wade's place. He owned her. I never heard her
mention freedom but she said they had a big farm bell on a tall post in
the back yard and they had a horn to blow. It was a whistle made of a
cow's horn.
"She said they was all afraid of the Ku Klux. They would ride across the
field and they could see that they was around, but they never come up
close to them."
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Bernice Wilburn
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Hettie Mitchell
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