Mary Myhand
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Sallie C. Miller
Person interviewed: Mary Myhand, Clarksville, Arkansas
Age: 85
"My mammie died when I was a little girl She had three children and our
white folks took us in their house and raised us. Two of us had fever
and would have died if they hadn't got us a good doctor. The doctor they
had first was a quack and we were getting worse until they called the
other doctor, then we commence to get well. I don't know how old I am.
Our birthdays was down in the mistress' Bible and when the old war come
up, the house was burned and lost everything but I know I am at least 83
or 84 years old. Our white folks was so good to us. They never whipped
us, and we eat what they eat and when they eat. I was born in White
County, Tennessee and moved to Missouri but the folks did not like it
there so we come to Benton County, Arkansas. One side of the road was
Benton County and the other side was Washington County but we always had
to go to Bentonville, the county seat, to tend to business. I was a
little tod of a girl when the war come up. One day word come that the
'Feds' were coming through and kill all of the old men and take all the
boys with them, so master took my brother and a grandson of his and
started South. I was so scared. I followed them about a half mile before
they found me and I begged so hard they took me with them. We went to
Texas and was there about one year when the Feds gave the women on our
place orders to leave their home. Said they owned it now. They had just
got to Texas where we was when the South surrendered and we all come
back home.
"We stayed with our white folks for about twenty years after the war.
They shore was good to me. I worked for them in the house but never
worked in the field. I came across the mountain to Clarksville with a
Methodist preacher and his family and married here. My husband worked in
a livery stable until he died, then I worked for the white folks until I
fell and hurt my knee and got too old. I draws my old age pension.
"I do not know about the young generation. I am old and crippled and
don't go out none."
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Griffin Myrax
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Bessie Myers
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