Nellie Maxwell
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Nellie Maxwell, Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 63
"Mama was Harriett Baldwin. She was born in Virginia. Her owners was
Mistress Mollie Fisher and Master Coon Fisher. It was so cold one winter
that they burned up their furniture keeping a fire. Said seemed like
they would freeze in spite of what all they could do.
"Grandpa was sold away from grandma and three children. He didn't want
to be sold nary bit. When they would be talking about selling him he go
hide under the house. They go on off. He'd come out. When he was sold he
went under there. He come out and went on off when they found him and
told him he was sold to this man. Grandma said he was obedient. They
never hit him. He was her best husband. They never sold grandma and she
couldn't 'count for him being let go. Grandma had another husband after
freedom and two more children. They left there in a crowd and all come
to Arkansas. Grandma was a cook for the field hands. She had charge of
ringing a big dinner-bell hung up in a tree. She was black as charcoal.
Mama and grandma said Master Coon and old Mistress Mollie was good to
them. That the reason grandpa would go under the house. He didn't want
to be sold. He never was seen no more by them.
"Grandma said sometimes the meals was carried to the fields and they fed
the children out of troughs. They took all the children to the spring
set them in a row. They had a tubful of water and they washed them dried
them and put on their clean clothes. They used homemade lye soap and
greased them with tallow and mutton suet. That made them shine. They
kept them greased so their knees and knuckles would ruff up and bleed.
"Grandma and mama stopped at Fourche Dam. They was so glad to be free
and go about. Then it scared them to hear talk of being sold. It divided
them and some owners was mean.
"In my time if I done wrong most any grown person whoop me. Then mama
find it out, she give me another one. I got a double whooping.
"Times is powerful bad to raise up a family. Drinking and gambling, and
it takes too much to feed a family now. Times is so much harder that way
then when I was growing."
Next:
Ann May
Previous:
Malindy Maxwell
