Vergil Jones
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Vergil Jones,
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 70
"My parents was Jane Jones and Vergil Jones. Their owner was Colonel
Jones in Alabama. Papa went to the war and served four years. He got a
$30 a month Union pension long as he lived. He was in a number of
places. He fought as a field man. He had a long musket he brought home
from the war. He told us a heap of things long time ago. Seem lack
folks set down and talked wid their children more'n they do nowdays.
"Papa come to this State after the surrender. He married here. I am
the oldest of seven children. Mama was in this State before the war.
She was bought when she was a girl and brought here. I don't know if
Colonel Jones owned her or if papa had seen her somewhere else. He
come to her and they married. My mama was a house girl some and she
washed and ironed for Miss Fannie Lambert. They had a big family and a
big farm. Their farm was seven miles this side of Indian Bay, eight
miles to Clarendon. They had thirteen in family and mama had seven
children made nine in her family. She had a bed piled full of starched
clothes white as snow. Lamberts had three sets of twins. Our family
lived with the Lamberts 23 or 24 years. We started working for Mr. B.
J. Lambert and Miss Fannie (his wife). Mama nursed me and R. T. from
the same breast. We was raised up grown together and I worked for R.
T. till he died. We played with J. L. Black too till he was grown. He
was county judge and sheriff of this county (Monroe).
"Folks that helped me out is about all dead. I pick cotton but I can't
pick very much. Now I don't have no work till chopping cotton times
comes on. It is hard now. I would do jobs but I don't hear of no jobs
to be done. I asked around but didn't find a thing to do.
"I heard about the Ku Kluxes. My papa used to dodge the Ku Kluxes. He
lay out in the bushes from them. It was bad times. Some folks would
advise the black folks to do one way and then the Ku Kluxes come and
make it hot for them. One thing the Ku Kluxes didn't want much big
gatherings among the black folks. They break up big gatherings. Some
white folks tell them to do one thing and then some others tell them
to do some other way. That is the way it was. The Ku Kluxes was hot
headed. Papa wasn't a bad man but he was afraid they did do so much.
He was on the lookout and dodged them all the time.
"I haven't voted for a long time. I couldn't keep my taxes up.
"I don't own a home. I pay $4 rent for it. It is a cold house--not so
good. I have farmed all my life. I still farm. Times got so that
nobody would run you (credit you) and I come here to get jobs between
farming. I still farm. They hire mostly by the day--day labor. Them
two things and my dis'bility is making it mighty hard for me to live.
I work at any jobs I can get.
"I signed up for the Old Age Pension. They said I couldn't work, I was
too old. I wanted to work on the government work. I never got nothing.
I don't get no kind of help. I thought I didn't know how to get into
the Old Age Pension reason I didn't get it. It would help keep in wood
this wet weather when work is scarce."
Next:
Walter Jones
Previous:
Reuben Jones
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