Wallace, Willie

The following data is extracted from Arkansas Slave Narratives.

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Willie Wallace 40th and Georgia Streets, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 80


"I was born in Green County, Alabama. Elihu Steele was my old master. Miss Julia was old missis. She was Elihu's wife. Her mother's name was Penny Hatter. Miss Penny give my mother to her daughter Julia.

"I was a twin and they choosed us for the cook and washer and ironer, but surrender come along 'fore we got big enough to do anything.

"My father was crippled and couldn't work in the field, and I remember he used to carry the children out to the field to be suckled.

"They had a right smart of slaves. My mother had twelve children and I'm the baby.

"I remember they'd make up a big pot of corn bread and pot-liquor and they'd say, 'Eat, chillun, eat.'

"I remember one time the white folks had some stock tied out, and I know my sister's little boy didn't know no better and he showed the Yankees where they was.

"I remember when they said the people was free, but our folks stayed right on there-I don't know how many years-'cause my mother thought a heap of her old missis, Penny.

"I went to school after freedom and learned how to read and write and figger. I worked in the field till I got disabled. I never did wash and iron and cook for the white folks.

"I was fifteen-somewhere in there-when I married and I'm the mother of twelve children.

"I have lived in Thomas, West Virginia; Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; Cumberland, Maryland; Milliken, Louisiana; and Birmingham, Alabama. I just lived in all them places following my children around.

"I fell through a trestle in Birmingham and injured myself comin' from church.

"I think the people is gettin' terrible now. You think they're gettin' better? I think they're gettin' wuss.

"I got a book here called 'Uncle Tom' and I hates to read it sometimes 'cause the people suffered so.

"I don't think old master had any overseers. Miss Julia wouldn't 'low any of her people to be beat."

Source: Arkansas Slave Narratives

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