Whitmore, Sarah

The following data is extracted from Arkansas Slave Narratives.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Sarah Whitmore, Clarendon, Arkansas Age: 100


Note: The interviewer found this ex-slave in small quarters. The bed, the room and the Negro were filthy. A fire burned in an ironing bucket, mostly papers and trash for fuel. During the visit of the interviewer a white girl brought a tray with a measuring cup of coffee and two slices of bread with butter and fruit spread between. When asked where she got her dinner she said "The best way I can" meaning somebody might bring it to her. Her hands are too stiff and shaky to cook. Her eye sight is so bad she cannot clean her room. Two WPA county visitors, girls, bathe her at intervals.

"I was born between Jackson and Brandon. Sure I was born down in Mississippi. My mother's name they tole me was Rosie. She died when I was a baby. My father named Richard Chamber. They called him Dick. He was killed direckly after the war by a white man. He was a Rebel scout. The man named Hodge. I seed him. He shot my father. Them questions been called over to me so much I most forgot 'em. Well some jes' lack 'em. My father's master was Hal Chambers and his wife Virginia. Recken I do 'member the Ku Klux. They scared me to death. I go under the bed every time when I see them about. Then was when my father was killed. He went off with a crowd of white men. They said they was Rebel scouts. All I know I never seed him no more since that evening. They killed him across the line, not far from Mississippi. Chambers had two or three farms. I was on the village farm. I had one brother. Chambers sent him to the salt works and I never seed him no more. I was a orphant.

"Chambers make you work. I worked in the field. I come wid a crowd to Helena. I come on a boat. I been a midwife to black and white. I used to cook some. I am master hand at ironin'. I have no children as I knows of. I never born none. I help raise some. I come on a fine big steamboat wid a crowd of people. I married in Arkansas. My husband died ten or twelve years ago. I forgot which years it was. I been livin' in this bery house seben years.

"The Government give me $10 a month. I would wash dishes but I can't see 'bout gettin' 'round no more.

"Don't ax me 'bout the young niggers. They too fast fo me. If I see 'em they talkin' a passel of foolish talk. Whut I knows is times is hard wid me shows you born.

"You come back to see me. If you don't I wanter meet you all in heaben. By, by, by."

Source: Arkansas Slave Narratives

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