"I have been a widow now for thirty years. I washed and ironed and
plowed and hoed--everything. Now I am gittin' so I ain't able to do
nothin' and the Relief keeps me alive. I worked and took care of myself
and my last husband and he died, and I ain't married since. I used to
take a little boy and make ten bales of cotton. I can't do it now. I
used to be a woman in my day. I am my mother's seventh child.

"I don't buy no hoodoo and I don't believe in none, but a seventh child
can more or less tell you things that are a long way off. If you want to
beat the devil you got to do right. God's got to be in the plan. I tries
to do right. I am not perfect but I do the best I can. I ain't got no
bottom teeth, but my top ones are good. I have a few bottom ones. The
Lawd's keepin' me here for somepin. I been with 'im now seventy-three
years."


Interviewer's Comment

I'll bet the grandest moment in the life of Sister Alexander's mother
was when her mistress said, "Agnes, will you follow me if I buy your
husband?" Fifteen hundred dollars to buy a rebellious slave in order to
unite a slave couple. It's epic.




Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ed Allen, Des Arc, Ark.
Age: ?