been nowheres else to live.

"When I came here, there was only three houses--George Winstead lived on
Chester and Eighth Street; Dave Davis lived on Ninth and Ringo; and
George Gray lived on Chester and Eighth. Rena Lee lived next to where
old man Paterson stays now, 906 Chester. Rena Thompson lived on Chester
and Tenth. The old people that used to live here is mostly dead or moved
up North.

"On Seventh and Ringo there was a little store. It was the only store
this side of Main Street. There was a little old house where Coffin's
Drug Store is now. The branch ran across there. Old man John Peyton had
a nursery in a little log house. You couldn't see it for the trees. He
kept a nursery for flowers. On the next corner, old man Sinclair lived.
That is the southeast corner of Ninth and Broadway. Next to him was the
Hall of the Sons of Ham.

"That was the first place I went to school. Lottie Stephens, Robert
Lacy, and Gus Richmond were the teacher. Hollins was the principal. That
was in the Sons of Ham's Hall.

"I was born in Dallas County, Arkansas. It must have been 'long 'bout in
eighty-fifty-nine, 'cause I was sixteen years old when I come here and I
been here sixty-three years.

"During the War, I was quite small. My mother brought me here after the
War and I went to school for a while. Mother had a large family. So I
never got to go to school but three months at a time and only got one
dollar and twenty-five cents a week wages when I was working. My father
drove a wagon and hoed cotton. Mother kept house. She had--lemme