Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ellen Vaden
DeValls Bluff, Ark.
Age: 83


"I am 83 years old. My mother come from Georgia. She left all her kin.
Our owner was Dave and Luiza Johnson. They had two girls and a
boy--Meely, Colly and Tobe. My mother's aunt come to Memphis in slavery
time and come to see us. She cooked and bought herself free. The folks
what owned her hired her out till they got paid her worth. She died in
Memphis. I never heard father say where he come from or who owned him.
He lived close by somewhere.

"My mother cooked. Me and Dave Johnson's boy nursed together. When they
had company, Miss Luiza was so modest she wouldn't let Tobe have
'titty'. He would come lead my mother behind the door and pull at her
till she would take him and let him nurse. She said he would lead her
behind the door.

"I don't remember freedom. I know the Ku Klux was bad around Augusta,
Arkansas. One time when I was little a crowd of Ku Klux come at about
dusk. They told Dave Johnson they wanted water. He told them there was a
well full but not bother that woman and her children in the kitchen.
Dave Johnson was a Ku Klux himself. They went on down the road and met a
colored woman. She knowed their horses. She called some of them by name
and they let her alone.