"We come on the passenger train and paid our own way to Arkansas. It was
a wild and sickly country and has changed. Not like living in the same
country. I try to live like the white folks and Grandma raised me. I do
like they done. I think is the reason we have saved and have good a
living as we got. We do on as little as we can and save a little for the
rainy day."




Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Railroad Dockery
1103 Short 13th, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 81


"Railroad Dockery, that's my name. I belonged to John Dockery and we
lived at Lamertine, Arkansas where I was born. My mother's name was
Martha and I am one of quadruplets, three girls and one boy, that's me.
Red River, Ouachita, Mississippi and Railroad were our names. (Mrs. Mary
Browning, who is now ninety-eight years of age, told me that her father,
John Dockery, was the president of the Mississippi, Red River, Ouachita
Railroad, the first one to be surveyed in Arkansas, and that when the
directors heard of the quadruplets' birth, they wanted to name them
after the railroad, which was done--ed.)

"Yes ma'm, Red River and Ouachita died when they were tots and
Mississippi and Railroad were raised. Now that's what my mother said.
Mississippi died five or six years ago and I'm the onliest one left.