This information given by: Betty Curlett
Place of Residence: Hazen, Arkansas
Occupation: Washwoman
Age: 67
[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of first page.]


"My mother said during the war and in slavery times they ate out of
wooden spoons and bowls they made." They cooked a washpot full of peas
for a meal or two and roasted potatoes around the pot in the ashes. They
always cooked hams and greens of all kinds in the big iron pots for
there were so many of them to eat and in slavery times the cook, cooked
for her family in with what she cooked for the Master. They made banks
of dirt, sand, leaves and plank and never washed the sweet potatoes till
they went to cook them. They had rows of banks in the garden or out
behind some of the houses, and had potatoes like that all winter and in
the spring to bed.

They saved the ashes and put them in a barrel and poured water over them
and saved the drip--lye--and made soap or corn hominy--made big pots of
soap and cooked pots full of lye hominy. They carried corn to the mill
and had it ground into meal and flour made like that too. The women
spun, wove, and knitted. The men would hunt between crop times. If the
slaves were caught stealing, the Patty Row would catch him and his
master whip him.

My Grandpas and Grandmas and Mamma's Master was John Moore. Mr. John
said before his daughter and wife should go to the washtub he would wade
blood saddle-skirt deep. He set out to war. Went to Vicksburg and was