"I was sixteen when I married and I had eleven chillun. All dead but
four.

"Yes'm, I been treated good all my life by white and black. All of em
loved me seemed like.

"I been livin' in Arkansas all my life. I never have worked in the
field. I always worked in the house. I always was a seamstress--made
pants for the men on the place.

"After I come here to Pine Bluff I worked for the white folks. Used to
cook and wash and iron. Done a lot of work. I _did_ that.

"I been blind 'leven years but I thank the Lord I been here that long.
Glory to Jesus! Oh, Lord have mercy! Glory, glory, glory to Jesus!"




Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Clay Reaves, (light mulatto, large man)
Palestine, Arkansas
Age: 80


"I will be eighty years old my next birthday. It will be July 6th.
Father was bought from Kentucky. I couldn't tell you about him. He
stayed on the Reaves place that year, the year of the surrender, and
left. He didn't live with mother ever again. I never did hear no reason.