Barraque, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 73
"'Little baby's gone to heaven
To try on his robe
Oh, Lord, I'm most done toiling here
Little baby, m-m-m-m-m-m.'
"Oh, it was so mournful. And let me tell you what they'd do. They'd all
march one behind the other and somebody would carry the baby's casket on
their shoulder and sing that song. That's the first song I remember. I
was three years old and now I'm seventy-three and crippled up with
rheumatism.
"My mother had a garden and they went 'round that way to the graveyard
and I thought they was buryin' it in the garden. That was in Georgia.
"In the old days when people died they used to sit up and pray all
night, but they don't do that now.
"I was married young. I don't love to tell how old but I was fifteen and
when I was seventeen I was a widow. I tried and tried to get another
husband as good as my first one but I couldn't. I didn't marry then till
I was thirty some.
"My parents brought me from Georgia when I was five years old and now I
ain't got no blood kin in Pine Bluff.
"Do I believe in signs? Well, let me tell you what I do know. Before my
house burned in 1937, I was sittin' on my porch, and my mother and
sister come up to my house.
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