Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Diane Alexander
Location: Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 74
Occupation: Worked in field, Washed, Ironed
“I was born in Mississippi close to Bihalia. Our owner was Myers(?) Bogan. He had a wife and children. Mama was a field woman. Her name was Sarah Bogan and papa’s name was Hubberd Bogan.
“I heard them talk about setting the pot at the doors and having singing and prayer services. They all sung and prayed around the room. I forgot all the things they talked about. My parents lived on the same place after freedom a long time. They said he was good to them.
“Dr. Bogan in Forrest City, Arkansas always said I was his brother’s child. He was dead years ago, so I didn’t have no other way of knowing.
“The only thing I can recollect about the War was once my mistress took me and her own little girl upstairs in a kind of ceiling room (attic). They had their ham meat and jewelry locked up in there and other fine stuff. She told us to sit down and not move, not even grunt. Me and Fannie had to be locked up so long. It was dark. We both went to sleep but we was afraid to stir. The Yankees come then but I didn’t get to see them. I didn’t want to be took away by ’em. I was big enough to know that. I heard ’em say we was near ’bout eat out at the closing of the War. I thought it muster been the Yankees from what they was talking about, eating us out.
“I been washing and ironing and still doing it. All my life I been doing that ‘ceptin’ when I worked in the field.
“Me and my daughter is paying on this house (a good house). I been making my own living—hard or easy. I don’t get no relief aid. Never have. I ‘plied for the old people’s pension. Don’t get it.”
Interviewer’s Comment
This must be Myers Bogan, yet she told me Bogan Myers. Later she said Dr. Bogan of Forrest City was thus and so.