"I didn't work in no field much. I washed and ironed and cleaned up the
house for the white folks. Yes ma'am!
"No ma'am, I ain't never been married in my life. I been ba'chin'. I get
along so fine and nice without marryin'. I never did care anything 'bout
that. I treat the women nice--speak to 'em, but just let 'em pass on by.
"I never went to school in my life. Never learned to read or write. If I
had went to school, maybe I'd know more than I know now.
"These young folks comin' on is pretty rough. I don't have nothin' to do
with 'em--they is too rough for me. They is a heap wuss than they was in
my day--some of 'em.
"I gets along pretty well. The Welfare gives me eight dollars a month."
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: James Bertrand
1501 Maple Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 68
[HW: "Pateroles" Botlund Father]
"I have heard my father tell about slavery and about the Ku Klux Klan
bunch and about the paterole bunch and things like that. I am
sixty-eight years old now. Sixty-eight years old! That would be about
five years after the War that I was born. That would be about 1870,
wouldn't it? I was born in Jefferson County, Arkansas, near Pine Bluff.
"My father's name was Mack Bertrand. My mother's name was Lucretia. Her
name before she married was Jackson. My father's owners were named
Bertrands.
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