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Charlie Vaden's father ran away and went to the war to fight. He was a slave and left his owner. His mother died when he was five years old but before she died she gave Charlie to Mrs. Frances Owens (white lady). She came to Des Arc and ran the City Hotel. He never saw his father till he was grown. He worked for Mrs. Owens. He never did run with colored folks then. He nursed her grandchildren, Guy and Ira Brown. When he was grown he bought a farm at Green Grove. It consisted of a house and forty-seven acres of land. He farmed two years. A fortune teller came along and told him he was going to marry but he better be careful that they wouldn't live together or he might "drop out." He went ahead and married like he was "fixing" to do. They just couldn't get along, so they got divorced.

They had the wedding at her house and preacher Isarel Thomas (colored) married them and they went on to his house. He don't remember how she was dressed except in white and he had a "new outfit too."

Next he married Lorine Rogers at the Green Grove Church and took her home. She fell off the porch with a tub of clothes and died from it just about a year after they married.

He married again at the church and lived with her twenty years. They had four girls and four boys. She died from the change of life.

The last wife he didn't live with either. She is still living.

Had another fortune teller tell his fortune. She said, "Uncle, you are pretty good but be careful or you'll be walking around begging for victuals." He said it had nearly come to that now except it hurt him to walk. (He can hardly walk.) He believes some of what the fortune tellers tell comes true. He has been on the same farm since 1887, which is forty-nine years, and did fine till four years ago. He can't work, couldn't pay taxes, and has lost his land.

He was paralized five months, helpless as a baby, couldn't dress himself. An herb doctor settled at Green Grove and used herbs for tea and poultices and cured him. The doctors and the law run him out of there. His name was Hopkins from Popular Bluff, Missouri.

Charlie Vaden used to have rheumatism and he carried a buckeye in each pants pocket to make the rheumatism lighter. He thought it did some good.

He has a birthmark. Said his mother must have craved pig tails. He never had enough pig tails to eat in his life. The butchers give them to him when he comes to Hazen or Des Arc. He said he would "fight a circle saw for a pig tail."

He can't remember any old songs or old tales. In fact he was too small when his mother died (five years old).

He believes in herb medicine of all kinds but can't remember except garlic poultice is good for neuralgia. Sassafras is a good tea, a good blood purifier in the spring of the year.

He knows a weather sign that seldom or never falls. "Thunder in the morning, rain before noon." "Seldom rains at night in July in Arkansas."

He has seen lots of lucky things but doesn't remember them. "It's bad luck to carry hoes and rakes in the living house." "It's bad luck to spy the new moon through bushes or trees."

He doesn't believe in witches, but he believes in spirits that direct your course as long as you are good and do right. He goes to church all the time if they have preaching. Green Grove is a Baptist church. He is not afraid of dead people. "They can't hurt you if they are dead."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ellen Vaden
     DeValls Bluff, Ark.
Age: 83

" I am 83 years old. My mother come from Georgia. She left all her kin. Our owner was Dave and Luiza Johnson. They had two girls and a boy--Meely, Colly and Tobe. My mother's aunt come to Memphis in slavery time and come to see us. She cooked and bought herself free. The folks what owned her hired her out till they got paid her worth. She died in Memphis. I never heard father say where he come from or who owned him. He lived close by somewhere.

"I don't remember freedom. I know the Ku Klux was bad around Augusta, Arkansas. One time when I was little a crowd of Ku Klux come at about dusk. They told Dave Johnson they wanted water. He told them there was a well full but not bother that woman and her children in the kitchen. Dave Johnson was a Ku Klux himself. They went on down the road and met a colored woman. She knowed their horses. She called some of them by name and they let her alone.

"One time a colored man was settin' by the fire. His wife was sick in bed. He seen the Ku Klux coming and said 'Lord God, here comes the devil.' He run off. They didn't bother her. She told them she was sick. When she got up and well she wouldn't live with that husband no more.

"Up at Bowens Ridge they took some colored men out one night and if they said they was Republicans they let them go but if they said they was Democrats they whooped them so hard they nearly killed some of them. Some said they was bushwhackers or carpet baggers and not Ku Klux.

"I am a country-raised woman. I had a light stroke and cain't work in the field. I get $8.00 and commodities. I like to live here very well. I don't meddle with young folks business. Seems like they do mighty foolish things to me. Times been changing ever since I come in this world. It is the people cause the times to change. I wouldn't know how to start to vote."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Nettie Van Buren, Clarendon, Arkansas
      Ex school-teacher
Age: 62

"My mother was named Isabel Porter Smith. She come from Springville. Rev. Porter brought her to Mississippi close to Holly Springs. Then she come to Batesville, Arkansas. He owned her. He was a circuit rider. I think he was a Presbyterian minister. I heard her say they brought her to Arkansas when she was a small girl. She nursed and cooked all the time. After freedom she went with Reverend Porter's relatives to work for them. I know so very little about what she said about slavery.

"My father was raised in North Carolina. His name was Jerry Smith and his master he called Judge Smith. My father made all he ever had farmin'. He knew how to raise cotton. He owned a home. This is his home (a nice home on River Street in Clarendon) and 80 acres. He sold this farm two miles from here after he had paralysis, to live on.

"My parents had two girls and two boys. They all dead but me. My mother's favorite song was "Oh How I Love Jesus Because He First Loved Me." They come here because my mother had a brother down here and she heard it was such fine farmin' land.

"When I was a little girl my father was a Presbyterian so he sent me to boardin' school in Cotton Plant and then sent me to Jacksonville, Illinois. I worked my board out up there. Mrs. Dr. Carroll got me a place to work. My sister learned to sew. She sewed for the public till her death. She sewed for both black and white folks. I stretches curtains now if I can get any to stretch and I irons. It give me rheumatism to wash. I used to wash and iron.

"My husband cooks on a Government derrick boat. He gets $1.25 and his board. They have the very best things to eat. He likes the work if he can stay well. He can cook pies and fancy cookin'. They like that. Say they can't hardly get somebody work long because they want to be in town every night.

"We have one child. I used to be a primary teacher here at Clarendon.

"I never have voted. My husband votes but I don't know what he thinks about it.

"I try to look at the present conditions in an encouraging way. The young people are so extravagant. The old folks in need. The thing most discouraging is the strangers come in and get jobs home folks could do and need and they can't get jobs and got no money to leave on nor no place to go. People that