Abbie Lindsay
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Abbie Lindsay
914 W. Tenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 84
[HW: cf. Will Glass' story, No. ----?]
"I was born June 1, 1856; the place at that time was called Lynngrove,
Louisiana. It was just about a mile from the post office, and was in
Morehouse Parish in the first ward--in the tenth ward I mean.
Relatives
"My father was named Alec Summerville. He named himself after the
Civil War. They were going around letting the people choose their
names. He had belonged to Alec Watts; but when they allowed him to
select his own name after the war, he called himself Summerville after
the town Summerville (Somerville), Alabama. His mother was named
Charlotte Dantzler. She was born in North Carolina. John Haynes bought
her and brought her to Arkansas. My father was an overseer's child.
You know they whipped people in those days and forced them. That is
why he didn't go by the name of Watts after he got free and could
select his own name.
"The name of my mother's mother was Celia Watts. I don't know my
grandfather's first name. Old man Alec Watts' father gave my mother to
him. I didn't know anything about that except what was told to me.
They bought her from South Carolina. They came to Louisiana. My father
was bought in South Carolina too. After the Haynes met the Watts,
Watts married old man Haynes' daughter. He gave my father to his
daughter, Mary Watts. She was Mary Watts after she was married. She
was Mary Haynes before. Watts' father gave my mother to Alec Watts.
That is just the way it was.
"My mother and father had three children to live. I think there were
about thirteen in all. There are just two of us living now. I couldn't
tell you where Jeffrey Summerville, my living brother, is living now.
Slave Houses
"The slaves lived in hewed-log houses. I have often seen hewed-log
houses. Have you ever seen one? You cut big logs and split them open
with a maul and a wedge. Then you take a pole ax and hack it on both
sides. Then you notch it--cut it into a sort of tongue and groove
joint in each end. Before you cut the notches in the end, you take a
broad ax and hew it on both sides. The notch holds the corners of the
house-ties every corner. You put the rafters up just like you do now.
Then you lathe the rafters and then put boards on top of the rafters.
Sometimes shingles were used on the rafters instead of boards.
"You would finish off the outside of the walls by making clay cakes
out of mud and filling up the cracks with them. When that clay got
hard, nothing could go through the walls. Sometimes thin boards were
nailed on the inside to finish the interior.
Furniture and Food
"They had planks--homemade wooden beds. They made tables and chairs.
They caned the chairs. They made the tables with four legs. You made
it just like you would make a box, adding the legs.
"A little house called the smokehouse was built in one of the corners
of the yard. They would weigh out to each one so much food for the
week's supply--mostly meat and meal, sometimes rice. They'd give you
parched meal and rye too.
"Sometimes they had the slaves cook their food in the cabins. Mostly
all the time. My people ate in the kitchen because my mother was the
cook and my father was the yard man. The others mostly cooked at
home--in their cabins.
Work
"My mother and father worked around the house and yard. Slaves in the
field had to pick a certain amount of cotton. The man had to pick from
two to three hundred pounds of cotton a day if he wasn't sick, and the
woman had to pick about one hundred fifty. Of course some of them
could pick more. They worked in a way of speaking from can till can't,
from the time they could see until the time they couldn't. They do
about the same thing now.
Recreation
"I remember the time the white folks used to make the slaves all come
around in the yard and sing every Sunday evening. I can't remember any
of the songs straight through. I can just remember them in spots.
'Give me Jesus, you can have all the world
In the morning when I arise, Give me Jesus.'
(Fragment)
* * * * *
'Lie on him if you sing right
Lie on him if you pray right
God knows that your heart is not right
Come, let us go to heaven anyhow.'
(Fragment)
* * * * *
'The ark was seen at rest upon the hill
On the hills of Calvary
And Great Jehovah spoke
Sanctify to God upon the hill.'
(First verse)
* * * * *
'Peter spied the promised land
On the hill of Calvary
And Great Jehovah spoke
Sanctify to God upon the hill.'
(Second verse)
There was lots more that they sung.
"They could go to parties too, but when they went to them or to
anything else, they had to have a pass. When they went to a party the
most they did was to play the fiddle and dance. They had corn huskings
every Friday night, and they ground the meal every Saturday. The corn
husking was the same as fun. They didn't serve anything on the place
where I was. I never knew them to serve anything at the corn shuckings
or at the parties. Sometimes they would give a picnic, and they would
kill a hog for that.
Life Since Freedom
"Right after the war, my father hired me out to nurse. Then I stayed
around the house and helped my stepmother, and the white girls taught
me a little until I got to be thirteen years old. Then I got three
months' schooling in a regular school. I came here in 1915. I had been
living in Newport before that. Yes, I been married, and that's all you
need to know about that. I got two children: one fifty-three years
old, and the other sixty.
Opinions
"I don't have much thinking to do about the young people. It's a lost
race without a change."
Interviewer's Comment
"Mother" Lindsay is a Bible-reading, neat and clean-appearing,
pleasant-mannered business woman, a little bulky, but carrying herself
like a woman thirty years. She runs a cafe on Ninth Street and manages
her own business competently. She refers to it as "Hole in the Wall."
I had been trying for sometime to catch her away from her home. It was
almost impossible for me to get a story from her at her restaurant or
at her home.
She doesn't like to sit long at a time and doesn't like to tell too
much. When she feels quarters are a little close and that she is
telling more than she wants to, she says, "Honey, I ain't got no more
time to talk to you; I got to get back to the cafe and get me a cup of
coffee."
Will Glass, who has a story of his own, collaborated with her on her
story. He has an accurate and detailed memory of many things. He is
too young to have any personal memories. But he remembers everything
he has been told by his grandparents and parents, and they seem to
have talked freely to him unlike the usual parents of that period.
Next:
Rosa Lindsey
Previous:
Talitha Lewis
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