Jennie Ferrell
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Jennie Ferrell, West Memphis, Arkansas
Age: 65
"I was born in Yellowbush County, Mississippi close to Grenada.
Grandmother come from North Carolina. They wouldn't sell grandpa. He was
owned by Laston. They never met again. She brought two boys with her.
She was a Pernell. Her master brought her away and would have brought
her husband but they wouldn't sell. She said durin' her forty years in
slavery she never got a whoopin'. She was a field hand. After she come
to Mississippi they was so good to her they called her free. She was a
midwife. She doctored the rich white and colored. She rode horseback,
she said, far and near. In Grenada after freedom she walked. They called
her free her master was so good to her. I don't know how she learned to
be a midwife. Her master was Henry Pernell. He owned a small place
twelve miles from Grenada and another place in the Mississippi bottoms.
My folks become renters after freedom. I don't know if they rented from
him but I guess they did.
"The Ku Klux never bothered them that I ever heard them mention."
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Frank Fikes
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Mrs Lou Fergusson
