SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

Interviewer Samuel S» Taylor
Person interviewed Martha Ruff in
1310 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Agg 80
"I was born in North Carolina, and I was seven years old when the
Surrender was* Every one of my children can tell you when they was born,
but I can't* My mother, Quinettie Farmer was her name0 Brother Robert
Farmer is my cousin* He is about the same age as my husband* He got
married one week and ma and my husband the next* My father's name was
V
jjalentine Farmer * My grandmother on my mother's side was Mandy Harrison*
and my grandfather's name on my mother's side was Jordan Harrison* My
grandpa on my father's side was named Reuben Farmer, and his wife was Nancy
Farmer9 I have seed my grandpa and grandma on my father's side* But my
mother didn't see them on my mother's side*
"I 'members my daddy's white folks' names, Moses Farmer. My father
never was sold* My daddy, Valentine Farmer, was a ditcher, shoemaker, and
sometimes a farmer* My mother was a house girl* She washed and ironed* I
couldn't tell exactly what my grandparents did* My grandparents, so my
parents told me, were mostly farmers* I reckon Moses Farmer owned about
three hundred slaves*
"I was born on Robert Bynum's place. He was my mother's owner* He
sarrt-jd one of the Harrison girls and my mother fell to that girl* My
mother done just about as she pleased* She didn't know nothin' about workin'
k ::.j field till after the Surrender*
"The way my mother and father happened to meet—my old master hired my
teddy tc do some work for him and he met my mama that way*
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