"We never had no doctor. My mother would go out in de woods and get herbs and if I had de stomach ache we would put a little bit of turpentine on a piece of sugar. If I had de headache we would put a piece of brown paper and vinegar or horse radish leaves on de head. In two or three hours us kids would be out playin’ and kickin’ up our heels. We would go out and get some goose grass and make a little bit of tea and pour it down for de stomach ache. We would get dis black root for constipation. We used a turnip and scraped it and would bind de foot when it was frost bit.
"I’se been married four times and had children by two wifes, had eight children altogether and all are girls but two. Ain’t but one living and dat is Ed McFadden what’s livin’ in Fredericktown, Mo. He works for Deguire at de lumber mill and has been workin’ dere for about 30 years. Most of my children died young, but three girls lived to get married. I’se married three times by a preacher and once by de squire.
"I steamboated six years on de Mississippi between St. Paul and New Orleans. I got $1 a day and board, and we sure would pack dem sacks and sing dem songs. De old mate would holler at us: ’Give me a song boys’. And den we would start out. It ’peared like de work went ahead easier when we was singin’. It would take us four weeks to make de rounds before we got back to St. Louis. We hauled potatoes, sheep, wheat, corn, cattle, horses, and cotton. There was 45 of us altogether. I never got hit but one time on de boat. De mate with knucks on hit at another feller for ’cause he was loafin’ and hit me and knocked me and my load in de river. I couldn’t swim but dey fished me back in de boat and rolled me over and over to run dat water out of me. I run on de ’Bald Eagle’ and de ’Spread Eagle’. My mamma got after me to quit and when I got hit she got uneasy about me, but I would hear dat whistle blowin’ my feet’d begin to itch and I could not help but go down to de old boat again. De old mate had my name ’doubled up’. It was Bob Rob.
"Den I went to wheelin’ iron ore at Sulphur Springs. All day long I worked with 16 men loading barges with wheel barrows. Every time you took a load it had 800 pounds, and I’se telling you all, dat’s some iron. This iron ore came from dat big hill down in Pilot Knob. We had straps over our shoulders and dey saved our hands and arms. It took about a day and a half to load a barge and we got paid by de ton. I did dat for about a year.