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MINNIE EVANS 4. 3-5-71
M.E. I started with my first little painting in '35. No my grandmother died in '35 [[crossed out]] no [[/crossed out// in 30, 1930 on a Good Friday, one Easter in the big living room. I was sitting down there. I had wrote my grocery order and after I [[crossed out]] had taken [[/crossed out]] tore that off then I had taken my pencil and went to making some funny things. I don't know why but just kept on making a lot of funny things and I made a page full and that Saturday when I went back there I got another page and went to painting some more funny things. Well I didn't bother those anymore until se [[?]] my grandmother died in '35 and two or three weeks after that I went to painting and writing a little more of those things. Well I didn't bother those things any more. I taken and folded them up and put them in a magazine (C.W. For how many years) carried them home and just didn't bother with them anymore. So what started me again when I went home I started [[?]] went to clean up, throwing away old books. I carried them out in my yard and set them afire to burn them up. So all of the [[crossed out]] old [[/crossed out]] books and old magazines everything burned up except that magazine with those three paintings in them (C.W. Oh!yes) when I pulled them together to make a bigger fire of them they fell out. I taken them out and said here's these paintings. These things I did I had forgotten them. They I carried them back over to the house and then the bug got me. (laughter) (C.W. yea right So then [[crossed out]] right [[/crossed out]] what did you... So then every since then I have been painting. Sometime I do two and three pictures a day. My husband tried to stop me and so did my mother.

C.W. Why did they try to stop you?

M.E. They figured I acted very peculiar. My husband thought I was going crazy and he begged me to stop.

C.W. What do [[written over]] you [[/written over]] they mean peculiar?

M.E. Laughter He didn't want me to paint [[crossed out]] What do you think. [[/crossed out]] He thought I was losing my mind. But those things got one me. No one knows,I had to paint.

C.W. Well why did [[crossed out]] you [[/crossed out]] he think you were losing your mind? What did you do? What was different about you?

M.E. I don't know just making those funny pictures.

C.W. Did you talk in a different way?Did you spend all of your time painting? Why did you think you were going crazy?

M.E. No, it just got a [[crossed out]] hold of [[/crossed out]] habit me and if I hadn't paint seemed like I would die (C.W. [[crossed out]] yes [[/crossed out]] really) That's right. And so I just had to go ahead and paint. I tried to stop because my mother and my husband wanted me to and I liked to died. So I just begged them to leave me off. Don't bother me and let me paint. 

C.W. You mean You said you liked to died. You mean you get very sad? You get very depressed when you stopped? When you tried to stop?

M.E. Yes they wanted me to stop

C.W. And did that make you feel bad? [[crossed out]] Yes, it made me feel bad. It [[/crossed out]]

M.E. Yes, it made me feel bad. It made me sick. Some days I have laid up there in home and not wanting to paint and get sick until death. Sick I just had to get up and get my paints and start to painting. Louie wanted me to go to church. Some sundays I wouldn't go. I said no