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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
H-0020, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
At age eighteen, Ethel Marshall Faucette began her official employment at the Glencoe Mill Town cotton mill making outing shirts. She remained for nearly 50 years at the same mill until its closing in 1954. As a young child, Faucette brought lunch to fellow village mill hands. While they ate lunch, she worked on the machines, learning various skills that would train her for future mill work. Her early practical education of mill tasks allowed Faucette to complete multiple jobs during her long-time employment at Glencoe Mill. Her father served as the mill's superintendent, and due in part to his managerial role in the mill, he instilled a strong work ethic in his eight children, and dismissed work-related gossip.
The social benefits and economic limitations of mill life from the late 1910s to mid 1950s are exposed in Faucette's account. She describes the twelve-hour shifts and physical layout of the mill. Faucette explains how the mill owner's acceptance of the new eight-hour work day labor law prevented the growth of organized union activity. Instead of painting a picture of discontent, she downplays the perils of working in a mill. Faucette remembers that workers rarely complained about loud noises or potential health hazards. In fact, they largely accommodated changing work tasks and found avenues for relaxation at the mill. Because Glencoe Mill relied on water to power the machine, the unpredictability of nature resulted in free time for mill workers. Not until the advent of electrical power did workers have to relinquish leisure time during the arid summer season. Faucette also portrays the cohesive nature of a mill village among blacks and whites. Although blacks were omitted from employment as mill hands, they forged a social bond as domestic workers. Faucette's family demonstrated how mill hands took care of their own when they adopted an orphaned child of a fellow mill worker. The social and religious socialization of mill workers is exemplified throughout the interview. Faucette hints, however, that the emergence of a heightened consumer culture and increased job mobility contributed to the loss of the mill village's social cohesion.
Ethel Marshall Faucette describes the working environment and social life of the Glencoe mill town in Burlington, North Carolina. Faucette worked at Glencoe Mill from 1915 to 1954 and she explains the changes to workers' lives over her decades of employment.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Your whole name.
Ethel Marshall Faucette. I was Marshall before I married.
When were you born.
I was born December the twentieth, 1897.
What was your mother and father's name.
My mother was Mary Elizabeth Marshall and my daddy, he just had initials, M. M. Marshall.
You don't know what they stood for.
Well, no I never did, because he was a twin and they named his sister
Alice and Granny wanted him named David and Grandpap wouldn't have it,
so they just called him their little man. And that's as much as he ever
had. And he just signed his name M. M. Marshall, that's the way he
signed. It went that-a-way as long as he lived.
Do you know about your grandparents?
No, I don't. I never see'd but one of my grandparents, and that was
Daddy's mother and she was Nancy Marshall. So I never did see my
grandpap, Eli Marshall. I knew his name of course
What did they do, the grandparents?
Grandparents? Well now, I don't know that. Granny Marshall never did anything when I know'd her—she was too old.
Did she ever talk about. . . .
No, she never did talk about what they did or none at all about it. So, I
don't know but my daddy was superintendent of
Well, how did your father and mother come here?
Now I don't know that. I don't know—the first—Daddy come from Randolph County. He was reared over there somewhere about Mount Zion Church—Mount Zion Baptist Church. His people all lived over there. And mother, the first I ever heard her say anything about coming to a cotton mill was to Carolina, down below here. She never did say much about that, she quilled and spinned. And that's all I know about her.
Do you know about when they were born?
Well, momma was born August the ninth but, I can't remember the year. But
I'll tell you, she was sixty nine when she died, and she's been dead
forty two years.
O.K. What about your father, do you know about him.
And daddy was seventy two when he died and he's been dead, thirty nine years.
Do you know how they met.
Nope, I don't know a thing about that. Never heard nobody say nothing about that, whenever I was growing up.
Yes'm. Well one of 'em was working here and one was working at the Carolina.
No, they both worked here. Whenever they married, why they worked here
and when I was real small, they moved from here
Who called it that?
The people up there.
From then, he bought a acre of ground up there back of the Baptist Church—well, there wasn't no church up there then. And, built the house in nineteen two—that's when we came back from Greensboro, back here. We lived in that house up there until they got the house built up there on that acre of ground that he had bought. `Course there was a little log house up there, but he had a big house.
And after he and mother died, I had two sisters and two brothers that
lived up there at the old home place. And the old home place burned
down. We never did learn how it caught `cause the chimney had burned
down whenever the firemens got here. So we never did learn how it burned
down, but we know'd it burned.
Well, when your father wanted to come back here and your mother didn't, why didn't she want to come back here?
Well, she just didn't like back here, she liked it in Burlington. Momma
was a great talker, she loved to talk.
Now mother and daddy, daddy said he had eight children of his own—and he took one little child and raised it—he said nine wouldn't be any more than eight.
You mean, your mother and father had eight children.
Yeah.
Where were you in all these eight.
Well, I was there. I was about the, let's see, there was three younger than I so. . . .
Do you know what their names were and how much older each one is than the other one.
Right around two year old.
Every one of 'em.
Right around two and some three, so, there was a crowd
That's the one that was over here and burned down.
Yeah. That's the one that was up there and burned down.
Well now, how was it that your father got started working in the mills, do you know?
I don't know.
But he became the superintendent here, you say.
Yeah, he was the superintendent of this mill forty years, when he died.
He worked his way up through the different jobs?
Yeah. He never went to school a day in his life.
What would be some of the different jobs that he would have had. What would they have been called, or how long would he have stayed at each one, do you know?
I couldn't tell you that. The first time I remember, he was sitting in the Glencoe Mill, so I don't remember nothing about what he did before that.
Now what about your mother, do you know how she began to work?
My mother never worked after she was married.
I see. So when you all came back here she didn't work here.
No, she didn't work here, nor she didn't work in Elmira and she didn't work at Greensboro. She never worked after she was married.
What would she do most every day.
Well, she done housework like any housewife.
What would some of the things be that she would have done?
Well, she cleaned the house, and washed and ironed, and different things. 'Course after mother had so many children, why daddy hired a white woman, first to stay with us.
Would it have been someone who lived around the area.
Yeah.
How old would the woman have been.
I couldn't tell you how old she was for I was little.
Would she seem like a young woman or an older woman.
No, she was a older like woman. He hired her as long as she was able, and after she just couldn't do much, we kept her. And then he hired a colored woman.
Did the woman, the first woman that he hired, did she live in the house with the family.
Yeah, she stayed with the family. We all called her Aunt Becky, every one of us.
She didn't have a family?
No, she didn't have no family—she had some people in Caswell County, but she didn't stay with them. She just stayed at, you know, in different ones, that needed her until she come to stay with us. And when she come to stay with us, she stayed with us.
About how long do you reckon that was, how many years?
Oh lord, I couldn't tell you that. It was a long, long time.
And what about the black woman, where did she live?
Oh, she lived back up in there—you know where the Green Acres
is?
How would she come and go.
Well she didn't go, she stayed there too all the time.
She stayed at the house.
Yes, she stayed there with us.
She slept in the house.
Yes. she had a room upstairs. And when daddy finished building we had ten rooms to that house.
That's a big house.
Yes it is. Two big hallways. We had plenty of room because when we got big enough to play and run through the house, he built him a room at the back—said he couldn't sleep of the night for us cutting up and playing. We didn't go to bed early like he did.
What time would he go to bed.
He'd go to bed about eight thirty—between eight thirty and nine
o'clock. Well, we didn't. So he built him a room at the back where he
could go to bed and shut it off and couldn't hear what we was doing.
What time did he get up?
Well, I think it was around five o'clock.
Would your mother get up and fix breakfast for him.
Yeah.
Would she get up before he would.
No, he always got up and built the fires. You know you cooked on a wood stove then. He'd get up and he'd build them fires and burned wood in the fireplace. We had a big old fireplace, I reckon it was as wide as that. Burned of course, if you put a stick of wood in.
And he would do that every morning.
Yeah, he'd get up and build it.
Would you leave any coals in the. . . .
Yeah, they'd always leave the coals in the fireplace and cover 'em up with ashes, and there'd be a fire there the next morning.
And then, what would be the next thing that would happen after he started the fire.
Well, she'd get up and fix his breakfast, and he'd go to work.
What kind of things would you have for breakfast.
Well, we had eggs and ham—we raised our own meat. We raised anywhere from four to five hogs. Had two cows, a horse.
Where would you keep those animals.
Keep them in the barn and in the sty there to the barn, to the pigs. We kept pigs there all the time.
Would it be just your family keeping animals in one spot.
Yes.
Did other people who lived in the village have . . .
Yeah, they had—now they all say hogs and chickens and cows and
things is diseased, has diseases, and people have 'em. But
Everybody had their own hogs.
Hogs, yes. And, when it got cold enough to kill hogs, maybe they'd kill hogs a month around here. Killed maybe six and eight a day, wasn't it Joe.
Oh yeah.
And what about cows.
And cows.
Did everybody have a cow?
About everybody.
Well, where would they keep them. They couldn't keep 'em on each little lot, could they?
They kept 'em in the barn, at the back of the house.
Everybody had a barn too?
Everybody had a barn that had a cow.
Is that right. You don't see any of these barns here anymore.
No, no. They made 'em tear 'em down and move 'em. So there ain't none of 'em around here now. But there used to be just plenty of 'em, up and down that branch, and back out here up down Edge Road they called it.
Was there any place they could put them out to pasture at all?
Yeah, they'd tie 'em out all around here. And all around the home, everywhere.
Did you have chickens?
Yeah, had chickens. You raised your own meat, you raised your own chickens, and you had eggs, and had milk and a horse to plow the garden, and to carry you to town.
And now, going back to fixing breakfast—you'd have eggs, and how would you fix the eggs.
Just fry 'em, fry 'em or boil 'em. Fix 'em different ways. We had ham all the time, we was hardly ever out of ham.
Would you have any bread, or anything?
Yeah, we had bread—plenty of bread. We didn't have no light
bread, only what you called home made light bread. My mammy could make
as good a light bread as you ever eaten.
Would you have any for breakfast ever?
Yeah.
What would you have for breakfast?
Biscuit.
And what kind of flour would you use?
Well, we generally used straight grade flour. And an old man called—Johnson his name was—he come around once a month and you bought a barrel of flour. You didn't buy just a little bit, you bought a barrel of flour.
And Mr. Johnson would sell the flour.
Yeah.
And was he a miller?
Yeah, he was a miller. And he'd bring flour around every month. You'd buy that flour, and it'd last you a month.
And your mother would make light bread out of this flour.
Yeah. Take yeast and make light bread. I used to could make it but I
ain't made no bread in so long 'till I don't no whether I could make a
biscuit or not.
Would you have anything like molasses or syrup or honey or anything.
Yeah, we had honey, we had syrup, we had molasses and had things just like they have now. Only didn't have light bread and no bakeries nor nothing like that. We had a great big ice box that held a block of ice and that's where you kept anything that you didn't want to spoil. But daddy always cured his meat—they'd stay in salt so many weeks—and then take it out, wash that salt off and put pepper on it and put it in the sack, hang it up. After it stayed in that salt for so long, it was cured. We never lost no meat.
What time of the year would you all kill your hogs?
In November.
Would everybody pretty much do it at the same time?
Well, they would just as fast as they could get to it.
Did you divide up the meat among several different families.
Well now, there'd be so many families help one another you know. When you'd kill hogs they'd come and help, with the meat and stuff.
That would take a whole day?
A whole day, and sometime two days. Just according to how many you had killed at once.
And how would you know when the time was right to kill it?
Well, you'd look at the almanac and find out. And they had a certain time to kill hogs and they killed then.
Which almanac do you reckon that was.
S. Bloom's.
Bloom's Almanac.
Old Red Back Almanac. That's been the almanac ever since I can remember
anything.
Do you all still get that one or use it at all?
Yeah, we still get it. You buy it in town at any of the hardware stores.
And it used to be ten cents, and now they're seventy five cents.
So you all didn't have to buy very much food then, at all, except the flour. And what else did you buy besides flour?
Sugar and coffee, and things like that.
How would that stuff come?
Well, we'd get it down here at the store.
At this store down the road.
Yes.
Would you buy it by the—what kind of packages would it come in?
Well you could get five pounds, you could get ten pounds or you could get fifty pounds.
Of sugar?
Sugar. You could get as much coffee as you want. And them that had to buy meat got the meat—fatback meat was five cents a pound.
When was this?
Oh, that was back when I was little.
Well now, would just your mother and father eat breakfast since you all stayed up so late, or would you all get up.
We'd get up in time to go to school, in winter time. But, didn't go to school but four months.
Which school did you go to?
Well, now we had school up yonder—you know where the flea market's at. Well that was the school house. And they just kept building better schools and bigger schools until they got this building. Then I don't know how come they decided to move the school up and out in the Haw—they moved 'em up there. And carry the children to school by bus. I never have liked that.
How did you go to school?
I walked to school.
Did you go by yourself or with some other children?
No, I had—let's see—I had five sisters and a brother in school when I was in school.
And all of you would go along together.
We all went together.
Did you take along any lunch with you?
Yes, if we wanted to. If we didn't we had a hour for lunch and we'd come home. `Cause we lived up yonder—the school house was right up the road there, so we didn't have to.
But you all didn't usually take lunch with you.
No, mother always had it done when we got back at dinner time—we had a hour and we could go and come.
What time of day would that have been?
About twelve, twelve thirty.
What would she fix for those meals.
Well, she'd fix beans and things like that. Potatoes.
Did you have more than one kind of beans, do you remember?
Yeah, sometimes we'd have two.
What were the names of some of those beans?
Pintos and snap beans, and corn. See daddy had fifty acres of land back up in the country and he had a colored man that raised a garden up there. He didn't farm, he just raised a garden. Well he raised beans and corn.
Do you remember the name of the corn?
Truckers Favorite. We have it now.
Same kind.
Yes.
And what else would he raise.
He raised watermelon, canteloupes.
Do you remember the names of any of those? Particular kind of watermelons?
No. We had the George Rattlesnakes.
I've seen that one—it's got stripes.
Yeah, and they're dark green and a white looking melon but I can't think
of the name of that. But I know we had two or three
What were some other things, would he raise tomatoes?
He'd raise tomatoes, and onions, and okra, and—we raised all kind of vegetables—and he canned 'em. We had to gather 'em, wash 'em, get 'em everything ready and packed in the can and he'd come home in the afternoon, he sealed 'em.
Would they be put in glass.
No.
In actual cans.
In tin cans. And he'd seal 'em, and then we'd cook 'em. Cook 'em so many hours. And then he'd fix—you know there's a little hole right on top of the can—he'd take a drop of sodder and put it on every one of them. Sometime we'd can as much as four and five hundred cans.
What would you do with all of them.
Well, eat them.
Just your family?
Gosh, it'd take a whole lot for a family of twelve.
Well, did other people can or is that unusual?
Yeah, everybody canned. And you saved everything you could for winter time. 'Cause you didn't make but four and five dollars a week.
Because you all were the superintendent's family, did you all have a little more money or a little better wages than most of the people who worked.
Well, daddy had a little better wages, but we didn't. We fared just like the rest of the help. It didn't make a bit of difference and I think he was stricter on us than he was the rest of the help. He made us do, and do right.
Who was that, your father.
Yeah. And when we come from that mill, we didn't set at the table and talk about what the other fellow done down there—if we did we got our mouth mashed. He didn't laugh, no sir.
He was pretty strict.
He says, you leave the mill out of your conversation, he says, leave it, there's enough to talk about you all. And he didn't allow us to say a word about it.
Well, what kind of things—what was he talking about?
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
What kind of things did he talk about?
Well, you know how people will talk in a place like that—anywhere where there's a crowd. He didn't allow us to talk about it. He said, now let the other fellow do that.
Well, when you all got off of work—you said about six o'clock, you worked from six to six—then would you have supper?
Yeah, we'd have supper.
Would that be right after you got off of work?
Yeah, mother always had our meals ready when we got home.
Would they be different than the other meals.
Yeah, most of the time.
How would that be?
Well, sometimes she would fry different things for a whole meal and then—just have different things.
Which was the biggest meal of the day, would you reckon?
Well, I imagine supper was the biggest because we was all there then, all of us. And at lunch time, I generally went home and got the others—when we was several of us at work—their lunch, and carried it back to them. And let them stay down there.
That's when you were working and not when you were going to school.
Yeah. When I wasn't in school.
Well, did you all have any dessert?
Oh yes, we had ice cream, we had cake and pie—all kind of dessert.
Did you make the ice cream yourself.
Yeah.
What kinds did you make?
Made every kind we wanted.
What was your favorite kind?
We generally made vanilla or chocolate, sometime we'd make peach. The fruits that we had, you know, at the different times, when the fruits were ripe and all.
You had an ice cream making machine.
Yeah, we had a ice cream freezer. You could buy the ice. There was ice men come around about three times a week and fill up the ice box. So we used it out of there.
Where would the ice man come from?
Burlington.
And would he come all times of the year.
Yeah, he'd come any time you wanted him to.
Did most everybody have an ice box?
Everybody had one. Everybody here, I don't know whether everybody had one
or not
In Glencoe.
Yes. And this place was a pretty place and they kept it fixed up and it was clean. You could see all over yonder. There wasn't no trees—nothing but these maple trees. All them other big trees, except that one yonder—them two down there at that old spring, they've been there every since I can remember.
Well what were some of the different kinds of cake that you had.
Oh, we had chocolate cake, we had banana cake, we had all kind of cakes that you could think of.
Did you have some made out of nuts?
Yeah.
Was your mother a good cook?
Ooh—my mother was a number one cook. And that colored girl that we had was a number one cook too. Or daddy wouldn't have kept her.
Did you learn how to cook some things from them?
Ooh—my momma learned every one of us to cook and sew and do housework. And you done it right, didn't you went back and done it over.
Did she write down any recipes or did she just know 'em.
We had cookbooks, just like we do now. From different ones.
Do you remember what any of those were called.
No, I didn't pay no attention to it you see. I didn't have it to do and
When was it that you started working in the mill?
I started working in the mill when I was eighteen.
Was that about the time most people started.
No, some of 'em—my sister started when she wasn't but nine year old. And my brother did too. Back then they'd start from eight and nine, until they passed that child labor law you know, where they couldn't work.
Well what did your brothers and sisters do when they started work.
Well, I had one sister that was a weaver. I had a brother that was a carding room man, he was fixer in the carding room. And I had a brother that worked in the finishing room, where they finish the cloth. And I had a sister that worked in the finishing room, and I had one that worked in the drawing and twisting room—besides myself, I worked there. Me and her worked in the drawing and twisting room.
That's what you did when you first started?
Yeah.
Do you remember, maybe you don't, but do you remember the first time you went down to go to work?
No. I used to carry lunch down there to my sister and to another fellow that worked down there that lived over the other side of us. I'd carry lunch down there and while she was eating her lunch I learned to work on her job. And that's how I learned. I was already learned when I went to work, 'cause I'd work every day on her job while she ate her lunch. I learned to twist in and then after I went to work, I learned to draw in. I worked 'till they shut down down there.
In fifty four?
In fifty four.
Did you stay at the same job?
Yeah. Oh, I didn't—I worked in the weaving room, or I worked upstairs or I worked in the draw in room—I worked anywhere they wanted me to. I worked over at the finishing room, when they needed me, I just worked wherever they need me.
Did you like the work?
Yeah, I liked the work. I wish it was running now, I'd be at work.
It was cotton, and made outing. Made this here outing like you see men's shirts made out of them outing shirts—that's what they made here.
What was it like on the inside, did it have windows in it?
Yeah, there was windows in the mill.
Was it light?
Light, and they did—now I don't remember that but I've heard 'em laugh about having the man to fill the oil light and light the lights. Whenever it began to get dark enough to light lights. George's daddy done that for awhile.
It was open from six in the morning until six at night?
Yeah. And they heat the mill one time by stoves. But, I don't
believe—yes you can—where that round place is up
there on the end of the mill. That's where the chimbley is
at—the both ends of the mill.
That would be to keep it warm?
Yeah. They heated the stoves. Now, I don't know what they burned in them stoves, they could burn wood I reckon. Because I know I was a great big girl when we began to get coal and have a coal stove.
Well, were there different parts to the mill, you talk about upstairs and downstairs.
Yeah. There's three floors.
What went on on each of the floors?
Well, the weaving room was in the bottom floor, and spinning. The little weaving room was on the second floor. Then the carding room was on the third floor and the twist in and draw in room was on the third floor.
So you worked up on the third floor a lot.
Yeah. I worked up on the third floor, and sometime I worked down in the weaving room.
Did people like to do some jobs better than others?
Yeah, yeah. Different ones had a certain job that they liked to do—and they wanted that job, they didn't want to do nothing else.
Did some of the jobs pay better than the others.
Yeah.
How did that go?
Well they'd paid by the hour, most of the time.
Which ones were better, how did that work?
The hour work, you made more for that because you're paid so much an hour you know. Now when I went to work I made eighty five cents a day. Well, that's what I made, eighty five cents a day. And when I quit work I made a dollar and sixty nine cents a hour.
What about different jobs, did different jobs pay different things?
Yeah.
Could you tell me about that.
Different jobs. Now a weaver made more than spinning and carding, and made more than we did in the drawing in room. But we finally did get it raised up to where we made more than they did.
Made more than who did?
The weaving.
Oh really?
Yeah, because we worked by the piece, you know. You work by the piece you can make more if you want to and if yif yon't want to you can fall down on the job.
Well, what did it sound like inside?
Well, it was just a fuss, all I know.
Was there too much noise sometimes?
It was all the time, you couldn't hear your—you couldn't hear
nothing.
Did people ever worry that they would hurt their ears, would they worry about their hearing or anything like that?
No, I never knowed 'em to say nothing about it.
I've heard some songs that people used to sing about working in the mill. Did people ever sing in there?
Yeah, they'd sing, but you couldn't hear 'em.
Did you ever do any singing when you were in there?
Not hardly, 'cause I don't sing.
What were the songs that people would sing. Would they be about the work itself or would they be other kind of songs?
They'd be different kinds. I don't remember what they was.
Would sometimes people sing songs about their jobs?
Yeah. And I did have a piece that one man wrote about the whole mill, and I lost it somewhere. He made up a song about the whole mill—but I forget what it was, don't you George?
What?
The song where, was it Walt Dickens or—who was it made that song up about the mill, and it started at the first of it. Where it started in, the cotton started in. But I can't remember who it was.
What was the song about?
It was about the different kind of works you know. And he rhymed it up and he made a song, a great long song. Because he started where it went in the breakers at the lap room and went on up. But I can't remember who it was, been so long ago.
Did he sing it?
Yeah.
When would he sing it?
Well, there was a crowd of 'em that picked guitar and the banjo and different string instruments. We run by water then, had water wheels—that was the power that run the mill—and when the water'd get low, maybe they'd stop off for a hour or two. Well these gang of boys would get their instruments and get out there in the front of the mill, and they would sing and pick the guitar and the banjo, and different kind of string music. And maybe they'd stand an hour or two and the water'd gain up, and they'd start back up.
How often would that happen?
That was in the summer time. And when the water got low—the water'd get low—there's a big old rock out there they call Lily and—I forget the other one's name, but there's two of 'em. When you begin to see them two rocks, you'd know we was going to get a rest. 'Cause the water was getting low. (George: Yeah, they made up songs whenever the water'd get low.) Get out in front of the mill under two big trees—they done cut the two trees down in front of the mill now. Get out there in the shade and sing.
Do you reckon that'd be once a week or once a month in the summer time, or how much?
Oh, sometime it was two or three times a week. When it didn't rain. We had dry weather just like we have now. People say, oh I don't remember it. Well I remember it very well, for I was working in the mill. And I know'd when it'd shut down for low water.
Do you remember any other songs. That's a good song that you remembered there, do you remember any others?
No, I don't.
Would people sing church music?
Yeah, they'd sing sacred songs, and they would sing jazz.
Jazz?
Yeah.
That used to be the main one.
Yes it was. Just a whole lot of songs, but I don't remember.
Did people know the names of different singing groups, different musicians that played their songs.
Yeah.
Do you remember any of those groups at all?
No, I don't.
What about record players and radios and things like that?
Yeah, we had a record player and we had—the first little radio I ever saw was just about like that, wasn't it. Just a little square box, about half as big as that. And you listened at it through earphones.
Did you all have one like that?
No, we didn't have one like that. 'Cause there was too many of us, and daddy said we'd fuss over it. And he'd just wait 'till a bigger one come out. So when the big one come out, he bought us one. We had a piano, an organ, and all.
So you went to somebody's house and heard that little one with the earphones?
Yeah, Claude Phillips was the first man and the first one that I ever know'd to have one, wasn't he.
Do you remember what you heard?
No, I don't.
Did you hear music, or talking?
Yeah, they had mostly music. He lived right out there.
Was it a station that was far away from here or close by?
This here was just a record.
Oh, a phonograph.
It was a little phonograph. You could hear it though, through them earphones. (George: Played it with a needle.) No this here—yeah, that one played with a needle but you had to listen with the earphones, you had to listen that a way, you couldn't hear it—it didn't have no loudspeakers on it. But now, our'n was a great big one, had a morning glory horn—great big horn you know. And it had big records.
What kind of records?
Well, oh some of was that big around, wasn't they George?
Do you remember what they were?
No.
Would it be music some?
Yeah, they'd be music and dancing and singing.
Would it be country music?
Yeah.
Music from around North Carolina?
I reckon it was, I don't know.
What about, you know, some of it had orchestras.
I know it.
Did you have any of that?
Yeah. We had all kind of records, we did.
Where did you buy your records?
From Ellis Music Store in Burlington. They still got a music store.
Is that right?
I believe—I know old man Ellis is dead and his wife's dead, but
I believe he's got a son that runs that music store.
You all had a piano and an organ?
Yeah.
Who played 'em?
My sisters.
Did you play?
I never did try.
Did you sing?
Yeah, we all sing. I got a sister that did teach music awhile, but she isn't doing nothing now.
When would you do your singing and music making?
At night, and on Sunday. 'Cause we worked 'till twelve o'clock on
Saturday. Sing and play, maybe there'd be half a dozen different
families, children come up there.
What if you wanted to go off and visit somebody else?
Well, he'd let us go but we had to be back by ten o'clock.
You couldn't go by yourself.
No. We'd go to different parties—ice cream parties, and box parties, and different things like that. But now we didn't stay out no later than ten o'clock. Then he'd come after us.
What's a box party?
Well, the women would make the boxes and put different things to eat in it and the one that bought the box, they'd eat supper with the girl that was the one that made it, you know.
What kind of things would they put in 'em.
Well, they'd have supper in 'em. They'd have fried chicken, and ham and cake, pie—just a whole lot of things in the box. Have plenty for two's supper.
Where would that be held.
At the school house. In the auditorium.
Let's go back to the bread, and how that changed. Do you remember when people quit making the bread and started buying it.
Well, no I don't. I don't remember, 'cause that's been a long time ago.
'Cause you said your mother made this.
Yeah, my mother used to make her—light rolls they called 'em. And they were just as good as any light bread you ever eat.
But people were already buying light bread then.
Yeah. But she made that before they was buying it because she made that
years and years ago. And she took flour, and we used to use lard where
they use oil now. She took buttermilk and yeast and just a tiny bit of
sugar. But I don't remember all she put in there
Did you all change from one kind of flour to another, any time?
Well, whenever they begin to put out this self rising flour—my momma bought that. But she didn't buy it regular, she used her old straight grade flour where it was ground at the mill. And there's a mill up yonder right above Green Acres that still grinds flour—makes flour. It's on the river, and it's water ground.
One last thing, do you remember any of the names—when they started making the self rising flour—what brands?
No I don't, I don't remember.
Where would you buy that?
We'd buy it down here at the company store.
And would the flour man, Mr. Johnson, did he quit coming around?
Well he died, of course he quit coming arou