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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-0036, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Like many families in North Carolina in the early 20th century, the Norman family left a farm for town life, finding jobs in factories and textile mills in and around Burlington, North Carolina. Icy Norman began her working life at age thirteen, when she was offered a job by her aunt's boss at a shoe factory. She loved to work, and she loved to earn money, and she brought her work ethic from job to job, eventually settling into a job at a textile mill in Burlington at the age of twenty-nine. She would stay there for the rest of her career. In this interview, Norman remembers the rhythms of farm life, from corn shuckings to ice cream socials, and from milling wheat to gristing corn. And she remembers her working life after her father died and her mother sold the farm: learning her trade on the mill floor by practicing for weeks before earning a paycheck; winning the respect of her employers for her honesty, hard work, skill, and ingenuity; resisting unionization; and retiring without a pension in 1976. This interview is about one woman's devotion to her job, and the emotional rewards she earned from her work, often in lieu of financial rewards. Norman looks back on her working life with great fondness, but also with regret that she did not profit more from an industry she feels she helped to build.
Icy Norman recalls her long working life, most of which was spent at a textile mill in Burlington, North Carolina.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
It was mean. It was just terrible.
Were the people who first worked up in the mill from other areas? Mr. Haithcock thought that they had brought in a lot of people from New Jersey and Alabama to run some of the machines up there. And that's why a lot of the neighborhood was so rough.
I'll tell you, I don't know where they was from. I do know it was a lot of rough people. A lot of cussing and carrying on in the mill. But they finally got that all straightened out.
Was that mostly the men?
Just the men. Especially on pay day night, on the second shift. They get
as drunk as, they didn't know what they was doing. They got
that all straightened out. Over the years you hardly hear anybody say a
cuss word up there. You never did see nobody come in there drunk on the
job. They got out of their Little Chicago mess when the mills went
expanding. Like I told Mr. Love one time, "A lot of times it is
a lot and lot of yarn that is wasted." I says,
"You're making waste. Which if people would just
stop long enough and take time, they can run that yarn.
You're losing a lot of yarn that could be made into good
cloth." I reckon he told the boss man and they got to watching
some of them. They'd go and check on them and see. It was
terrible, awful that the waste them people made. They'd just
tear off yards and yards of cloth. It was just a mess there for a while.
They finally got the mill going and going straight. I reckon people went
to getting concerned about their jobs, and all and I went to taking only
a little interest in it. But as I said, a lot of people would go to the
restroom and sit two and three hours and left their job standing.
That's not right. I believe in doing your job and not laying
down on it, not slacking back waiting on somebody else. Everybody who is
in any kind of mill work, any kind of textile work, they give
Was it very dusty in the mill?
Yeah, it was pretty dusty in the cotton part. That creeling job was something on cotton until they put them fans that run around the track. That would blow the lint off of it. It was terrible until they put that up there. Out there in the cotton winding room, I don't know whether they ever did get anything. Now they did on the twisters, they had them blow things on the twisters that would run around the track. That kept the lint off of the yarn. But now the winding, they'd have to stop off about twice a day and clean up in the cotton winding room.
Did people have trouble breathing sometimes?
I don't know. I never did work in the cotton winding room. The only cone winding I done was on them little Universal winders. But I did work on the cotton creeling. Them fans kept it blowed. The lint, and it wasn't too linty. When the mill was stopped off and we was changing the mill or creeling a mill on it was pretty linty. But when we started it up them fans would start blowing. Then the lint would all blow off.
Do you ever remember any strikes up at the mill?
Yeah.
When was that?
I believe it was in the latter part of '30 or maybe '31. They struck up there and I think they were out about two weeks. Then the old union would come to the mill and give out them old papers, wanted you to sign up. A lot of them did sign up. I never did sign up for it.
How come?
I don't know. I didn't understand all it was about. I didn't think it was a good thing to do, to be honest with you. So I never did sign up for it. But a lot of them up there did sign up for it. But they never did get the union. Three or four months they would be out there. Then they put that fence around the mill.
When was that that they put the fence up?
That there was along about '34 or '35.
They'd be out there at the gate with them old union papers wanting you to sign up. A lot of them in the Burlington Mill did sign up. And one time they thought that they really had the union, but they never did get it. But I never did mess with it.
Did people come around and talk to you about why you should join?
Yes. I'd tell them I wasn't interested in it and they'd go on and leave me alone. I didn't know whether it was good or bad so I didn't mess with it. Something I don't know nothing about I don't like to mess with. So I just never did mess with it.
When they went on strike, did everybody go out?
Yes, they had shooting. Up there at the Plaid Mill they shot
Why did the people go on strike?
They claimed they wanted more money.
Did you know Reverend Swinney very well?
Oh, yeah.
What was he like?
He was a sweet person. He was just a friend to everybody. When we come here the Glen Hope Church was in a little wooden building. Like you're going up Beaumont towards the mill at the stoplight. Over on the left after you turn, it would be on the right. It was a little wooden building up there. And that's where Preacher Swinney started preaching. In that little wooden building. Then they built the first church. That's the one that got burnt down. Then they moved. Where he was they kind of made a little apartment out of it. I think Holt owned that. They lived out in the field in a great old big house. But now Burlington Mills bought all that and tore that house out and made a parking lot and built a trucking terminal and all out there. They owned it. They had a three room apartment that people lived in. They finally bought so much of that land back over where it was at that they tore it down.
Yeah, Preacher Swinney was a fine person. He had a hand in making
Burlington what it is. Really have to give him the praise for that.
He was very influential?
Yeah, he was a good person. He was a likable person. He just had friends everywhere.
Did he and Spencer Love….
Yeah, him and Spencer Love was real close. Spencer Love would give money to that church, money to help build that church. When that first church burnt down, I think Burlington Mills give them money on the church now that they got. I think they put in a whole lot of money to start it back.
But they had helped build the first one, too?
Yeah. Spencer Love give big donations on that. And they give a lot on this other church. All of them head officials of the Burlington plant and Swinney was real close friends.
Did you go to the Glen Hope Church? Would he ever talk about the mill at church?
You know like homecoming, he would always tell about. Sometimes Preacher Swinney would say that Spencer Love told him that whenever he needed anything to come to him and he would get it. Some of the rest of them might have told you that he would go and tell him the problem and Spencer Love would give him the money. Spence helped a lot in that church up there. I reckon they still give some to it, I ain't telling it for sure. But I do know that other church they did.
Did Reverend Swinney's brother used to work up in the commissary in the mill? I thought Mr. Haithcock told me that Jack Swinney ran the commissary up there.
You mean the one that started the commissary. Might have been him coming around. They started bringing a little long tub on wheels in twice a day, with ice in it with ale. Then they started bringing little cookies and like that in. It was a hand cart. Now, what was his name? Anyway, he opened the commissary. He run the commissary for years and years. Until they expanded and built a place for the employees to go eat. Get things, all kinds of stuff out of the machines. He quit then. Bill Hancock was his name. He went somewhere and then went up there and started a little ice cream parlor. That's the last account I have of Bill Hancock. But he run that commissary. I can't remember nothing about… unless it was, I don't think it was Preacher Swinney's brother. It could have been.
Did you know Mrs. Swinney?
She's just the sweetest.
We're going to try to call her and see if we can visit her sometime next week.
Have you been up to Clarence's and Irene's? That's Preacher Swinney's daughter and son-in-law. He's the pastor of the church now. Clarence Vaughn. He lives right up there in that brick house. That's where Preacher Swinney and Mrs. Swinney lived. They built that for them. Swinney retired and they bought this house that they're living in, the church did, for Preacher Swinney and Mrs. Swinney. Then Clarence and Irene moved in the pastor's house there. But the church bought this home. You ought to go see them and talk to them.
Did your mother ever work in the mill?
Not here. My mother worked some in Schoolfield. My daddy never would let
her work. She had a job and worked I reckon about three months. My baby
sister, she was just a little baby. They had a nursery. They would
What kind of nursery was that?
They had trained nurses, real nurses. I mean they had a degree. It was a big nursery that the company had. They would keep tiny babies, year-olds, two years on up until they was sixteen years old. They had a category for each one. They had trained nurses. They checked when you went in that nursery—they changed your clothes, they put their clothes on you. They checked each child every morning. The little tots, where they could set up at the table, they had a big round table about that wide with little chairs for them little young ones to sit there and eat. Then they had place for the bigger children. It was a huge place, you know. They went in age groups. They had doctors to come in once a week to check each child. If any one of the children was running a temperature they would send for its mother to come home, to come to the nursery to take that child home.
Did the mill pay for that?
The mill paid for that. Old Dr. Crumpler was the mill doctor there. They had a dentist. I forget what the dentist's name was. One time I had a toothache. My daddy carried me up there. That old dentist pulled my tooth. Didn't numb it, I thought I would die, sure enough. That made me scared of dentists. It was years before I'd go to one.
It sounds like the mill ran the whole city.
They did. They built a Y.M.C.A. and they had this nursery. Then they built a huge Hilton Hall. Oh, that was a huge building. It was eight stories high, counting the two ground floors, counting the basement. They built that. People could go there that worked in the mill and have a boarding place. They served your meals and everything. They didn't charge but so much a week. All they had to do was cross the railroad and right into the mill. Then they built that Y.M.C.A. Then they put a movie in here. They had a huge city park. That was the most beautifulest park you ever seen. It was then, I don't know how it is now. I ain't been over there in years. Schoolfield just run all of Schoolfield.
North Danville, they had a cotton mill down there. They went in together and expanded. They are kind of expanding like the Burlington Mill, expanding out. Seems like the Plaid Mill or the Mayfair did run some yarn, nylon, for the Dan River. They expanding out too.
Did you know Hester Taylor? She lives over on Rt. 100 going towards Elon. She came from Schoolfield and used to work up at the mill. She was a weaver.
I don't know but one Hester Taylor. I wonder if that there is my cousin.
Her husband's name was Ellis.
I don't remember this one. The one I'm talking about has been married twice. Her and her first husband is separated.
I don't think that's this one. I was just talking to her the other day and she used to board up in Hilton Hall. She couldn't remember the name of it.
Hilton Hall was the name of it. They had swimming pools there. They had exercise rooms, a gym. A huge gym. Once a week us school children we'd go swimming there. One day out of the week we'd go to the gym. One day out of the week we'd go learn to cook. One day out of the week we'd go learn to sew, the girls would. They had something else for the boys, too. But I never did learn to swim. I still don't know how to swim. It would just tickle us to death to go over to that Hilton Hall. It was so pretty. We'd go over to that gym, we'd play. They had all kinds of swings and things. Now they never did have no see-saw. When we went into that gym we had to have our white tennis shoes on and our white socks. If we didn't have no white tennis shoes we had to pull our shoes off. That floor was just like a looking glass. But if we had our white tennis shoes, we could wear our white tennis shoes in there. We'd go over there and have plays over there. It was just wonderful.
Did you like school?
I liked school up until I was in the fifth grade and my mama got sick. My daddy couldn't get nobody—back then it was hard to get anybody to stay with you.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Did they hire their teachers as well?
Went to school over on Baltimore. Had a great old big school over there. It went to the ninth grade, was the highest it went. Then when you got to the tenth grade you had to go over there towards Luland Lake. You had to go over there to that school when you got to the tenth grade. Over there in Baltimore school you could go until the tenth grade. I wished I had a went on back. I see where I made my mistake. I thought I'd be out six weeks. I never would catch it up which I could have. But I never did go back.
So when did you get your first paying job?
When I first went to work? That was at Elkin. They have a shoe factory there. My aunt, my daddy's sister, worked in the shoe factory. She'd always come over there on Sunday night and my brother would take her to Elkin. She stayed down with my cousin all week. Dewey would get her and bring her and then she'd go on home. Sunday night she told mama, "I want to take Icy down with me and let her see the shoe factory. It'd be a curiosity to her." I wasn't but thirteen years old. Mama says, "We got a big day. Got a big washing to do, I don't care if she goes if she gets back and gets this washing out." So I went on down there. Aunt Leotta carried me all over the shoe factory. Fred Knees was over. We was looking at different things, the cutting room. We started from where they started the shoe and ended up where the shoe was ready for you to wear, to be sold.
Fred Knees come up and he says, "Miss Carter, who is this little lady you got?"
Aunt Leotta says, "That's my niece."
He says, "Does she want a job?" I looked at him and
thought my goodness, he's crazy.
I looked at her and says, "I didn't come down here after no job."
Aunt Leotta says, "You come on here." Well, I went on. She told Dewey that Fred give me a job and he went home. Boy, mama had a fit. That young one down there, she ain't old enough to work.
I went in there and learnt to make shoes.
What was that like?
It was electric sewing machines. They had a cutting room. They had sizes and would cut so many shoes out, vamps, and then they would cut the heel part. Then they would send it to the sewing room. Well, you take it there. They had it stamped. You put it on that brandisher, back part of the shoe to the vamp and you sewed. You'd go up this side and back down, make two little stitches along there. When you got that done, they'd take you along to the one that made the linings. The linings was made just like the shoe. And they'd make that and stack it and send it on in to where they put the soles on. Then they'd send it. Then put the heel on. It was interesting. I worked there then until it went bankrupt. Fred Knees then went into the woolen mill.
My daddy died in February. He come up there and he told mama. See, my daddy owned this farm. He told mama, "Now, I can give Icy a job in the inspecting room."
Mama says, "Can you give Barney and Dewey a job?"
He says, "No, I can't put them on right now. I ain't got no opening. But I can put Icy to work. I got an opening in the inspecting room." That's inspecting them blankets. I know you seen them Chatham blankets.
Mama says, "No she's not going to go to work unless you give Barney and Dewey a job. If she goes to work they'll have to take her down there and go get her, bring her back. That's too much running. I don't want her staying away from home all week."
How far was the farm?
About nine miles. He says, "Let Icy go to work and maybe in a few days I can have an opening for Barney and Dewey."
Mama says, "No, if you can't put them all three to work, she ain't going to work."
Your mother sounds like a tough bargainer.
Mama knowed how to manage and she knowed how to make a living. Naturally she didn't want me away from home, me nothing but a young one. I wasn't but thirteen years old. Well, I was fourteen then, I just worked at the shoe factory a year 'till it went busted. So, it would cause Barney and Dewey to make a lot of trips. Mama couldn't see no point in that. Then we went to Linksburg and I got a job in the cotton mill there filling batteries.
I worked there a long time. And Dooley Carter, the fixer that was in the shoe factory, he found out that he run into Barney and Dewey. He was a boss man then. I know you seen the Craddock Terry shoes. He come over there on Sunday evening. He says, "Icy, I want you to go to work for me over in the Craddock Terry shoe factory." Talking about a shoe factory. That thing was three stories high. Boy, you walk in that mill you thought you was walking on a piece of glass. Everything was clean as a pin. You didn't see nothing out of place.
I says, "Dooley, how much will I make?"
He says, "I'll start you off at two dollars and a quarter a day." That was more than I was making in the cotton mill.
I says, "Allright, when do you want me to come in?
I'll have to tell Mr.
He says, "You work this week's notice and then you be over there next week."
I went over there and I worked. Then work got bad. We'd work a week and stand two weeks. That's when we come to Burlington. See, I was working and making money. I come to Burlington and went into the Burlington Mills with nothing.
When you were learning to sew on the shoes and then in the cotton mill, did they pay you while you were learning?
Yeah. They started me right off. I made five dollars a week in the shoe factory. No, five dollars and a half because we worked five days and a half. Dooley, he started me off at two dollars and a quarter a day.
Did you like the work in the shoe factory?
I just loved the shoe factory. I enjoyed it and I hated to quit. Barney and Dewey didn't get no work period. I was the only one that was a working. Then I'd work a week and be out two weeks. And so mama said she thought it was better for us to go see if we could get a job where all could work. So we took off and we come to Burlington and have been in Burlington ever since.
What year was that, that you came to Burlington?
Twenty-nine. Been fifty years.
When you and your mother moved from the farm to Linksburg, did you sell the farm?
No, not right then. We did later on. We sold it after we moved here.
Could you not make a living off the farm?
Oh, yeah. But mama just took a notion she wanted to sell it. I begged her not to sell it. She had the say-so, so she sold it.
Did you like living on the farm?
Yeah, I enjoyed it. I'd get out there about daylight. Dooley, he would be a plowing this field. I'd be in this field on a harrow I'd have that field harrowed by the time he had that field plowed. Then we'd plant our crop. Then when the stuff come in we worked from sun up to sun down. That was good days. Back then you could work in the field until it was so dark you couldn't. Then you'd come in and have to milk the cow and feed the horses or the mules, whatever you had. Then fix supper. Then wash the dishes. Then you'd have time to go somewhere in the neighborhood. You know, the neighbors there lived a half a mile, maybe a mile apart. Some of them two miles. Some would always come to my house. We'd take a circle and we'd visit everybody, they'd take a circle until they'd visited everybody. And everybody just had a good time. Now people don't have time. They have more things to work with. They don't even know what the next door neighbors is doing. That's the truth.
Now you take a lot of places here in Burlington, you can have a lot of
sickness and your next door neighbor don't know
you're sick. You can have a death in your family and they
don't know anybody's dead. I don't
believe in that. I believe in fellowship and being friends and
cooperating with everybody. I reckon it is because the way my daddy and
mama raised me. People this day and time, they don't act like
they care anything for you. All for self. But me, the greatest joy is if
I can do you a favor. I want to do you that favor. I get more joy out of
that and more happiness. If somebody's sick that I know I can
You didn't think it was the difference between living in the country and living here that made that difference of neighbors?
You mean trying to be friends with people. My daddy and mother teached us
eight children to love and fellowship. If you could share something with
somebody, do that. I reckon it was the way I was raised. Now you take
What kind of things did people do together in the country?
At school they'd have a supper. They'd call it a
box supper. The teenagers, the young ones, they'd fix it.
Well, if we was going to have a supper tonight at the school, well, you
would cook something yourself. And you'd fix you a box and
you'd wrap it real pretty. But you'd fix your box
so you knowed it from the others. You didn't put your name on
it. They would give that box off. The one that bid the highest, well,
you had to eat supper with the boy. That was a lot of fun. We would have
ice cream suppers and we'd have parties. In the wintertime
they'd have dances in some of the homes. Of course, my daddy
never would let them have a dance there. But he didn't care
if us young ones was going. The young people would meet at our house
once a
Would people in the mill village get together and do things like that?
Yeah, they have the church. Senior citizens. They meet once a week and carry a covered dish. Then they meet, like the Sunday school classes, at your house. And the next month they meet at somebody else's house until it goes around. They have this big bus at the church, senior citizens go different places. I believe it was sometime along in March they went to Charlotte for the day. They go trips. People get together. Anybody can go on that wants to, if the bus ain't filled up. If you find out they're going, you just have to call Mildred and ask her if they got a vacant seat and you can go.
Another thing I enjoy, I like to get up real early and take my mile walk. But it's been so bad I ain't been this week.
Where do you walk?
I usually go out Piedmont Way, down Hopedale Road, back down North Mebane Street back in around to the stoplight back up to Beaumont then back home. It's a mile.
When you first came here, how big was the mill village?
Just a little old bitty place.
Mostly over by Piedmont Way?
Yeah. Let's see, Piedmont Way and then Long Street was the mill houses. That street over there back of Long Street, it was mill houses. But the ones that was going from the corner of Piedmont Way on Beaumont down on the left side, they was the Silk Mill houses. But then from Piedmont back to that other street was Burlington Mill houses.
Do you know when this part of the town was incorporated into Burlington?
I don't remember.
Because people say it was a real rough neighborhood until it got incorporated because there wasn't any law out here. There weren't any police-men out here.
Well, the roughest thing was people moving in and out of the houses. They'd get drunk and they'd fight. But that never did happen on the street I lived on. Back there on that street where Lottie Adams live, that street was pretty bad. They'd get drunk and they'd get to fighting. I don't know what year it was they incorporated, but it's been a long long time. Might have been in the '35s, somewhere along in there they incorporated. Then the policemen would make a round, but they didn't go every street. If you needed a policeman, you had to call him. He would make a round, like it was Beaumont then. But it wasn't no name. He'd make a round, back around by the mill and back in town, up Church Street, North Main Street, rather. Then they built that road on in and called it North Church.
What kind of crops did you grow on the farm?
We growed corn and all of our vegetables. We didn't raise no tobacco. My daddy would plant one row in the back for chewing tobacco. That's all the tobacco he would plant. We'd have wheat, we'd have rye. When we gathered all of our corn, we'd cut them tops—now I was working in the shoe factory then, Dewey was, too. Barney wasn't there, he was somewhere in Roanoke. Me and him, we'd work until six o'clock. We'd come home and mama would have supper on the table. That's the only time my daddy would let me wear a pair of overalls, would be when I was cutting tops or pulling fodder. He'd let me wear a pair of Barney's overalls and tie them around the ankles on account of snakes. Me and Dewey we would come in at six o'clock. Well, in the fall of the year at six o'clock, it's dark. We'd go out there and cut tops and tie them tops and pull fodder by the moonlight until eleven or twelve o'clock by a night. To take care of our fodder and stuff for the cows and horses. Then we'd go pull the corn. Then we'd have a corn shucking. Now, that's when you'd have a good time.
They'd have a pile of corn bigger than this house. They'd shuck that corn. The mothers would always cook dinner, if it was dinnertime. At supper-time another neighbor would cook supper. Then after the corn shucking they'd give us young people a dance. That was a lot of fun. Then they'd have quilting. People would gather and have quilting at different houses. It would be the same way. They'd cook a big dinner, a big supper. And after that was through, the eating and everything, they'd pull everything back and the young people would have a little square dance.
Who would play the music?
Different ones would make music. My daddy never would let no dancing going on. But he never did care us having a little party, a sociable party. Back then, if we both went to a dance. You had a fellow and me had a fellow. Teenage girls usually have them a partner. Like you and your partner and me and my partner. We went over here to this house, they was going to have a little dance there. They wouldn't have it at the same place every week.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Let's start when you were born.
I was born in Coalwood, West Virginia. My daddy was a bank boss there. Something like a boss in a mill here, but they called them "bank boss" in the mines. We left West Virginia.
When was it you were born?
In 1911. The thirteenth of April. It was on Easter Sunday, snow, mama said, was knee deep. As best as I can remember, I've had two birthdays on Easter Sunday. They left from there then—I wasn't but three months old.
Were you the oldest?
No, my brother that lives in Florida is eighteen months older than I am. My mother was married twice. Barney, he was born in West Virginia, but he was born in Dixon. But I was born in Coalwood. And he's eighteen months older than me. We left from there and went back to Wilkes County up in the mountains. My daddy stayed there. I think he put out two crops. Then he went to Schoolfield.
When he was farming, did he buy his farm or was he renting?
He owned a farm. Then we went to Schoolfield. I think I was around three
or four years old. I don't remember going to Schoolfield
then.
What did he do?
He run an elevator in Number Four Mill. He worked there fifteen years. His health got bad. Back then, doctors was good doctors, but they really didn't know then what they do now. They didn't have the kind of medicine and they really didn't know what to do like they do now. My daddy got sick, he had high blood and sugar diabetes. He had heart dropsy. He got to the place he just wasn't able to work. He wanted to go back to the mountains to live and die there. So we moved back to the mountains in 1927, the fourteenth of February. He lived from then until the ninth of February of 1929. He died on the ninth. That's how long he lived after he did quit work.
My mama had him in all the hospitals. Winston-Salem and High Point. She had him in Danville before we left from there. Then she had him in Mt. Airy hospital. They all told her they wouldn't operate on him for nothing. Said his blood was so high that he would die. He had a fatted tumor in his stomach. That tumor was so big you could see the shape of it when he'd have his clothes on. He had high blood and sugar and heart dropsy and then that fatted tumor. He died kind of sudden on Saturday night.
All this time, how were you getting along? He wasn't working.
Well, see mama has been married twice and she had five children by her
first husband. So my daddy, he helped raise them five children. Then she
had three by my daddy. Barney and me and Florence, my sister that lives
in Greensboro. She's the baby. The baby boy by her first
husband, he was
Mama says, "Well now, we got a big washing to do. If she'll get back in time to help me start-that washing, she can go."
I got up next morning and went with Aunt Leotta and Dewey, carried her down there. She was showing me over the plant, how they cut out shoes and how they sewed them. She sewed, that's what she done. She showed me where they put the bottoms in the heels. She showed me where they smoothed them off and polished them, ready to ship out. That just tickled me to death. We started back up the steps and we run into Fred Knees.
He says, "Miss Carter, who is that little girl you got with you?"
She says, "That's my niece. That's my brother's daughter."
He says, "Does she want a job?"
Before I could say "No," Aunt Leotta says, "Yes, she wants a job." Well, it scared me to death.
I says, "No, I don't want a job either."
Aunt Leotta says, "Yes she does, too! Put her to work,
Fred." "Alright," he says, "You come
along with me, little girl."
Well, I didn't go home and did mama throw a fit. She told Dewey, "You get in that car and you go down there after that young one. She's not going to go to work."
Dewey says, "Mama, I can't. She's already at work."
My daddy says, "Aw, Charity, they'll cook her. She'll come home if Dewey goes down there."
Dewey says, "No, Aunt Leotta told me to tell mama to fix some clothes and send Icy and we'd be home Saturday." I stayed down there and stayed at Jenny's. Well, you know, I loved to sew anyway. I just enjoyed that after I got the hang of it. It didn't take me over a day to get the hang of the machine. So then he put me out sewing the vamp of the leather onto the sides. After I got on that I made a little more money. I made five dollars and a half a week for five days and a half.
Saturday I went home and mama just had a fit. My daddy says, "Charity, now just hush. Let that young one work if she wants to. She don't have to work. If she likes it, let her work a while."
Well, I went back. Aunt Leotta come back Sunday night. Instead of going
to Jenny's Sunday night we went to work Monday morning. We
would just cross that little old branch, at dinnertime, and go in
Jenny's house. She'd have a hot dinner on the
table. We'd eat dinner and go back. We'd work
until six
I says, "It's yours."
He says, "I don't want it. That's your money."
I says, "Uh-uh. It's yours."
He says, "You take this and do with it whatever you want to do with it."
I says, "No, papa. I want you to have it."
You know as long as he lived I give him my money. He go to Elkin, he'd go like sometime through the week. He would surprise me when I went home on Saturday. Mama didn't like it at all because she was short of me helping her do all that work. I'd go home on Saturday—we got paid every week. I'd take my money and give it to my daddy.
He says, "I'm tired of you giving me that money. I
don't want it. It's your money. You take it and
buy what you want to. If you don't want to buy
I says, "No, I want you to have it."
He says, "I don't need it."
"Well, you take it."
He'd go down there. I'd come home on Saturday. About once a month he'd have me the prettiest outfit you ever seen. He was the best somebody to buy clothes. I know one Easter he went and bought me a new dress and a new pair of shoes and he got me a hat and he bought me a spring coat. First spring coat I ever remember seeing. Oh, I thought it was the prettiest thing I ever seen. You know right today I can't buy nothing I'm satisfied with. My daddy, he could go buy things for me and it was just perfect. My mama, she couldn't buy nothing that I liked. Mama would go buy me things but I didn't like it. But just seemed like my daddy knew exactly what to buy me. And today I can go see things that I think that I like. I get home and I don't like them. That's one thing I think my daddy ruint me. He ought have made me start buying things. He was the best thing you ever seen. He would go to town. He bought all of mama's clothes. Mama never did offer to go buy her an outfit. She was like me. She would get home and she was dissatisfied with it. He'd go pick out. He knowed exactly what to get that would look good on her, that would look pretty on her. Well, after he died. The shoe factory then went busted and I was out of a job.
Did you like working in the factory better than working on the farm?
Oh, yeah. But I'm getting a little too fast. In the meantime me and Dewey still put the crop out. He was there by day and I would help when I got home, you know.
Well, Fred come and told me one Saturday, "You tell Dewey to come in. I need a hand in the cutting room."
I says, "Goody. Goody. Goody. I get to go home every night." So I told Dewey. And Dewey, he went to work. Well, we had the crop planted and it was coming up. We would work. We'd have to work until six o'clock. We'd get home and since we eat, we'd take off to the field. He would plow and I'd hoe. We worked that way and raised our crop.
What were you raising?
We raised corn, beans, stuff like that to eat on the farm. Back then you couldn't go to the store and buy vegetables. You had to raise everything you'd eat through the winter. We raised wheat for flour. Of course that wasn't no trouble. All you done, you sowed your wheat in the fall. That's all you had to do to it until you thrashed it. Then a man come around with a wheat thrasher and with a crew of men and they'd thrash a big field of wheat in a day. Yeah, you had to raise everything you eat. We would always raise potatoes. I've often wondered why people can't do that this day and time. Back then we would raise potatoes anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred bushels of Irish potatoes. My daddy would have Dewey there in the field take this wheat straw and put down and put a shock of fodder and corn right in the middle and stand it up and pour them potatoes around it and then cover them up in wheat straw and pack dirt all the way around them. And we done our sweet potatoes that way.
That kept them?
Yeah. And we done our cabbage that way. And turnips. My daddy would have
us pull our turnips up. They call them holing them away. And
we'd
Then the shoe factory shut down. My daddy he died the ninth of February,
1929. So, Fred come up there. He told mama, he says—he went
to the wool
Mama says, "Well, will you give Barney and Dewey a job." Well, Barney and Dewey had a job down there and I don't know what happened. Well, I do too. I think they got sleepy. Went out there and crawled down in a car and went to sleep and left the machine running. They fired them.
He says, "No, I can't give them no job. Now you got your home here. You got your living made at home. Let Icy go to work in the woolen mill. I've even got her a ride so she can come home. To go every morning and come home every night."
Mama says, "No, if you can't give Dewey and Barney a job I ain't going to let her go to work."
I just begged mama to let me. We had a home there and had everything. My daddy had three great big hogs killed. We had over fifteen hundred pounds of meat hanging in the smokehouse. No, mama wouldn't do it. So we went to Linksburg.
Did you sell the farm?
No we kept our farm. Mama's twin sister lived at Linksburg.
She wrote her and told her to have Uncle Hugh see if he could get us a
job. He wrote back and said, "Yeah, they said they'd
give us all a job." In the meantime Dewey and Barney both had
married. So we took off then to Linksburg, where Rosetta worked a while.
But she didn't get to work but three months because she was
pregnant with her first. That was Dewey's wife. So Mary,
Barney's wife had a little baby. He wasn't quite
nine months old. He was born the fourth of December, 1928.
So Mary, she didn't try to go to work. Me and Dewey and Barney and Rosetta worked—she worked about three months and then she had to quit. At first she didn't know that she was that way when she got her job. We worked there then until August. They closed the mill down for two weeks. They'd work a week, then stand two weeks. You know, back then you didn't draw no unemployment. So the two weeks that the mill stood, Mama told Dewey and Barney, "We can't live here like that. You don't know, the thing may shut down for good. We're going to go hunt us a job, hunt you all a job." So we got in my daddy's old T-Model. The whole two weeks that the mill stood there, we was on the road hunting jobs. We went everywhere. Back then it was in the Depression was starting. Mills was closing down. So you just couldn't get a job. Every freight train that you seen pass was loaded down with people going from town to town, hobo-ing.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
We tried there, and Mama said, "Being we're this
close, let's just go on to Durham and see Don." That
was Mama's oldest boy by her first. Him and his wife lived
out on the Raleigh road. I don't know what they call it now.
And they had built a home there. So we went down there and spent the
night. And Mama was talking to Don and said, "We've
been everywhere, and they can't find a job.
They've still got their job in Linksburg, but they work a
week and stand two weeks." And Don says, "Well, I
might could get them on there at the Golden Belt." That was a
hosiery mill. "Next week I'll see what I can do.
Mama, while you're this close, don't go home
tomorrow." That was Sunday. Says, "Don't
What year was this?
1929. And so Mama says, "No, if you can't put Icy to work, we'll not come."
Your mother was a hard bargainer.
And so he says, "They can go to work tomorrow. I need them." And she says, "No, if you ain't got nothing for Icy to do, we'll come back when you can give her a job." And he says, "Well, you come back, and don't make it over three or four weeks." You see, Barney and Dewey knowed everything in the mill. They could do anything: they could spin; they could doff; they could fix; they could do anything. And me, I was helpless; I didn't know nothing.
What had you done in the woolen mill?
I didn't do anything in the woolen mill. I filled batteries in
the Linksburg Cotton Mill. That was in the weave room, filling
batteries. I knowed how to do that, but see, they didn't have
nobody doing that here. And so we come back, and he told Mama that he
was ready for me to go to work. And he says, "When can you
move?" Mama says, "Well, if you'll give Icy
a job, we can move any time." And so he called up a moving van,
but before he called them Mama says, "Have you got a house
empty?" And he says, "No, not right now, but
I'll have you one empty in a week or two weeks, a five-room
house. I know Mr. Andrews up here in the Post Office. He just finished
building a new house. Go up there and see him." Went up there,
and Mr. Andrews said no, he hadn't rented it, and so he give
Mr. Copland the keys and we went up there and looked at it. Oh, it was
the prettiest little house; it was a little rock house. That was the
prettiest thing, and I was tickled to death over that. Oh, it was so
pretty. And so we went back by the Post Office, and Mama paid him the
rent. And so Mr. Copland asked Mr. Andrews, "Can I use your
telephone to call the transfer?" And he says,
"Yes." And so he called a transfer, and the transfer
says, "I'll be there in a half hour." And
Mama told Barney, "You take Rosetta, Mary, and the
baby"—that was Barney's little
baby—"and Icy back to Don's, and me and
Dewey will go with the transfer, and we'll be back tomorrow
evening." We went back, and it just tickled Don to death. But I
still thought…. I was so green, I didn't ask Mr.
Copland would I make any money. And come to find out, anybody that
didn't know nothing had to go in and learn the job, and if
you learnt the job and they was satisfied with you, they'd
give you a job. Well, Mama and the transfer come in. We left
Don's and
Did you know how he did it?
Yes, me and Mama would fix it like Papa. We had hogs after we come here,
too, and a cow. We didn't have no cow in Linksburg, but we
bought us a cow when we come here.
No.
So he had showed me how to tie it. And I sat on that old box two days.
When I started home, Dewey MacBride give me two spools of thread with
just a little bit of rayon on it. Says, "You take this home,
and you practice this tonight." And I said, "Well,
I'll take it, but I'll never tie that knot. Why
can't you just tie a knot like this?" He says,
"You can't do that, Icy. It's got to be a
weaver's knot. It
Where had your mother worked?
My mother worked in the woolen mill after her first husband died. She
rolled the sample blankets there at the woolen mill. She was the one
that made the samples that the salesmen took out on the road. She set
there and she showed me. I said, "Well, that's the
way they said I had to do it at the mill, but it won't do for
me." So I kept messing. Next day, on the old box I sat. Well, I
sat there. The more I studied about that thing, the more I hated that.
Oh, I hated that mill. Ooh, how I hated it: And I thought,
"Well, if this is all they got for me to do, I don't
want it." I went home and I was crying. Mama says,
"What are you crying about?" I says, "Because
I can't tie that old knot." And she says,
"I've told you how to tie it, and I've
showed you how to tie it. That's the only way you can tie a
weaver's knot." I said, "Mama,
there's a way you can tie that knot. I don't care
what they say. There's a way that I can tie that knot and
it's a weaver's knot, and it's all the
same thing." She said, "No, you've got to
tie it and make your loop around it, take this finger and hold it, and
bring it through." I set down there. She said, "I want
you to hush up that crying." I says, "Mama, I wisht I
was back in Linksburg. I hate it up there." I says, "I
wish I was either in the this finger and
held it down. And you know one thing? I'd tie them