[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did you first come to Bynum?

VERNON DURHAM:

I was born and raised here in Bynum.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Who were your parents?

VERNON DURHAM:

J. M. Durham and Flossie Moore.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Had they been in Bynum most of their lives?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, my mother had, hadn't she? But my daddy was raised, well, not too far—back in the country about four or five miles.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did they work in the mill too?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, he was a—years ago he was a foreman or a spinner. But that was when all they'd get was cotton, a hundred percent cotton.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did you get your first job in the mill?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, I'd go just as a spare hand. My daddy was boss man, and I'd go, just around in the mills cleaning up. Didn't have no air hose then, had brushes and things to clean off, which I started off. Then I learned to doff, and I started doffing. In a few years when I learned the machinery and everything I got to be a fixer and then got to be a foreman of the spinning room.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How old were you when you started?

VERNON DURHAM:

I was sixteen.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What was that first job like as a spare hand?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, you'd do odd things. They had a sprinkler system, but it was out of date; it just had fans that blowed humidity out. Then in the summertime we'd have a sprinkler blowing on the alleys and get it damp, you know, so the work would run better. And you would have to clean up the frames all under there on the rockers and idlers and all in there.

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Didn't have no air and no blow pipes. Well, you learned to do things and when somebody was out you'd have to work in their place, till you got a regular job.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How many spare hands were there?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, I imagine there was about three, three young boys, and we didn't make but, I think it was—what did we start them off at? About fifteen cents an hour?

EULA DURHAM:

What?

VERNON DURHAM:

What was it the young spare hands made? About fifteen cents an hour to start off, wasn't it?

EULA DURHAM:

Twelve and a half cents. That's what I made.

VERNON DURHAM:

Twelve and a half cents. And then the top pay, other than management, was twenty-four cents an hour.

JIM LELOUDIS:

When was this?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, it was in the forties, wasn't it? No—thirties.

JIM LELOUDIS:

That's when you first went to work?

VERNON DURHAM:

I went to work about …

EULA DURHAM:

1929.

VERNON DURHAM:

I worked some in twenties and then I quit and went back to school and then went back to work again.

JIM LELOUDIS:

You were talking about that sprinkler. What did you mean it made the work run better?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, it put more humidity in the spinning room. You had to have a certain amount of humidity. If the humidity got out, it wouldn't run good.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What would happen then?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, it would just ball up and the ends come down and it would quit running. You have to have about seventy or eighty percent humidity.

JIM LELOUDIS:

You said the ends would come down. That means the threads would break.

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, and they would ball up, lap up. But now they got a new type. They got a air conditioner, and the air conditions itself. Year round condition. Humidity and heat and everything.

JIM LELOUDIS:

And then your next job was as a doffer?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, a doffer.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What did you do on that?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, I had a certain number of frames. I had eight frames, I believe, then. I was by myself, doffed eight frames by myself. Then I finally got ten, and I finally got twelve frames, doffing. Then it was twenty-four cents an hour, top pay, for doffing.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What does that job involve?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, it's a full bobbin—when a frame gets full, just pull it right down, and have an empty bobbin that you put on there and take the full ones off. That's what you done. Then it went to the winding room and wound them on cones and spools, and tubes. That's all they had down here, was yarn. They didn't have no finished products, just yarn. Knitting yarn, hosiery yarn.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did you move from one job to the other?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, they seen I could doff, and I could make a little more doffing, so he put me on that job. [Laughter]

JIM LELOUDIS:

Is that something you'd done and learned as a spare hand?

VERNON DURHAM:

That's right.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Then how did you become supervisor?

VERNON DURHAM:

They put on just one shift then. Then they finally put on two shifts. Then finally they put on three shifts. And they put me on the second shift. I was on second shift. Foreman of spinning.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How were you chosen to do that?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, my brother was superintendent. That helped some. [Laughter] Oh, then my uncle was superintendent …

EULA DURHAM:

It was a family place.

VERNON DURHAM:

And then my brother he took his place.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What was the structure of supervision within the mill? How many supervisors were there, and who was above whom?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, in the spinning room the only one who was ahead of me was Elvin, my brother. He was superintendent. And I had two fixers under me. They had so many frames to look after. And I had to look after two. And weigh in the yarn. We got too heavy they'd change the frames and we got too light they'd change the frames, get it just right. And that's what you have to do. Look after the help. Keep the time, the hours and the time, figured up. Had to do all that. Now they don't have to do that. They've got a secretary that does all that now.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Now what do the fixers do again?

VERNON DURHAM:

When frames break down they have to fix them. And change them, they have to change the frames. Change numbers. They get a order for a certain number, say, sixteen—they may be running thirties—well, they would finally go down to sixes, didn't they?

EULA DURHAM:

They didn't make many sixes.

VERNON DURHAM:

No. You see, when they'd come and get ordered, they'd take so many frames off.

EULA DURHAM:

Tens. They made a lot of tens.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What does that mean?

EULA DURHAM:

Ten, and twelve and six are real coarse.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Oh, that's the number for the thread.

EULA DURHAM:

And then the twenty, eighteen, and twenty and twenty-two, twenty-fours and thirties, that's fine, fine thread.

JIM LELOUDIS:

So the fixer's job then was to set the frames up to spin the different qualities of thread.

VERNON DURHAM:

They'd have to have a certain number of gears to put on there to make that yarn.

EULA DURHAM:

And a certain kind of traverse. See, each time you change that frame from one number to another you had to change that traverse. It's a little bitty flag that goes on the spinning frame that carries the thread around. And you have to get that traverse right, or it'll cut those threads down.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What was this about weighing the yarn?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, you weigh it. You got the guide to go by that, and it's got to hit close to that number. Say if it's twenties, it's got to be around 19.60 to around 20.0. They'd tell you some time, they'd specify how they wanted it, what twist and everything, how much twist and everything. And you had to try to get it that way.

JIM LELOUDIS:

And that was the supervisor's job?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah. And he'd bring the order in there to me and I'd tell them what it was. What gear to use.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How many supervisors were there?

VERNON DURHAM:

Just one. My brother was the only one.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How many foremen?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, they had one in each department, the card room, the spinning room, and the winding room.

EULA DURHAM:

They didn't have nary one in the winding room then. The spinning room was in the winding room then. And now they've got one in every little corner. And don't none of them know nothing. That's the truth if ever I told it in my life.

VERNON DURHAM:

No, they're doing all right, or else it wouldn't be running.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What were your relations like with the workers?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, we was all raised up here and I knowed them all. Then, young boys staying around here, they'd learn to work in the mill, but a lot of them don't do it now, they're leaving so much. About half of the help down there now, I don't know them. They're all from other places.

EULA DURHAM:

Well, it was just like a big family down there when we was down there.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How do you mean that?

EULA DURHAM:

Everybody was raised here, you know, and lived here all their life, and knowed everybody, and was just like a big family. When one of them would get in a hole or something, all the rest of them if they weren't in a hole they'd bunch in together and help them get out, catch up.

JIM LELOUDIS:

You mean in terms of money?

EULA DURHAM:

No, in help. In the work. And they'd all catch up and all go outdoors and sing. Have a big time.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How much free time did you have to socialize in the mill?

EULA DURHAM:

Just as much as we wanted. John London was one of the best men that anybody ever worked for in their life. He was a manager—plant manager down there—and he loved to see us outdoors. He knowed then the work was running good.

JIM LELOUDIS:

You would go out whenever you got the work caught up?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah. Just go out and sit down. I have gone out and sat down as much as an hour's time. Go back and catch up my work and go back again.

JIM LELOUDIS:

And what did John London think about that?

EULA DURHAM:

Oh, he loved it. He said one time he loved to see them set out like that, he knowed the work was running good.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did you hear him say that?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah! John was really good to work for.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did you know him very well?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, I knowed him. He was raised over here in Pittsboro. And I know one morning a bunch of us was sitting out there—he come in at eight o'clock, and we went to work at seven—we was sitting out there in the window one morning when he come in. He come in, and he stopped and said, "Has the mill stopped off?" And some of them said, "No," and he laughed, he said, "I'm glad to see it running good." Said, "All of y'all out here having a good time." [Laughter] But he was, John was a good man to work for.

VERNON DURHAM:

He's still head up there.

EULA DURHAM:

But now, you can't even stick your head out the door. They don't even want you to talk to the one next to you.

VERNON DURHAM:

They got it leased now to Tuscarora Cotton Mills. I don't know how that is. But John's still got a lot to do with it.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How about Arthur London? Did he ever come in to the mill?

VERNON DURHAM:

That was his daddy.

EULA DURHAM:

That was his daddy. Oh, do you mean little Arthur?

JIM LELOUDIS:

No, I mean John's father.

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, he come in. He was another good old guy.

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, he was a good fellow.

EULA DURHAM:

One time me and this girl friend of mine went across the river over here. Had a spring over here in the edge of the woods and we caught up one morning and we walked over there and got us some water and sat down on the ground and was hunting four-leaf clovers. He drove along and stopped, said, "What y'all doing over here?" We told him we come after a drink of water and found some four-leaf clovers. And he brought us on back to the mill and we went on and caught up. And he started leaving we was back out doors again. He said, "Y'all back out again?" We said, "Yeah. Come on and carry us and get us a co-cola." He said, "You mean you want me to carry you to get a co-cola?" We said, "Yeah, carry us to get a co-cola." He brought us over here to Durham's, got us a co-cola and brought us back to the mill. [Laughter] He was good. But now he could get mad, I want you to know. Boy, he could get mad if he wanted to.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Do you remember any times in particular that he did get mad?

EULA DURHAM:

When he didn't talk, you knowed he was mad. When he didn't have nothing to say you knowed he was mad. But most of the time he was a pretty good old guy.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What would he get mad about?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, work or something or another. He didn't ever get mad at the hands much, it was always the niggers that worked in the yard most of the time or something like that. He would have a spell. But most of the time he was a pretty good old guy.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What type of work rules were there in terms of how much time you had to be in the mill, freedom to leave?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, long about then, they didn't have any rules. At all. Not when I was working there.

VERNON DURHAM:

They didn't have no lunch room then like they do now.

EULA DURHAM:

No, they didn't have no lunch room then.

VERNON DURHAM:

Little joint up here, a piece of walking from the mill, was the only place you could get drinks or things. Didn't have no box or nothing in the mill.

EULA DURHAM:

And when I first was working there you didn't have water in there. We had a cooler, and we'd go up to the well and get a bucket of water and put in that cooler and get us a chunk of ice and put in.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Where was the well located?

EULA DURHAM:

Right there above the mill. Had some good old times down there.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did people handle—you know, if they had complaints about the work?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, they'd usually go to the foreman, the one that's ahead of them, in the spinning room or carding—the department they was in. Sometimes if they didn't think they was doing like they should do, they'd go over them and go to the office out there. If he thought his boss man wasn't doing like he ought to, he'd go over him. Go to the head man, and see what he'd do about it.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did anybody ever do that to you?

VERNON DURHAM:

They have done it, haven't they?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah.

VERNON DURHAM:

But that's changed now. I don't think they want you to do that much. They told them down there not to do that no more, didn't they? Wade Barton told them not to do that.

EULA DURHAM:

I never did go to my boss man or superintendent or nothing about nothing. Not till this company took over, and we didn't get along at all.

VERNON DURHAM:

That wasn't his name, was it?

EULA DURHAM:

What?

VERNON DURHAM:

Wade.

EULA DURHAM:

Wade—Gardner.

VERNON DURHAM:

Oh, Gardner. I said Barton.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What was wrong that you didn't get along?

EULA DURHAM:

Cause they didn't know nothing. And you couldn't tell them nothing. They learned theirs by books, and I learned mine by

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self-experience. Down there one time, I was working on second shift, and on the frame they got a traverse chain that pulls the traverse that runs the rack up and down on the frame and fills the frame up. And one of the chains was out. And when it hit that chain it'd just stand there and idle, just like that. Bobbin would get bigger and bigger. And I told them one day, I said, "That there traverse chain is broke is what's causing that." He said, "It ain't so." I said, "Well, I know good and well that it is." So after he went home, I stopped the frame off and went off in the basement and got me a chain and come back and put it on. Started the frame up and the frame run just as pretty as you ever seen. So the next morning the big man from Mount Pleasant came. I was standing up the hall a way from where the frame was, and he told this man—well, the man was down there that morning, telling them to do something—and he was standing there and told this man, "Well, I fixed that frame last night." He said, "Yeah," said, "Looks like it's running pretty good." And I turned around to him and said, "Who fixed it?" He said, "I did." I said, "You know good and well that's a lie." I said, "You said there wasn't nothing the matter with that frame." And, I said, "I fixed it myself." This man turned around me and said, "I knowed you did." I said, "Well, I know damn well I did too." [Laughter] They just didn't know nothing. And they didn't want you to tell them. That's the truth. And you can ask any of them down there, they'll tell you. Don't none of them know nothing. And it's the type of people that don't want you to tell them nothing. I told them I've been down there forty-five years; I know when anything was running right and when it weren't. Cause

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weren't a frame in that mill I hadn't tore down and put back together. Tore down every one of them. I know exactly what's the matter with them.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Have there been any other changes under this new management?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, they have rules to go by—I believe they still got them, I don't know.

EULA DURHAM:

You got a certain time to go eat, you got a certain time to take a break, you got a certain time to do anything—to smoke. They've got you timed.

VERNON DURHAM:

In the winding room every two hours they have a break, a fifteen or twenty minute break. And they're supposed to clear out of the lunch room when they're… There's so many of them when they all go in at one time. They're supposed to have a break of their own and they fill the lunch room most of the time when they go in. Every two hours they have a break.

EULA DURHAM:

But I'm telling you I took my break when I got ready. I told them I had been working in there and never had to call on nobody to help me. I kept my work up, and I had sense enough to know how long to stand, and how long to stay away from my work, and I'd go when I got ready. And me and him had a fuss about that one day. I said, "Well, when you catch my sides balled up and me a-setting in here then you can come after me. But if my sides ain't balled up, don't you come in here after me." I said, "Cause I've been here a whole lot longer than you have." He never did come after me no more.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How does that compare to the way it used to be?

EULA DURHAM:

It just ain't no ways like it used to be. No ways. When you worked then it didn't run bad. That cotton was altogether

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different from this here old polyester and nylon and mess.

VERNON DURHAM:

Mostly now it's synthetic blends, polyester, acrilan.

EULA DURHAM:

When it balls up that filter can't take care of it as fast as it'll come out there.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What do you mean by "balls up"?

EULA DURHAM:

The end will break and you see the end goes through some rolls, goes through the rolls and mashes that thread out just like foam or something. Sometimes it'll be a pile that big. And that old blower come along right down and sometime will tear down a whole side end, if you're not there to catch it. It's a mess.

VERNON DURHAM:

They have pneumafils now that catch it before it falls, and sucks the waste out into the waste box. And sometimes it gets stopped up, it gets so much that it'll just cause a lot of ends to come down.

EULA DURHAM:

A cloud of dust.

VERNON DURHAM:

But it used to, the old frames had revolving scavenger rolls—what they call a scavenger roll, most of them called it a lap stick then. They'd just catch the end and they'd go around the lap stick. The spinner would have to come along, take that thing and strip it, and put it back. They've changed that new frame so they're not that way.

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, but I like them lap sticks better than I do these old things.

VERNON DURHAM:

And they're spring-weighted now, the drag system on the spring where you got so much weight on each roll. There's three top rolls and there's three bottom rolls, steel ones. And used to be a strip

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to use as a weight level, dead weight to pull the springs. But it's spring weighted now, you don't have all that. The new frames don't have that all. Supposed to have so much weight on each roll.

EULA DURHAM:

Didn't none of them know how to weight it down, though.

JIM LELOUDIS:

So you think that most of the problems of the work running bad is because of the synthetic material:

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, and another thing I think …

VERNON DURHAM:

If they get top grade of it …

EULA DURHAM:

If they get good grade of stuff, it runs pretty good. But they ain't.

VERNON DURHAM:

If they fall off and get the lower grade of some kind, it'll make probably a little more profit out of it. But I believe what they say, they're trying to run a good grade of fiber in there.

EULA DURHAM:

Well, I ain't been down there since last February.

VERNON DURHAM:

They have some yarns that have so much cotton in it, 85/15, 50/50, sometimes different blends. Whatever they specify they want.

EULA DURHAM:

If they put all cotton back down there again I'd take a job. I don't like that mess. It's something. Long back yonder when work was running, his brother whole lot of times he'd catch up, his brother would go to the house. And his daddy had an old Model A car. He'd go to the house and steal that car, run down there and we'd load up. And had a road that went down, you know, down by the river, come out over yonder on Mount Gilead Road. And we'd load up in that car and

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take off. Go all down through there, ride. One time we went fishing, down there behind the mill. Fishing. We made us a fishing hook out of a pin, and got us a stick. And we kept putting threads together to make it strong enough, you know. There was about seven or eight of us setting back there behind the mill on the river bank fishing. His daddy was boss man then. We was setting there just a-fishing up a storm, and heard the weeds a-cracking, we looked up and there he was. He said, "I want every one of you"—we weren't nothing but younguns, none of us …

JIM LELOUDIS:

How old were you?

EULA DURHAM:

Fourteen. He said, "I want every one of you back in that mill right now." He marched us back in the mill. Well then, they had an old elevator, that you pulled ropes and would carry you up. Well, we studied after we seen his feet go up in the spinning room. One of the boys got up on the platform—and the winding room was down in the bottom, we walked up on the platform to go out there. He got up on there and whistled, motioned that he'd gone upstairs. And we took off again. TomHearne, poor soul, he was way I was winding and he was weighing up yarn. He said, "I tell you right now, you kids about to worry me to death." Said, "You can't keep you in here to save your life." Said, "The man's coming back there getting ready to kill every one of you."

JIM LELOUDIS:

Was that soon after you went to work? How old were you when you first went in the mill?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah. Well, I was thirteen, and I would be fourteen in August, when I went to work.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What was your first job?

EULA DURHAM:

Winding. And I went from winding to spinning. And I spun for years and years and I went on third shift—they put a third shift on down there—and I went to doffing. Then I doffed a while, then they got another new man down there on third, he put me a section hand, running a section. And I run that, six months.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What is that?

EULA DURHAM:

Keep all the frames, you know—bad rollers and things that the hands would take out—put in, and something the matter with the end or something they couldn't make run, they'd break it back and you had to fix it. All the dirty work. Then that new company took us over and they hired all them colored people, hadn't none of them been nowhere but in a cotton field. And you talk about a mess, honey, I had to learn all of them. Lord have mercy! Some of them would learn it; you didn't have a bit of trouble in the world with them. And some of them you could stand there and show them till judgment day and wouldn't know a bit more what you said than he did when you started. There was one old big fat colored woman down there. She'd been down there about four weeks and she never had got to where she could put up ends. She told me one night, said, "What's the matter with me?" I said, "I don't know—me or you one is dumb, I don't know which one it is." She left, she never did come back no more. But some of them made good hands, and they're still down there.

JIM LELOUDIS:

When did blacks first start working at the mill?

EULA DURHAM:

When this company took over—when was that?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, on the inside. First time they worked on the inside. They had some on the yard, but that was the first time they went on the inside.

EULA DURHAM:

What year was that?

VERNON DURHAM:

It was 1973. 1972 was when they took over. 1972.

EULA DURHAM:

Some of them was good and some of them—well, they still got some good ones down there that was leanred, you know, when the mill started.

VERNON DURHAM:

Frank worked with one or two up in the opening room before they come in, but in the spinning room—no, they never done spinning.

EULA DURHAM:

Oh yeah, Lois Wilson, you know, she was the first colored woman that come in there to work. And they put her to sweeping.

JIM LELOUDIS:

When was that?

EULA DURHAM:

About '72, weren't it?

VERNON DURHAM:

'72 was when Tuscarora signed the lease for it.

EULA DURHAM:

Well, this here was before Tuscarora took over, when this gal come to work.

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, they started putting them in, because John started working some. Equal rights—equal opportunities—they was going to complain about it.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did the rest of the people in the mill react to that?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, they done pretty good, didn't they?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, they done pretty good. Never did have no trouble with them at all, as I know of. I don't know of any of them ever had and trouble with any of them. They was nice, and all the whites treated them nice. They got along good.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did any of the whites complain?

EULA DURHAM:

No, I never heard none of them complain at all. Got along mighty good, I think.

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, and they do now, down there.

EULA DURHAM:

Well, I tell you, that's a pretty good bunch of black ones that works down there. All of them. A pretty good bunch.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Where do most of them come from?

EULA DURHAM:

Around Pittsboro, around in the country.

VERNON DURHAM:

Don't any of them live around here in Bynum, do they?

EULA DURHAM:

No, they all come from out on Siler City Road, and around Pittsboro, and back up here in the country toward Chapel Hill.

JIM LELOUDIS:

So most of them are driving in, I guess?

EULA DURHAM:

Right. They're oh, pretty good, I think. Never had no trouble with none of them.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Well, let's go back to your job as a supervisor …

VERNON DURHAM:

A foreman.

JIM LELOUDIS:

I mean, as a foreman. What were your relationships with the workers outside the mill like?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, outside the mill, they got along all right, I reckon. They all knew one another and was raised up together and we was just like home folks. We got along all right.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did the… Let me cut this off for a few minutes.

[Interruption]

JIM LELOUDIS:

Where did you live at that time? Were there any special houses?

VERNON DURHAM:

We lived on the hill a while, about two years I believe, wasn't it? The company they had owned these houses all the way down the hill. We didn't have nothing but the… My brother built

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the house we moved in. It was on the road then; we lived up there a good while. Finally come down here.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Were there any houses that were reserved for the supervisors?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, they had one over here close to the mill, top of the hill close to the mill, for the superintendent.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How about the foremen?

VERNON DURHAM:

No, they didn't have any specialized for them.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did any of you live close together?

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, I lived over there on top of the hill and my brother lived in the superintendent's house down here close to the mill. That was about as close as we ever did get.

JIM LELOUDIS:

We were talking about people's complaints. Was there ever any talk of unionizing?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, they started once or twice, but never could go through with them. Never did.

ARCHIE DURHAM:

Weren't some people fired for that?

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]

ARCHIE DURHAM:

They knew damn well if she did everything else. I remember that.

VERNON DURHAM:

He's taping that. You might say something, only he's taping that.

ARCHIE DURHAM:

Good.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Who tried to organize the union?

VERNON DURHAM:

Who was it? Somebody from …

EULA DURHAM:

Silk mill. Pittsboro.

VERNON DURHAM:

First thing I heard of it was they had a meeting up here at the old schoolhouse one time.

EULA DURHAM:

It started from the silk mill right near Pittsboro. That's where they started the union over there. And they come down here trying to start one.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Do you remember when that was?

VERNON DURHAM:

We lived up the road didn't we?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah …

ARCHIE DURHAM:

It was down here in '51, wasn't it?

VERNON DURHAM:

It was '36 or '37, weren't it?

EULA DURHAM:

They didn't get nowhere with it.

ARCHIE DURHAM:

They tried to unionize one time during my lifetime, I know.

VERNON DURHAM:

That was when we was up the road, about '36 or '37 one.

ARCHIE DURHAM:

I wasn't born in '36 or '37.

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, that was the second time, then.

ARCHIE DURHAM:

They tried several times. It was up in the fifties when I was…

JIM LELOUDIS:

Was 1936 or 37 the time they had the meeting at the school?

VERNON DURHAM:

About '37, weren't it?

JIM LELOUDIS:

Were there any workers from the mill who were involved in the organizational effort?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, there was a few, but …

EULA DURHAM:

Not many.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How was that meeting set up?

VERNON DURHAM:

I don't know who started it.

EULA DURHAM:

I don't know either, 'cause I didn't go. Didn't want to give up my freedom for a union then.

ARCHIE DURHAM:

It was exactly the opposite.

VERNON DURHAM:

They never did go through there, never did go. They still don't belong to no union down there.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did you feel about it?

VERNON DURHAM:

I wasn't never boss man then; I was just a regular hand. I just went with the crowd. I just go along with the crowd up there. I don't know what all they—I don't even remember who they were—the leaders were, that started it.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What did you think about it?

EULA DURHAM:

Why, I didn't… They come in there and told me to come on and I said, "I'll not do it. I can go outdoors when I get ready and come in when I please and I ain't paying that union nothing." Several got mad about it. I didn't care.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did a lot of people feel that way?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah. The biggest majority of them.

ARCHIE DURHAM:

They didn't really understand it, did they, Mama? They didn't understand what the union was all about.

EULA DURHAM:

Well, they had a bunch of dumbheads trying to tell you. The union's a good thing if you had somebody, you know—but the ones that come over here messing with it from Pittsboro, they had just started in to that union and they didn't know what they was doing.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What did they tell you when they tried to get you to come in?

EULA DURHAM:

Lord, I don't know. They had the biggest rigamarole, that you could do this, and that you couldn't get fired, that the union would stand by you, and they'd do this—you ain't never heard such a meeting.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did John London react to that?

EULA DURHAM:

He didn't like it at all.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did he ever say anything to you about it?

EULA DURHAM:

He didn't say nothing to me about it. I know he didn't like it. He run them away from there one time.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Some of the organizers?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, They come down there and set out down there. He come in there one day at dinner—he run them away.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did he ever say anything to the employees about it?

EULA DURHAM:

Not that I know of.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did the superintendent and the foremen react?

VERNON DURHAM:

My uncle, Edgar Moore was superintendent then. My brother he was a foreman, a supervisor on the second shift. My daddy he was a foreman in the spinning room. They didn't go along with it. They didn't go along with the union at all.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did John London ever say anything to them about it?

VERNON DURHAM:

I don't know whether he did or not. I imagine he did, though. Course they weren't for it noway.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Do you remember how they felt about it? Anything they ever said?

VERNON DURHAM:

They just didn't like it. They didn't want it.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Do you know why they felt that way?

VERNON DURHAM:

I just don't know—whether they thought it might hurt them in the long run, or what. I don't know.

JIM LELOUDIS:

That was the first attempt. When was the second?

EULA DURHAM:

That was just before Mr. Moore retired, weren't it? Well, I believe that was a bunch that second time…

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, I didn't know much about that …

EULA DURHAM:

I didn't either 'cause they kept that quiet.

VERNON DURHAM:

I was foreman then, and they didn't let me know nothing then.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Do you remember about what year that was?

VERNON DURHAM:

I sure don't.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Just roughly?

VERNON DURHAM:

I don't. Do you?

EULA DURHAM:

No, I don't. They went around and told certain ones. It was kind of a secret. Just told certain ones, you know. They thought they could get, you know, so many of them and then the rest of them would have to join.

JIM LELOUDIS:

We were talking about people getting fired a while ago. Did people lose their jobs if they got involved?

EULA DURHAM:

I don't know.

VERNON DURHAM:

No, they might have threatened, sent something around that they might happen something if they got involved, but I don't think they ever fired anybody, do you?

EULA DURHAM:

No, I don't know if they ever fired anybody. I never heard tell of it.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Were there ever any strikes?

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, they struck down there, but it didn't hold up either. I don't think they ever went through with it, did they? They broke it.

EULA DURHAM:

The doffers struck.

VERNON DURHAM:

Yeah, they'd just go out and sit down. And then the winders and spinners struck one time. It was when Uncle Edgar was there.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Do you remember when any of those strikes were?

VERNON DURHAM:

It was in the thirties, weren't it?

EULA DURHAM:

No, they's been one since then.

VERNON DURHAM:

Well, have they had any trouble like that since this new bunch…

EULA DURHAM:

No, I don't know.

VERNON DURHAM:

No, I don't believe they have.

EULA DURHAM:

Not when I was working down there.

VERNON DURHAM:

Oh, since this new group has come in they're making better than they ever have.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Why did those people go out on strikes?

VERNON DURHAM:

Probably wasn't making enough, or overworked, or something. Didn't make enough for what the work they did, or something.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Were either one of you involved in either one of those?

EULA DURHAM:

No.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did they win?

VERNON DURHAM:

I don't think so. I don't believe they did, did they?

EULA DURHAM:

Naw. No, I know one time, the spinning room went out there and wanted more money or something, and John told them he'd shut down before he'd give any more, and they went back to work.

VERNON DURHAM:

They make good down there now. More than they ever have.

EULA DURHAM:

It ain't like it used to be.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Were there any hard feelings among the workers after some went out and some refused?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, some of them got kind of ticked out about it, but didn't take them long to get over it. They come around and wouldn't speak or nothing, but it didn't amount to nothing, cause sooner or later they had to call on them. Didn't amount to nothing.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What do you mean they had to call on them?

EULA DURHAM:

For help, or something.

JIM LELOUDIS:

You mean the other workers in the mill?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah. I know one woman she went out with that bunch of strikrs down there one time. She come over to me, said, "Come over here and help me—I ain't never seen such a mess as I'm in. Please help me some." I said, "I'll not do it. If you'd been in here like you ought to have been instead of out yonder striking," I said, "You wouldn't have got in a mess." And she went for a long time didn't speak to me, Lizzie Neals.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Do you remember any other instances like that?

EULA DURHAM:

No, I don't believe I do. But this she got so mad at me that day, she went up in. Well, she didn't even want to join the union. Well, she had a lot of curiosity, and she wanted to find out what was going on. She was a big old fat woman and she couldn't run no sides noway. She nosed around out there till she ain't never seen such a mess as she was in. And I was helping around that day. "Come on over here and help me some. I won't never get out of my hole." I said, "I'll not do it." I said, "Cause if you'd have been on your sides like you ought to have been instead of out there nosing around, you wouldn't have been in that mess." I said, "I ain't going to do it."

JIM LELOUDIS:

How long did the strikes last?

VERNON DURHAM:

They didn't last long.

EULA DURHAM:

About an hour or two.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Oh, is that all? I had the impression that they lasted much longer than that.

EULA DURHAM:

No! About an hour or two.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did John London usually come up and say something?

EULA DURHAM:

No. I don't know whether he did or not, cause I never was out there.

VERNON DURHAM:

Uncle Eddie was superintendent down there, wasn't he?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, he was superintendent then.

JIM LELOUDIS:

We were talking about the thirties. Do you remember the general strike in 1934?

VERNON DURHAM:

'34?

JIM LELOUDIS:

Yeah, when I think the mill workers all over North Carolina went out on strike.

VERNON DURHAM:

Oh. Well, I don't remember anything about it.

EULA DURHAM:

I don't think they did down here.

VERNON DURHAM:

No, Henderson Cotton Mill over here, they had some bad trouble over there with striking, but didn't have no trouble around here then.

JIM LELOUDIS:

There were groups called flying squadrons that went from mill to mill to try to shut them down. Did any of them come to Bynum?

VERNON DURHAM:

No, I don't think so.

EULA DURHAM:

Not that I know of.

VERNON DURHAM:

This might not have been a large enough concern down here for them to visit. But they really played havoc over here at Henderson Cotton Mill.

JIM LELOUDIS:

While we're in the thirties, earlier you said something about the NRA. How did the mill run in the depression?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, we'd go to work at six of a morning and work till six at night. Get a hour for dinner. And I was spinning then. And I was making twelve and a half cents an hour. And when NRA come in, they raised me to thirty-four cents.

VERNON DURHAM:

When NRA come in, it was thirty cents. Forty hours, thirty cents an hour.

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, I thought I was rich. I wound when I first went in there, and some of them would work six days. Now we worked till dinner on Saturday.

VERNON DURHAM:

We worked sixty hours a week.

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah. Worked six hours on Saturday, and it was about five or six of us winding girls, we'd count up what we'd made on Friday night and if we'd made five dollars we didn't do nothing Saturday morning.

VERNON DURHAM:

Before NRA come in, there was a depression. It was on short time down there.

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, I know it.

VERNON DURHAM:

And President Roosevelt come in and he changed it, put it over on forty hours a week, thirty cents an hour. And all over forty hours paid time and a half. So, that's what caught them napping. We was working they didn't do it then, but eleven hours a day but the depression come on, they went to working eight hours a day—like you was on a vacation. Just being to eight. But during the depression, things was bad.

EULA DURHAM:

Lord, yes.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How bad did it get?

VERNON DURHAM:

They come down to about ten cent an hour, and on short time at that. You done good if you made seven or eight dollars a week. We weren't on unemployment insurance—no, we didn't have any. But now, if things get dull now—if they don't make as much as twenty-four dollars a week, they can draw unemployment.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did that affect people working in the mill?

VERNON DURHAM:

What—the unemployment?

JIM LELOUDIS:

Yeah, when they cut wages and hours back so much.

EULA DURHAM:

Everybody like to starved. That's the truth.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did you make it through it?

EULA DURHAM:

I don't know. Just survived some way or another.

VERNON DURHAM:

A company house on the hill, only was about fifty cents or a dollar a payday, rent.

EULA DURHAM:

Oh, the three-room houses was fifty cents, and the four-room houses was seventy-five, and the five-room houses was a dollar. That was every two weeks. That was what they paid for rent every two weeks. And they paid that till this company took over. They paid that until it was sold—no, I believe it went up to two dollars on the houses, didn't they?

VERNON DURHAM:

Might have went up some then.

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, and then after this company bought them and took over, then they sold the houses to the ones that wanted to buy them. The ones that lived in them and wanted to buy the house, they sold them to the ones that wanted to buy them. And the ones that didn't want to buy them, then they rented them. But the most of them that lives in them over there now, they own—bought. And there's some man had bought a lot of them houses over there. Yeah, Wolf. And he bought a lot—about three.

VERNON DURHAM:

Four, counting that other one.

EULA DURHAM:

And there's two girls over there that works in Chapel Hill, and go to school or something, live in one of them. And the house where they live in was fifty cents a week, and now he charges one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month.

VERNON DURHAM:

A hundred and fifty. Somebody told me a hundred and fifty dollars a month.

EULA DURHAM:

No, Carrie LEE said, that lived in front of them said she said that they paid a hundred and twenty-five a month. And the house used to rent for fifty cents.

JIM LELOUDIS:

We were talking about the depression. What did you do to keep from starving, if wages were that low?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, you had to scrimp and save, just eat anything you could get a-hold of, that you could make a meal off of. Most of them though worked out in the field, you know, for people and farmed, worked in the fields, and most of them had gardens and things like that. They all got along pretty good. But NRA come in. I know one man—he's dead now—that lived over there. He said that weren't such a thing as milk gravy. He said he eat Hoover gravy. He said that finally somebody had a cow and he'd buy a quart of sweet milk a week from them. And he said that he'd eat so much milk gravy till every time he seen a cow he said, hello, lady, how are you? But he said he eat water gravy, and he hoped he'd live long enough to see Hoover eat water gravy.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How did people around here feel about Hoover?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, I don't think they thought too much of him, cause you see, everybody had, you know, just a pretty good living. So he come in and starved everybody to death. I don't think too many people nowhere liked him.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What was the reaction to Roosevelt?

EULA DURHAM:

Oh, they loved him. Boy, he pulled them out of the ditch. They loved him to death. Well, everybody everywhere I've ever heard say anything about him—well, it wasn't only in Bynum neither. It was everywhere. Everybody was in the same ditch everywhere. I know I heard a friend lived down here below Pittsboro down here in Asbury—old woman—and she said that if she hadn't had a good garden and if she hadn't had her own pig and cow that she didn't know what in the world she would have done. She sold milk at ten cents a gallon and butter fifteen cents a cake and she said she had some hens, she sold eggs. I've forgotten now how much she said she sold the eggs for. And said that's the way she dressed her younguns to send them to school, from what she sold.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did people pull together and help each other out?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What type things would they do?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, if they had a lot to eat or anything, they'd divide with other people. And Bynum's always been good about that. If anybody here ever gets down or sick or disabled to work or anything, they've always been good to chip in and help them out in every way they could, give them money or give them food. Bynum has really been good about that. I've been here about all my life and I don't know of nobody here that ever would have sickness or anything like that but what somebody would chip in and help them out. There was a lot of old people here then, during that depression, that weren't able to work at all. And I've knowed the younguns around to go clean out their yards and help them clean the house, and do things like that, where they didn't have no money to hire

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somebody to help them out.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Were you ever involved in anything like that?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, no, I went to work at the mill all along then. All I had to do, I had to work. Cause there was twelve of us. I had to work, but I had a sister that did. She done a lot of helping out, you know, around, different people and all. She was younger than I was. But they all been mighty good around here about helping out each other. That depression got everybody. I know my mama, along then I said I didn't know what a new dress was, nor a pair of shoes till I got old enough to go to work. I wore hand-me-downs, cause there was twelve of us, and whenever one would outgrow anything mama would—she could sew, and she'd take that thing and cut it down and fix it so the younger ones could wear it. And when they got where they couldn't wear it and they hadn't wore it out, she'd patch that thing up and fix it up and the one down below you got it. I told everybody I didn't know what a new dress was, or a pair of shoes until I went to work.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did you get to keep some of your money when you went to work?

EULA DURHAM:

When I went to work, my daddy give me twenty-five cents payday out of my check. Well, they didn't pay off in checks then, they paid in money. And he'd give me twenty-five cents and I thought I was rich.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What did you do with it?

EULA DURHAM:

Law, this old man live up above us and ran a little old store. When I'd get my quarter on Saturday morning I'd run up there and I'd get me… Then they had, Oh Boy chewing gum, come in a long stick about that long and about as wide as your two fingers. And they was a penny. And Mary Janes, they come in a long thing then, weren't them little short things. Come long, about like that, you know. They

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was a penny. Well, I'd get me some Oh Boy chewing gum and some Mary Janes, and then he had a three cent copper—a drink that tasted almost like a Dr. Pepper. They called it a three cent copper. And I'd get me one of them. And boy, I thought that was the best pay, and I'd eat it. One time, I never will forget, my sisters watched me, and would get my candy and stuff. Well, we lived in this old house and you could walk up under it, and it weren't underpinned or nothing. It had rafters up under there. Well, I took my candy and chewing gum, put it in a little sack, went under the house and hid it up under there in one of them rafters. [Laughter] I won't never forget that thing as long as I live. And next day I went out there to get a piece of my candy and chewing gum. And went out there and got my sack down and it was just loaded with ants. The ants had found it. I said, Lord-a-mercy, what am I going to do, they've got my candy and my chewing gum. Well, this here old friend of mine lived up there above us, she said, well, I tell you what we'll do. We'll take it down to the branch and wash it. Said, we'll wash it off, wash them ants off. We took it down to the branch and washed the candy and I said, "Well, you eat a piece first." She said, "No, you eat a piece." I said, "No, you eat one. If it's fresh then I'll eat one." Well, we finally throwed it away. We nary one could get nerve enough to eat that candy. And I never did put any more of my candy under the house. [Laughter]

JIM LELOUDIS:

The ants knew your hiding place!

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, they just eat my candy up, and my Oh Boy chewing gum! Boy, when you got a big piece of candy then, or chewing gum, you was really setting pretty. Got an old doll, one Christmas—the only thing I remember in my life getting as a kid. An old doll, about that

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high. And along then they didn't make them out of rubber, made them out of some old stuff like pasteboard and painted them. Well, we had a big—it was a Saturday, after dinner, and we'd all go down to the branch. We had a big branch down there in front of the house. And so we was going to have a baptizing. We carried out dolls down there, you know, and banked up some water, baptized the dolls and laid them out. Well, come up a cloud and we run up to the house and forgot our dolls and left them down there. After the cloud was over and some sun come out bright, you know, I went down there and that doll, looked it was ninety years old, it was just cracked all to pieces. I said, "Lord I have ruint the doll!" And this girl had one, had some hair. Hers had hair on it. And every bit of her hair come off. We never did bring our dolls to no more baptizing. Oh, Lord.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did you have to buy any of your own clothes with the money that you got?

EULA DURHAM:

No, he bought my clothes—what I got. All I got was that twenty-five cents, and boy, I thought I was rich. And there was a girl that lived up the road here, she worked down there too. Well, her folks kind of thought they was kind of rich, you know. And she would get her whole five dollars on payday. She didn't pay no board or nothing. She got her whole five dollars. Lord, I thought that was the richest woman I ever seen in my life. Her getting five dollars, and me a quarter. But now they was me, and Ruth, and Lance, and Grassie—all of us. There was four of us that worked. And they were getting all we were making. There was about six or eight at home then.

VERNON DURHAM:

Your brother wasn't working then, was he?

EULA DURHAM:

No. And Papa would give Lance—that was my oldest brother—two dollars out of his. And give me and Ruth and Grassie a quarter apiece. Lord, I thought I was rich when I got that quarter. Lord, I was the richest somebody in the world. Reckon what they'd do now if somebody was to take their youngun's paycheck and give them a quarter?

JIM LELOUDIS:

The kid would have a fit.

EULA DURHAM:

No, you wouldn't ever live! But that's the truth. That's what I got out of a paycheck was twenty-five cents every two weeks. But then you could take that twenty-five cents and buy more than you can with five dollars now. Yes sir. Co-colas and things was a nickel, but them there little three cent coppers… You remember when pepsi colas used to be a little old bottle that looked like it was squeezed in the middle? That's the kind of bottle them there little three cent coppers was in. In a thing like that. Law, I never will forget unknown. I just had gone to work down there. And preacher had a revival in Rock Springs. And preacher come down here Sunday. And the old kitchen that we had, there was a window—well, you could stand on the ground and the window come right along here on you. And Papa made all us younguns wait, you know, and all grown folks eat, and the preacher eat. And he was setting at the end of this window. And I was so hungry. And I was standing there watching, and he just kept on eating chicken and kept on eating chicken. I stuck my head in there, I said, "Don't eat it all; save me a piece." Papa heard me. He come out there and I thought he'd kill me! He said, "If you ever do such a stupid thing again…" I said, "Papa, he's done eat two or three pieces!" I said, "He's going to eat every bit and I ain't going to get a bit." Well, I tell you one thing. I never did say it no more. Cause I thought he was going to kill me.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How old were you, Mr. Durham, during the depression?

VERNON DURHAM:

Let me figure it out. I was born in 1907 …

EULA DURHAM:

And this here was …

VERNON DURHAM:

'26.

EULA DURHAM:

Right after Hoover got in.

VERNON DURHAM:

I was about twenty-six, twenty-seven years old.

EULA DURHAM:

That's when Hoover got in—no, it was before Hoover got in, when I told that preacher that. Cause I hadn't ever gone to work at the mill. I was still a little one. I remember telling him not to eat all that chicken, but I'll never tell him no more, you bet your soul.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did you have any experiences like that?

VERNON DURHAM:

No, I don't believe I did. I didn't get too much when I first went to work.

EULA DURHAM:

You know, along then younguns would—along when I was growing up—at Easter, kids would hide eggs. Go around to hen nestes and get a egg or two every day and hide them so you'd have some for Easter. Well, Papa had about twelve or fourteen old Rhode Island Red hens.

[TAPE 2, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]

JIM LELOUDIS:

You were telling me a story about Easter.

EULA DURHAM:

And Papa said, "I know good and well them hens ain't laying." Well, I'd go around every evening late before Mama and them would come home from work. And I'd steal me two or three eggs. And we had an old barn with a big old loft to it, and he had it full of hay. Well, I'd steal two or three eggs every day and I'd carry them up to the loft and hide them up under that hay. Well, Easter come and Mama said, "Well, I don't know what I'm going to do." Said, "I ain't got too many eggs for

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Easter." I said, "I got some, Mama." She said, "How'd you get any eggs?" I said, "I hid me some." Said, "Well, go get them." And I went down there and got to pulling in that hay, and she had a little old basket—it was about that big around and about that high with a handle on it. I took that little old basket and went down there. I said, "I've got a few eggs." When I got down there and got to pulling that hay back, I had that basket piled plumb full of eggs. You never seen so many eggs in your life as I had. And I carried them back home, and I thought I'd done something good, you know. He got that old razor strop down, he said, "If you ever do anything like that again, I'll beat you good." Said, "Me a-worrying about my hens and you hiding the eggs!" I said, "Well, I thought I was doing something good. I thought it would be good." And I was a-hiding—not no more you won't.

VERNON DURHAM:

He didn't see the humor in it.

EULA DURHAM:

One time this old man lived up there above us in unknown. He had a big old cotton field. Well, we done picked all our cotton. Papa farmed—that was before I went to work. But he wanted us to go up there and help him pick cotton. Well, me and my two sisters went over there and we picked cotton all day long that day for that old man. Thought, well, I was going to have me some money. I got through picking that evening late, started home, and he said, "Well, I don't know. I reckon you're worth a dime." And he give me a dime for picking cotton all day. I went home and I cried, I was so mad. Papa said, "If you don't sit down and hush I'm going to tear you all to pieces. That's all that old man had." I said, "Well, he ought to have told me that before I picked that cotton. I wouldn't have picked it." Old man Long over yonder. He said, "Well, you're going

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back tomorrow and you're going to pick cotton if he don't give you but a nickel." I went back, but I didn't pick much cotton. Yes, sir, give me a dime for picking cotton all day long. Couldn't buy nothing with that dime. I thought I was going to have some money.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What were the other holidays like in your house?

EULA DURHAM:

Oh Lord, when Christmas come, Mama she'd start cooking about a week before Christmas. And Papa then raised his own hogs and things, and he'd raise them old big hogs. Mama'd cook a ham, she'd make every kind of cake in the world you could think of, and along then people didn't have freezers—they canned everything. Papa always had a big garden and she'd cook up a big Christmas dinner. You couldn't go to the store and buy beef like you can now. This old man brought it around that killed his own cows. He brought it around in a truck, and he'd cut you off a hunk and sell it to you. Mama'd get a big hunk of that, make a big pot of beef hash. Oh, we thought we was in heaven then. Never seen a apple or orange on Christmas. I didn't even know they had apples and oranges only what growed out of them trees around the house, for Christmas. And now younguns has them every day. Everything. Shoot.

JIM LELOUDIS:

Did the way you celebrated Christmas and Thanksgiving change any once you moved into Bynum?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, not much, cause my daddy was the kind that he celebrated every holiday. Every holiday. We'd go to church up there at Rocky Springs Christmas night. They'd have a Christmas tree reached the top of the church, and everything in the world weren't put down under

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the tree like it is now, it was hung on that tree. And you'd stay up there half the night. You thought you was something then. I tell you, you couldn't wait to get up there to them Christmas trees.

JIM LELOUDIS:

You didn't have a Christmas tree at your house then?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah. We'd make a Christmas tree, go out in the woods and cut us a tree, and string popcorn. You didn't have no decorations then on the tree, you'd string popcorn and take paper and cut it up in little pieces and glue them together to make rings and hook them together. And take old crayons and color all them rings a different color, you know. String them around on it. You didn't have no—what decoration you had was home-made decoration. You couldn't go buy decorations or nothing like that and put on a tree.

JIM LELOUDIS:

You were talking about presents being hung on the tree at the church.

EULA DURHAM:

They'd tie them on the limbs, on the cedar tree, you know.

JIM LELOUDIS:

But would your family have their presents on that tree?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, everybody would take their presents to church, you know. And have a big Christmas tree at the church. All that went to church. And then they'd have a program in there like they do now, only now they just have a little bitty tree and stick every little package down under the tree and all and don't have them hanging up in the tree. And this here woman that lived up over there above us, she was kind of the head of the church. unknown it would tickle her to death. She had a little boy he was about four years old. And she got him a double-barrel shotgun, put it on this tree. And somebody would

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get up there and take the presents and hand them to somebody. And they'd read the name out and somebody'd carry it to them. They got this double-barrel shotgun off, and old man Jim Baker, an old man that used to go to church there, he was the one that read the names. He read that name out, he says, "E. Landon Tippett." She jumped up in the church said, "That's my boy! That's my boy! That's his shotgun! I got him that shotgun and I paid fifteen dollars for it!" Along then fifteen dollars was a hundred now, and I won't never forget that thing as long as I live. Every time I see that boy I think about it. And I was telling this girl friend of mine about that, and every time she sees him, that's what she'll say. She said, "Lord, I'd love to have come along about that time." I tell you, Lord, we had the best time at church on Sunday evenings. Crack hickory nuts or play games and things. Younguns now don't even have a good time like they used to. They got to get out, get into some kind of meanness. And, would go up there and play. The Sunday School teacher, she would have a picnic about every Saturday for them all. She worked down there in the mill. She'd have a big picnic for us, we'd go up there and she'd have home-made cookies, peanut butter and crackers, and Lord, us younguns thought we was in heaven. Get up there at that picnic with her.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What types of games did you play?

EULA DURHAM:

We played jack rock, hopscotch, things like that. That was the only kind of games we knowed anything about.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What was jack rock?

EULA DURHAM:

See, you got five rocks—you got six rocks. Well, you throw up one rock and grab one and catch that rock when it comes back down. One. Then you'll throw it up again and catch two. And throw it

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up again and catch three. And then you bob the jack to catch all four.

VERNON DURHAM:

I thought you had to catch them on the back of your hand.

EULA DURHAM:

You do when you throw them up. They're little bitty ones. You throw them up and catch them on the back of your hand and you do it three times and then you throw them out. Then you catch the big rock up. Throw it up and get one, and get two, then get three. Then you have four down there. You throw the rock up and grab the four and catch that rock. They call that bob-jacking. That's what we'd play.

JIM LELOUDIS:

What other type things did kids do to entertain themselves?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, they played gulley march. Over there where we lived there was a field on each side and then a big old gully went down. Well, if you could run and jump that gully while the rest of them would march under you—if you could run and jump over and not him nary one of them, you'd gully marched.

JIM LELOUDIS:

We used to play something like that in the swimming pool. Not far from it.

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, that's what they used to call gully march. Lord, had the best time. And they'd start getting up a Christmas program up there long about the first of December. And you'd go up there about two nights a week and practice, and on Sunday evening and practice. Oh, we thought we was having the best time—well, we was. We was having the best time of our life right there.

JIM LELOUDIS:

You'd do Christmas plays?

EULA DURHAM:

Yeah, things like that.

JIM LELOUDIS:

How about older people—in their teens? What did they do?

EULA DURHAM:

Well, they'd have home parties and played games and things like that. Make