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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-0115, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Mareda Sigmon Cobb and her sister Carrie Sigmon Yelton both worked long careers
in North Carolina textile mills, completing the family journey from farm to
factory in the early decades of the twentieth century. Here they describe their
family lives both as children and parents, the many implications of the
Depression, working conditions in the mills, religion, and other themes central
to social and labor history. The economic and material realities of textile
employment are explored in detail; each suffered a major injury on the job,
neither favored unionization (though their husbands did), and neither received a
pension. To the extent that Yelton and Cobb politicized their employment
conditions and worker treatment, they tended to do so not through support of
unionization but through a more general support for the Democratic Party of
Roosevelt. Cobb and Yelton worked at various jobs in such mills as West Hickory,
Shoe String, Moding, and Gastonia Mills. Cobb's memories of the
Gastonia Strike and 1934 General Strike became important pieces of Jacquelyn
Dowd Hall, et al.'s, Like a Family: The Making of a
Southern Cotton Mill World, an award-winning scholarly work published
in 1987 by UNC Press.
The sisters came from a family of eight children (a ninth died in infancy). The family moved to various southern locales on account of their father's work as a finish carpenter, before returning to the Hickory, North Carolina, area. Their father, who favored a connection to farming, twice tried to move his family from Hickory back to the countryside, but each time the children were miserable. Yelton dropped out of school after the eighth grade at age fourteen—then the legal minimum age for withdrawal—and three years later took a job at a textile mill. Her favorite job was creeling, though favoritism determined who worked which job; she generally enjoyed her work at the mills, and expresses pride in her ability to produce high quality work. She did not marry until she was thirty-one, but argues that her choice was not unusual and recalls how young adults entertained themselves during their off-hours. Prior to marriage, Yelton had two sons (the first when she was seventeen, the second when she was twenty-one), and she explains that she was able to continue working because her mother and a neighbor woman provided childcare; she and her husband subsequently had three daughters. Yelton remembers the community that formed among the female workers with particular fondness. Despite periodic resentments over wages, working conditions, job assignment, and benefits, Yelton did not support unionization efforts. She describes her attachment to the Lutheran Church; her pastor provided needed support for her over the years, particularly after her husband became disabled. Around 1971, she suffered a serious workplace injury to her arm.
Cobb married in 1925; she and her husband, also a mill worker, had no children. Both became ardent Democrats out of appreciation for Roosevelt's response to the Depression; although her husband held leadership roles in the union local, she never joined. She recalls what she knew from others regarding the 1929 and 1934 textile strikes; she notes that it was commonly understood that Gastonia police chief Orville F. Aderholt was killed not by striking workers but by other police. She also remembers important social and religious events among the lives of Gastonians, especially Earl Armstrong's evangelistic meetings, and describes aspects of life in Gastonia's mill villages. Working conditions in the mills were often difficult; "stretch-outs" (a demand by the mill owner for increased output without any corresponding reward to the workers) were common, and workers were often little appreciated. In 1963, she suffered a serious workplace injury to her leg, which ultimately resulted in her retiring on Social Security disability; after her doctor wrongly limited her treatment initially to save her employer greater treatment costs, she developed gangrene and was then hospitalized for nearly five months. She and her sister recount other instances of poor medical treatment and difficulty obtaining workman's compensation and unemployment on account of employer resistance. Because Cobb had no children, she felt somewhat less vulnerable contesting certain workplace rules and also quit various job assignments in the mills that she found too stressful.
Mareda Sigmon Cobb and her sister Carrie Sigmon Yelton both worked long careers in North Carolina textile mills, completing the family journey from farm to factory in the early decades of the twentieth century. Here they describe their family lives both as children and parents, the many implications of the Depression, working conditions in the mills, religion, and other themes central to social and labor history. The economic and material realities of textile employment are explored in detail; each suffered a major injury on the job, neither favored unionization (though their husbands did), and neither received a pension.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
I didn't have but one grandparent, Grandma Harriet Sigmon, Oxford School. You know where the Oxford School is; our grandmother used to own all that.
Sixteen houses.
Yes. My grandma raised all her children. She had twin boys after Grandpa Sigmon died, and she raised all them, and she lived till I was fourteen years old.
What had your grandfather done?
He was a farmer, and Grandma Sigmon farmed.
So she supported all the kids all by herself?
Yes, farming. Some of them was large enough to help the others.
What kind of farm did they have?
They owned all that land where Oxford Ford School sets.
That's a pretty big farm.
Yes, that sure was. And then all the children settled in there, all but my daddy, and we lived in Hickory. When it come to a settlement when Grandma Sigmon died, he sold his part to his brother, Van Sigmon.
Do you remember what she was like?
Me and her never did get along too good.
How come?
She said I was spoiled. See, I was raised with seven boys, five older than me and two younger than me. Every time she'd get around me, she'd hit me. She said I was spoiled.
Because you were the only girl?
Yes, till she [Carrie Yelton] was born.
Were you?
I don't know. I guess I was.
All the brothers and sisters farmed, too?
Yes, all of them was farmers.
They got pieces of the land?
Yes, all of them was farmers but my daddy, and he moved to Hickory. I think they had three children when they come to Hickory, three boys.
What was your father's name?
Cebe Sigmon. He's got a Bible name.
That's Julius Ecebus
Julius Ecebus, but they called him Cebe Sigmon. When I got my Social
Security in 1937, you know you had to put your parents' names? And that
man said, "What was your daddy's name?" I said, "Your guess is as good
as mine."
Do you know when your grandmother was born?
No, I don't.
Or where she came from, anything about that earlier history, any stories?
No, I don't know too much about that.
Why did your daddy go to Hickory instead of farming?
He was a finished carpenter. He contracted jobs. He worked in Florida for years and years when Florida was being built up, and they was putting all them towns in Florida with the depots.
So he travelled around.
Yes. And he worked for Elliot Building Company here in Hickory for years.
Is Elliot Building Company connected with Elliot Mills?
I don't think so.
When was it that he moved to Hickory?
I just don't remember. I wasn't born then. I was born here in Hickory. They had five boys. They had three, I think, when they come to Hickory, and then the rest of us was born in Hickory.
What was your mother's name?
She was a Huffman.
Do you know anything about her background?
She was the only child. She had a brother born before her, and he died when he was three months old. And then when my mother was three months old, her daddy died. Grandma Huffman never did marry anymore. When Mama married, she lived with them till she died, and she died when I was three months old, so I don't remember her. But the older ones do.
Were the Huffmans Hickory people?
Yes, she died here in Hickory. She moved to Hickory with her. She raised my mother. She farmed.
So your mother and daddy pretty much grew up together out on the farm.
Yes. There was just fifteen years' difference between Mama's oldest kid and her. She got married when she was fourteen.
And had her first kid when she was fifteen.
Yes. It was fifteen years and a few months difference between her and my oldest brother's age, Ervin Sigmon.
How many kids did she have?
She had ten and raised nine.
Which one of the children died?
The one between my baby brother and her [Carrie Yelton]. It was born
dead. There's
Did she work outside [the home]?
No, she never worked but three months in her life at public work. That
was after she [Carrie Yelton] had gone. She worked three months over
here at the Ivey Weavers. We laughed at her so much, she quit.
Why did she go to …
My brother's wife was there, and she was expecting a baby, and she kept her [Carrie] and told Mama to get her a job and go to work and help her. And she did; she got her a job, and she worked three months.
Did she like it?
Yes, she liked it, but we made fun of her so much she quit. Because I was
teenager, and I thought she looked so funny going to work.
Did most of the women …
Women didn't work back then like they do. Not very many did.
Did your father not want her to work?
He never did say nothing about it. She never did work. I guess he got
used to it.
You know, back then a man could make… We didn't make a living; we were
resisted back them times. We had the average of a large family. My daddy
made pretty good in his work. Sometimes he'd take a job, and he wouldn't
get paid till he'd get the job done. I know one time he built a church
for a bunch of colored people down here below Hickory somewhere. They
didn't pay him, and we laughed at him. He went down there and locked the
church up
Would there be periods, then, when you didn't have very much money?
Yes, but we had good credit, and we'd run it. We used to buy our butter and milk from Louis Frye over here. And then Alf Hebner run a store, and we'd get stuff there. He carried everything.
Did you have a garden?
Yes, we'd always have a garden. My mother always had her garden. If she
didn't work in it so much, she made us young'uns do it.
Did your mother do anything else to earn money?
No. Us kids would get out and pick blackberries. We'd can blackberries.
We helped can. We'd have all kinds of canned stuff. And I never will
forget that big old icebox. You know, we didn't have Frigidaires back
then. But we lived over here in West Hickory in the last house my daddy
built. He built three and sold the other two. We was all pretty well
grown. Carrie was born there. My mother was forty-five years old when
she was born. So she went.(
When did you kids go to work?
I went to work two months before I was sixteen.
Did you quit school?
Yes, I quit school and went to work. Kids did back then.
Where did the kids older than you work?
Most of them worked in textiles, didn't they?
Oh, yes.
My oldest brother was master mechanic over here at the furniture factories.
Southern Desk over here, my next-to-oldest brother worked over there.
The oldest one was Lee Irvin. The next to our oldest brother joined and
went to service back before World War I, and he wasn't in there but
about six months till he died. He always had head trouble, and I think
they tried to cure it, and when he come home his skull(
They didn't know really what had happened?
No.
Did they feel that he hadn't been treated well?
I don't know. I think he must have took infection when they operated on him or something. That's what they always believed, I think. Then he died. He never was married. But he was grown when he entered service.
Irvin, our oldest brother, was the next who died. He died of leukemia. That was in sixty-what?
Was it '62? I think it was '62.
What was your father like …
Oh, he was …
Personally?
Yes.
Were you very close to your parents?
Yes, when I was little growing up. They always called me "Sis," because I
was the only gal. And I still carry that name. I've got about two dozen
names, and Daddy's people call me Areda(
Which one of your parents did the disciplining of the kids?
Mama. I never did know my daddy to ever whip one of us.
Was your father away from home?
Yes, lots. Our mother never did go nowhere without… They used to have a little show over here at the YMCA. That building still sets there, where the Ivey Weavers's on. They have some kind of a club in there now. In front of the Ivery Weavers. Used to have the office in there.
You know where the fire department is.
That building down there. It don't look too good right now, but it used to. That used to be a theater, and our mama would see that we went to the picture show twice a week. She'd scrape around and get the money. She'd always buy us popcorn. That's what they had then; it was about like now.
What else did you do for fun when you were kids?
There wasn't too much to do then. We didn't have no recreation in school back them days. We'd go to the show, and we'd just visit the neighbors and stuff like that.
Did you have to do certain chores around the house?
No. I never would wash the dishes.
No. When I was [grown?] up, she did the cooking and all and I cleaned the house.
That's what I done. And she did learn me to sew. When I was fourteen
years old, my daddy bought a new sewing machine, a Singer treadle. We
had an old one, but it was old; I think it belonged to Grandma Huffman.
But he bought a new one and he give it to me, and he wanted me to learn
to
Tell them about the time you moved up here to Burke County, the thing about Mama's hat.
My daddy sold our second house and bought a farm up in Morganton, but us
young'uns didn't like being in the country. We went to a little country
school out there. It was across the creek, and we had a neighbor up
there, but I couldn't whip this girl and she picked on me. You know how
kids… My brother older than me, Frank, said he'd hold her if I'd whip
her, and I did.
Shoe polish was running down her …
Yes, that shoe polish just run down.
Where were you on your way to?
About five miles the other side of Morganton, my daddy bought a farm. And we stayed up there less than a year, so he sold it.
Why did he buy that farm?
He just wanted to be a farmer. You know, it was in his blood. He was raised that way. But us kids didn't like it. I didn't like that country school, and it was altogether different from our Hickory school. I never had went nowhere but over here in West Hickory.
Did your mother like it?
No, unh-uh: No, none of us did. I don't think even my daddy did, but he wouldn't own it, you know, because he bought it. So we moved back. That's when he built the last house, that she [Carrie] was born in. He built eight rooms and two big halls.
That's a pretty good size.
Yes, it was just a boxed house, though, four rooms up and a hall, four rooms down and a hall. And they've got apartment houses in it now. But there's where we knowed, the last part. That's where I was living when I was married, and that's where she lived till she was a pretty good-sized girl.
So that's where I come in, I guess.
What do you remember about growing up?
We lived in that house till I was pretty good-sized. We went to Westmont School. That's the only school I ever went to.
I was going to tell you, I never did go in that new schoolhouse, the old schoolhouse. And then they put a shoestring factory in, that I worked in for years.
Did you like school?
Yes, I liked it on up till the eighth grade, and that's when I quit.
Why did you want to quit?
I kind of got mad at the teacher of algebra, and I just couldn't get along with it.
You didn't like the teacher?
So I went and finished there. And then we moved from that house over to the mill village. All these houses down here is tore away now; where the trailers sit and all of that was mill houses that they rented.
Were some of you kids working in the mill by then, or how come you moved into the mill village?
My brothers did, and my baby brother worked there. And I never lived on the farm but one time. After we moved to the mill village, Hedrick down at Statesville, Daddy knew him or something or another. He got the craze to go back to the farm, so we moved down there.
This was for his second time?
Yes.
So you wouldn't go at all?
Yes. But the teacher one day said, "Anybody that can say, ‘A diller, a
dollar, A very bright scholar’ plumb way through," he'd give them a
dollar. And I raised my hand, and because I was a new pupil he wouldn't
let me say it. He let the other ones say it and got it, and I never did
go back.
What did you do when you quit?
Just loafed. I didn't do anything. I was seventeen when I went to work in
hosiery, out on Fourteenth Street. The James Hosiery Mill is still
How did you get that first job?
One of my neighbors got it for me. She quit, and she asked me whether I wanted to go to work, and I told her yes, so I went to work.
What was your job then?
Clipping on a hand clipper. Put socks on the hand clipper, and then I
turned thirds on a broom handle.
How did you like it?
I liked it pretty good. I went to work for forty cents an hour, but that was pretty good money back then.
How many hours did you work?
You could work as many hours as you wanted to. I'd work eight, and then me and this other girl would go back sometimes and work. Work till six and come home and eat supper and go back and work till maybe ten o'clock. Then I got work in textiles out at Ivey Weavers, and I worked out there eleven years.
When did you change jobs?
It was four years. I was born in 1919, and I went to work when I was seventeen. That would have been 1936.
And then four years later would have been 1940.
Yes, that I went to work at Ivey.
Why did you change jobs?
Because I thought I'd like to work in textiles, and my brother got me a job.
Why did you want to work in textiles instead of hosiery?
One thing, I made more money.
You did a lot of different things.
Yes.
Did you ask to learn new jobs?
No, they just put me on different jobs, and the best job I had out there was creeling. I really worked about three hours and just fooled around the rest. My bossman's wife wanted to come to work, so he took me off of that job and put me to running warps.
And gave her that job?
Yes, that's what he did.
What is creeling, exactly?
It's a long thing that comes out like this, slanting, and you've got to put spools on it so you can run it around the warping machine, and that makes the cloth. You take it down to the weave shop, and it makes cloth.
Why were you able to work so few hours doing that?
I got caught up.
What would you do then?
Back then you could go out or anything. You could go out and go home and come back in them times. I'd go to the cafe and get sandwiches and things and read. Had me a little old radio with earplugs you couldn't hear, hardly, in a textile mill surrounding it.
And you only worked that creeling job for three months?
I don't know exactly how many months. That was my last job. You see, I wound and spooled when I went in at first. Then they quit, and they thought I'd be good on that job, and they just put me on it.
Did you say anything when your boss took you off that job?
I didn't like it, but there wasn't no use saying anything,
Some days the yarn would be bad, and some days it would be good?
It run better in pretty weather, but when it was bad, damp, it didn't run so good.
Did you have close friends at work?
Oh, yes.
What were the relationships like among …
Oh, yes, I had friends. I make friends everywhere I go.
How did you learn these different jobs?
People taught us.
Did the supervisors, or the other …
Oh, no, they'd have learners to teach you.
Did your relatives teach you your jobs?
No. My brother was bossman on the second shift.
So he was your boss?
Yes. I had to work harder than the rest of them, because if I wouldn't
work hard they'd say, "Oh, she's your sister. That's the reason she
don't work hard." But I've always worked hard, wherever I've done. I've
never
Were you getting paid production?
No, that was by the hour. The only getting paid by production is in hosiery work.
Since you were being paid by the hour anyway, weren't you tempted to just kind of take it easy?
No, I did my job up. I've always worked, regardless if it was by the hour or if it…
Was there a real difference, some people who really worked hard and some who didn't?
Yes, now there is some people like that, yes. But I never did. I always wanted to give a good day's work, regardless.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
… have some time left. But winding was a steady job. You just had to go around. I had winders on one side, and go around the end and come back. That's a steady work. You had to keep them up. You had to be fast. Then after you made the big cones, sometimes that big, you had to take them off and put another cone on and start it. I liked that pretty good.
If some people were real fast workers, would that then set a faster pace for other people?
If you was fast, you didn't get any more, if you was paid by the hour. But they wanted you to get off as much as you could. No, when you was paid by the hour, you didn't get any more; you just got more work off for the company. But now when you're on piecework, you get what you can make.
Did you have some supervisors that you liked and others that you
Oh, yes.
What was the difference in them?
Lots of them would let you get by with more than the rest would.
Like what?
Like on the third shift, this woman and I could do the same thing. I
creeled and she run the warp, but she could also creel and run the warp.
I worked on the third shift for four years. I never did get used to it.
We had a wonderful bossman. Since both of us could do the same thing,
we'd lay down and sleep maybe two or three hours during that night. I
would creel it and run it while she slept; while I slept, she would do
it. And he'd come around about five o'clock. He said, "All right, girls,
get up there and get them eyes open. Charl Jones"—that was the
superintendent on the first shift—"will be in here in a little bit."
Why did you work the third shift if you didn't like it? Did you have to work that shift?
Yes.
You didn't have a choice of which shift you would work?
You had to work the shift that they needed you on. And then I got on the second shift. I never did work the first shift in textiles; I just worked the second.
They were mostly women that you were working with?
No, not in textiles. There were doffers, fixers. Too, there for a while
they didn't have anyone on the quill machine. They called it the quill
machine, that you take off of the spinning frames. You had to clean the
yarn off of them. There for a while, when I was on the second shift,
You and this woman helping each other out, did that happen a lot? A woman who worked in hosiery was telling us the other day about the person who worked next to her putting her work onto her pile—she was an inspector—putting her dozens onto her work so she would have to do more work without realizing.
Oh, yes, that used to be bad in hosiery miils. And they'd also come in early in the morning—used to, could come in any time—and pick out all the good work and leave all the bad for the rest. Oh, that was common, but you don't do that anymore now, or they didn't where I worked. They've really got strict rules and things to go by now.
But things like that didn't happen in textiles?
No.
Why was that? What's the difference in textiles and hosiery?
The companies has just got stricter.
But when you were working in textiles, did things like that happen?
No, because when you spin, you had to be there all the time; you couldn't take off. You could just go to the bathroom and get right back, because if the ends break, that was it. But the job we were on, we didn't have to… It was two of us, and we could do that. But he was just a good bossman; he let us do that.
Did you have any bad bosses?
I've always got along with my bossmen, everywhere I worked. And I've
tried to do what they told me to do and all. But I didn't like that one
too much that took my job away and give it to his wife.
If you had a supervisor that nobody liked, was there any way to get rid of him?
Yes, they did where I worked at the hosiery mill, Kayser-Roth.
He was blaming you for not …
It was her fault, too, but he wouldn't say nothing to her.
Did all that stuff have to be done over, and you didn't get paid for it?
No.
So you had to do it over during regular work hours, but you weren't being paid anything at all?
No. And that's what made me so mad, and he didn't let her do any of it.
How long did that take?
It didn't take but a day or two, because they had other… Not regular inspectors, but others, like the floor lady and some of the others, would do it, help get it done.
So you just had to lose a couple of days' pay.
Yes. I had, I reckon, four or five bosses over there.
At the hosiery mill out here, when we first went to work we did
inspecting on just plain boards. We had our own motor when we quit. But
then we got inspecting machines, and I thought, "Law, I can never learn
to inspect on them machines," because I never had inspected. We had two
different kinds; we had a stack machine, and then we had a
blow-line(
When did those machines come in?
They bought us out from Red Hafer—we were there from '52—in '55. I guess it was about 1957 or '58 when those machines came in. And now, the way it's growed. We went from the machines to a four-in-one, they called it. I guess you all have seen these big, long ski socks, heavy—well, you can wear them for boot socks, too—that's the work I did for about eight years. They put all the others on four-in-one. That's you seam them, and you inspect them, and pop the toe out. It's four things. The reason they call it "four-in-one," though, they used to make leotards, and they called them "three-in-one," so they called the socks "four-in-one." So they put them on then. The looping went out, and they put them on seaming first, and then they put them on four-in-one, and that's what they're on now. So that's the reason I… I just quit, because I had surgery on my arm, and after doing them… They're awful heavy to do anyway. We was on production. They went and put them on. I went back after I had my surgery done in March. I was out for five weeks.
This was in fifty…
No, this was just this year. But I really liked to work out there. They were good to us out there. I liked my bossmen, all but that one. But they changed personnel.
Did new people come in?
Yes.
Did the company change hands or something?
Oh, yes. I was bought out. One year I had four different W-2 forms from
the same building.
Four different new owners came in?
In one year.
How were the new managers different from the old ones?
These new managers that's in now have been in about three or four years.
Gulf and Western had bought out. I went to work for Red Hafer in 1952.
In 1955 Kayser and Roth bought out. I'd been working for them until
about three years ago Gulf and Western bought out, '77, I think. So they
had changed all the hands around.(
Were other people unhappy with that new system?
Oh, they sure are. They don't like the bossmen; they don't like the plant manager. They treat them like dirt. I didn't like the plant manager out there now too good, but my bossman was just wonderful to me. But now some of them just can't stand him. They say he just treats them so dirty on that four-in-one. But, you see, I wasn't on that four-in-one. If I were, I might have been treated…
How does he treat them like dirt?
They just made it so strict out there. Now if they find at least three
holes in four dozen, they've got to do a box over. And they
When did you get married?
I got married in 1950.
Where did you meet your husband?
My mother and I were living in an apartment, and him and his sister and
brother rented the other part. And it was in the wintertime, and my
water froze up and busted, and they came over, him and his brother, and
that's where we met.
That's very romantic. It's like dropping your handkerchief for somebody
to come along and pick up.
Yes.
What was he doing then?
He was working on the railroad.
How long did you go out together before you got married?
About a year.
You were still living in the same apartment, sort of next door to him?
Yes. I worked at textiles then.
How did you decide to get married?
He just asked me to get married.
Do you remember when he proposed?
Yes.
You didn't tell them how come we got together, though, did you?
Yes, I told them my water broke.
After you all got married, where did you live?
We lived there for a while, and then we moved up on Main Avenue Drive.
So you'd been living with your mother all along?
Yes.
And your other brothers and sisters had left home.
Yes. She stayed with us.
Had you had other boyfriends? Had you ever thought about getting married before that?
Yes, I did, but I never did get married. He was the guy. He was the one.
He was the right one. Now you should leave here, so we can talk about you
when you're gone.
You didn't get married, then, till you were about thirty-one. Was that old then to be getting married, or did a lot of people wait?
It didn't seem too old to me.
People didn't tease you or say, "Why don't you get married?"?
No, I just had a good time.
Did you mostly go out with people that you met at work?
Yes, I had friends. Some of them worked, and some didn't.
What did you all do for fun in that period while you were still single, in your free time?
Oh, when we were growing up, we didn't have things to go to then. We'd
play games like Kick the Can. That's [at] thirteen, fourteen, like that.
Play Ant Me Over. I don't guess you all ever knowed any of that, did
you?
I've never heard of that.
We was just talking about that the other day, that kids wouldn't know.
Back then you didn't have toys and things. You had to make your own. I
know one time when my brother and I were little we played with those
glass things in jar caps. So I broke one one day and he made me mad, and
I throwed it, and I split his lip open. Oh, boy, I knew I was going to
catch it. They had to take him to get stitches. I run up under the
house, and I stayed there till Mama said she wouldn't whip me.
You were under the house?
Oh, it was a large house. They had a big porch.
What about dancing or listening to bands or music?
Oh, yes, I loved to dance. We used to go to lots of dances.
Where did you have dances?
Mostly I'd go with my brother and his wife to dances. They was young then. They used to call it Baxter's Lake over towards Mountain View, and we'd go over there and have square dances and Paul Joneses and things like that. Because it wasn't too many places for young people to go back then. Go out to the shows or maybe have parties. I used to have lots of parties.
At your house?
Yes.
Did people that you knew play instruments? Did people entertain themselves by playing music?
Yes. Talking machines, they used to call them. Things like that.
What were talking machines?
It's something kind of like a record player now, but it would have a horn out, like.
It had a handle on. You had to wind it up. Victrola(
But it would play records.
Oh, yes.
Oh, I see.
You know, back time the records used to be round, instead of like they are now. They'd be round, and you'd put them on a round thing, and it'd play.
Did you have one of those, or was it one of your friends that had it?
One of my friends.
Did they work with you at the plant?
Yes. Sometimes I'd have parties, and I'd have two or three girlfriends
staying all night with me. We used to have an old-timey sofa that would
make a bed, and we would all sleep on that one bed, laying across us.
Were they still single then?
Oh, yes.
Did you have any kids?
Yes, I've got five.
When were they born?
I had two boys before I married him, and then the others I have are three girls. My first one was born when I was seventeen.
So just after you'd started to work.
The other one was born four years later. Then we got married, and we've got three.
Did you quit work when you had your babies?
Yes.
How long did you stay out?
I'd work on long as I could,
Then how long did you stay out?
We used to have to stay out three months before you'd go back to work, but now you can go back to work after they're a couple of weeks old if you want to.
Do you mean the company wouldn't let you come back before three months?
No. But now they do.
Why was that?
I just don't know why they didn't, but they didn't.
So it was a policy that you had to stay out for three months.
Yes, it was a policy.
Could you come back right into your same job?
Yes, they had to hold your same job. They're supposed to do that yet when you get out and have a baby. But you can work on up now till two or three weeks before you have it, if you want to. And they'd come back. Now I went back when my last baby was three weeks old, because I went out to show her off.
You went up to the plant?
Yes, at Kayser-Roth. And the bossman said, "Are you ready to come back to work?" and I thought he was just joking. I said, "Yes, anytime," and next week here he come, and I was washing.
He came over to the house?
Yes. He said, "Carrie, are you ready to come back to work?"
Who took care of the different kids?
My sister-in-law, then my neighbor Mrs. Woody across the street. Them was the only two babysitters I ever had. Well, my mother kept them, too, for me before she died.
Did you ever have anybody that came in and helped you with housework?
No.
So you just had your neighbor and your sister-in-law. You'd take the kids over to their house?
Yes, after Mama died.
What was the difference in you and your mother that made you go right back to work and just always work, whereas your mother wouldn't ever dream of working?
I just don't know. She just liked to be at home, a housewife.
Did you not like to be at home, or did you have to work?
I had to work and wanted to work. I liked work.
Did you ever wish you could just stay home?
Oh, I've done that lots of times, but when I was out a couple of weeks I
was ready to go back. Like when I had my surgery and stuff, I'd be out
maybe six weeks. Well, I was ready to go back. But this time…
You don't have any desire to go back.
No. And I'm not going back unless I get hungry.
Do some of the people worry about that, that by the time they get old enough to collect it'll just disappear?
Oh, yes, I've heard just oodles of people talk about it. A niece came to
see me yesterday. "Oh, till I get time to draw, it'll be out. There
won't be any." My brother's daughter. He said, "Well, I thought the same
thing. I've been drawing it for seven years."
Will you get any pension from the company at all?
We did have a pension plan, but when Gulf and Western took over they paid it to us in a lump sum, so they don't have any now. But we never got very much, because they always said they went in the red, Kayser-Roth did.
So it was like a profit-sharing.
It was a profit-sharing. So I had up almost to a thousand dollars one time, and when they paid us off I had five hundred and some dollars. Took it away from us, you see, said they didn't make any profit.
That's what they said?
Yes.
Did you have any other fringe benefits?
Oh, they have good group benefits out there.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
And we get a bonus twice a year. The ones that's been there fifteen years gets a bonus at Christmas. And then we get one at July.
And this is under Gulf and Western?
Yes. That's about all. They have this Credit Union out there that you can take so much out of your payday and save in the Credit Union. Then they have good insurance. They have major medical and then other insurance, life insurance. They have just about as good of that as, I believe, any mill here in Hickory. Of course, some mills have a period in there, three days for death now that you can be out. They didn't have that down there. They may, later on, take it up. But then what hurt me, too, about quitting, I had my bonus made. Now that's one thing I think they should make something. Anybody that's worked down there twenty-four years, I think they should give a bonus. See, our bonus for July is from April to April. Well, I had my bonus made, but I won't get it.
Now why is that?
Because I quit. But I'd have had a nervous breakdown. I'd rather give up the bonus as to have a nervous breakdown.
The work was really getting on your nerves?
Oh, yes.
When you'd come home from work, you'd still …
Oh, goodness. It felt like I was having a heart attack.
It was just physically …
Yes. Strained and tense. And I just couldn't do it. And they said why didn't I go to sign up [for unemployment]? and I said, "Well, I wouldn't get it." When you quit, you don't get any unemployment either. You could have a trial, but they'd appear against me. Now if they wouldn't appear against me, I could sign up. But they'd appear against me.
How do you know?
I know they would; they're just that kind. Because they won't let you sign up out there.
Won't let you sign up for unemployment?
No, they'll make you work three days. See, if you work three days, you can't sign up. Now if you can work twenty-three and a half hours you can sign up, but if you work twenty-four you can't. The people out there now is for the company; they're not for the hands at all. Because they're job-scared, afraid they'd lay them off.
At any of the plants where you've worked, have there been any efforts to unionize?
Oh, yes, they was out there several times while I worked out there. They didn't get nowhere.
At Kayser-Roth?
Yes. They were on the outside. They never did get inside. When we'd come out, they'd give us literature.
But there never was an in-plant committee or anything?
No.
How did people react to the organizers?
They were just satisfied with what they were giving us. They didn't seem interested in it at all.
Were you interested, though?
No. They strike too much.
Have you ever been involved in a strike? Have there been any at any of the places where you were working?
No, I've never been.
Not even any strikes that just were organized from within the plant or just lasted for a day?
No, I haven't. I've never known them to have it. Out at Ivey Weavers I've
never known them to be out there to even try to have a union.
When people were unhappy about the way things were going in the plant, did groups of people ever …
Go to the office? Yes.
What kind of things like that can happen?
When they'd think they weren't paying them enough, or if they thought production was too high. Well, it didn't do any good. They didn't do anything about it.
Were you involved in the group of people …
No, I never went to the office.
Who would tend to do that? Would there be a certain kind of people who would make that …
Yes, a certain kind. One time a bunch of us were going, and we went up to go and they wouldn't go, so me and this other just didn't go, either. We just come back, because …
You mean you started up to the office …
Yes, and all the rest of them wouldn't go, so we just didn't go either. When I told them that I just couldn't do that work and all, I told them, "Well, I got my chair that I've been sitting in for twenty-four years." So they give me my chair; that's the only thing they give me for twenty-four years' work out there.
How do you feel about that?
It's just dirty; that's what I think. I think anybody that works that long at any place should… And then they did give us pins for ten, fifteen, twenty years, so I got my pins. And if I'd have worked till next year, I'd have got a pearl for twenty-five years. But I asked the supervisor if there'd be anything else. He said, "You'll take that or nothing."
Well:
So I just took nothing, because that machine just got on my nerves, and my sister in there said she knew that I'd never stay on a machine. [stand?]
You asked to be moved to a different job?
Yes, and he said that it was that or nothing. We were supposed to have seniority, and I had seniority over lots of them that I could have took their place, but then I wouldn't feel right, to take their job.
Could you have gone up and told them, "Now, look, I've been here longer than they have"?
Oh, yes, they know.
And they wouldn't put you?
But they wouldn't do it. So I guess it's the end of my working days if I don't take a notion and get tired of not doing nothing. I think I'll try to get me a job in one of these rest homes or something. I love to work with elderly people. Wait on them, you know. Try to bring a little sunshine into their lives.
That'd be nice.
That's what I want to do, if I get bored. Of course, I've not been bored. I've been going. I've joined the Senior Citizens' Club, the Aged Club, all of them. There's something to do all the time.
During your working life, did you ever think about wanting to do something different? Did you ever think of doing something like that before?
No. I love hosiery.
You like hosiery better than textiles?
Yes. I loved inspecting. But, you know, that's gone out. They're all on four-in-one now, and inspecting's gone out.
Why did you like it better?
I don't know. I got to sit down. I could sit better than I could
What are some of the differences between working in a hosiery mill and working in a textile mill?
In a textile mill, you've got to stand up most of the time; you can't sit down. And it's lots different, because you make yarn.
You don't see the product that you make.
No, you don't see the product, because you just see the yarn that you
make and take off. It goes down into the weave room, and it makes
material in the weave room. It weaves in the weave room. And out in a
hosiery mill where you have a product, you work with the product, the
sock. We made men's hose, and then they did make some leotards for
women. And they did make some for men.
Did you ever work in full-fashioned hosiery?
No, never in a finishing plant. I was always in the knitting. division.
Now the finishing plant for the knitting division over here is in H
In the earlier days, did different kinds of people work in hosiery than worked in textiles, or would you say it was pretty much the same?
It's pretty much the same.
Pretty interchangeable.
Yes. It was more men I worked around in textiles than I did in hosiery,
because the only men in the part I worked out here was the shipping
clerk and his helper. And then we did have a boy that gave out the work,
but
Why didn't more men work in hosiery?
They do fix. Fixers is about all they is in the hosiery mill.
What are the best paid jobs?
Fixers. They get paid real good. I don't know just exactly, but they really get paid good.
How about knitters?
They're the next, although they said that the inspectors got more than they did, but they didn't. The inspectors is the least paid.
Why is that?
I don't know, but they are. That is, on production, but some of the ones on hour work just gets the minimum wage, which is $2.90, I believe, now.
Why did you like being an inspector so much if it was the lowest paid?
What we did, we got paid good on ours. We got real good. Sometimes I made four and four-fifty an hour. This was on piecework. It was according to how much they paid a dozen for the socks, you see, in inspecting.
And you were fast enough that you could …
Most of them now makes anywhere from three to three-thirty to four dollars an hour. But when I first went to work out there for Red Haker, he paid by the hour. Seventy-five cents I got an hour out there when I first went to work in 1952.
How did that compare with the wages that you got in the textile mill?
I believe it was about $2.30 an hour when I went to work in textiles. It
wasn't too much. Of course, every six months or every year they give you
a raise. It didn't differ too much. And that's another thing. They said
some of them asked him out there when they was going to get a raise
again. He said he didn't know when they would.
Did you know people who set up little knitting mills in their garages?
Oh, yes, I had a brother that did that, up at his house.
How did he go about doing that? I've just noticed a lot of little, tiny …
They'd buy up old machines that the mills didn't want and start out.
Who would they sell to?
They'd go around to the stores and get orders. But he didn't stay in it but a couple of years; he got out.
Why was that?
He retired, and he just didn't fool with it anymore. And then a man that I worked with did the same thing. He quit out there and put him up a little hosiery mill. But now he's retired, and he's out of it. He had a heart attack; he's out of business. But it's lots of those little hosiery mills.
That still goes on?
Oh, yes.
People just setting up their own little …
Yes.
Why did people prefer to do that?
I guess they'd think maybe they could get them a business started. Most
all of these hosiery mills and things started like that, from little
hosiery mills, and then they'd just keep expanding. I know the Whisnant
Mills, been here for years and years and years, and that's the way they
started, just with a few machines, and they'd just keep expanding and
expanding till they have a whole hosiery business. They say "the good
old days," but I
Why is that?
Just look at the appliances that we've got. We've got washing machines;
we've got dryers; we've got refrigerators; we've got deep freeze and
airconditioning. And back then we had iceboxes. Ice trucks came around.
I know when I was little we couldn't wait for the iceman to come around,
because we'd get the little pieces out of the ice truck and eat them.
What do you think people mean when they talk about the "good old days"?
I just don't know! They think them was the good old days, but I don't. I just don't. I think that if my mother'd be living now, she'd be really surprised about the way they had to do, and now how convenient everything is.
Did you have people coming in and doing time-motion studies, where they would time you with a stopwatch?
Oh, yes. They do that yet, honey.
Do you remember the first time in your working life when they came and did a time-motion study?
That was back in '55, I reckon.
But not during the thirties?
No, not in there they didn't. And they're still doing that; they time
you. And that's one thing that got on my nerves when I went on this new
job. See, they came around and showed you and stood over you, and I
couldn't take that.
You could take it?
Take it, but not then. And then you'd have to get that sock just right
under that machine to sew the toe. If you didn't get it right, it
In 1936 you first went to work there. That was during the Depression when you first started working.
Yes.
Did you ever lose your job because of unemployment?
No.
There haven't been big …
No, I never have been fired in my whole working life.
Or been put out of work for any reason?
No. We used to be off lots and get to sign up for unemployment.
Were you ever afraid you were going to get fired?
No, I never was.
Did other people get fired?
Oh, yes, lots of them did, because they wouldn't do what the bossman said and everything.
What kind of things would people get fired for, in the hosiery mill, for example?
Lots of times they would get fired for laying out so much.
For just not coming in to work.
Yes. And then some of them would get fired for not getting production. Things like that.
How about talking back?
They wouldn't get fired right then for that, but they could find
something else to fire them for.
Did you like working mostly with women?
Yes, I like working with women.
Why is that?
We could just have a better time, and we could just say what we want to.
Crack jokes sometimes and all women. For instance, my
Did you see each other mostly just at work?
Just at work. And talked on the telephone, and we exchanged gifts. She's given me lots of things, and I've given her lots of things. Another thing we used to have out at the mill we missed so much since this new bunch came, we'd have birthday parties. If one had a birthday, we'd have it at the first break, and they cut that out.
They wouldn't let you do it.
No.
How did it hurt them for you to do that?
They was afraid we'd waste a little time.
Would you have a cake?
Yes, bring a cake.
How would you decide who was going to bring the cake? How would the birthday parties be organized?
We'd send a paper around and let everyone put down what they were going
to bring. And that broke the monotony, but now they won't let you do
that. Out there now, they even want [watch?] you if you stay over your
We used to have a hundred percent good work, and now it's a hundred percent bad work. Somebody out there said that they had the warehouses just running over with work that's backed up.
That they can't sell?
That they've not sold. Said they thought they'd at least get two weeks for the Fourth of July. We used to work ten hours a day, five on Saturday, and now they're just working eight hours a day and no Saturday work. And that's the reason: they're just not selling their goods.
And you think the reason they're not selling them is because the workers …
I just think they've just got the people so tense, and the knitters, they're just on them all the time. And you know anyone cannot work like that, tense and their nerves all tore up. So I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they don't shut them doors one of these days and move the plant to one of their other plants, because I don't think Gulf and Western is going to put up with that. They're a good company, and they're going to have good work.
But this has been going on for a while?
Yes.
Even before Gulf and Western got it.
It was going on, but it wasn't quite as bad then. It didn't get bad until they changed these young people. They didn't get it firsthand, working, like the hands out there from scratch on up. They read books, and you don't know nothing about a hosiery mill out of books, I mean about quality and stuff.
In earlier times, did people become supervisors who started out just working on the floor?
Yes, we had several from out there did work theirself up. But they worked up the hard way; they knew what they was doing.
What was the route by which you could work your way up to supervisor?
They had to knit first, and then [be] fixers, and then on up to bossman, and then on up to supervisors.
These were all men?
Yes.
Did women ever …
No, but now the women knitters are learning to fix. So maybe in the years to come they may do it. See the way things are changing.
Do you think that's good?
Yes. The two we had out there were very good fixers.
Did the men resent …
At first they did, but I think they was getting used to it. Some of the old fogeys that worked out there for a long time would say a woman couldn't fix, but the younger doing all right.
Do the older fixers teach the new fixers the skills that they need?
Yes, they teach them. But one time I tried on their tools. You know, they've got all kinds of tools that they wear on their side. I said I couldn't even carry the tools, let alone try to fix. Them things are so heavy, they almost made me go to the floor when I put them around my waist.
It does look like a very complicated job to me.
But they do it. And I've noticed now ads in the paper that they're wanting knitters, but they want them to know how to put the needles in.
What does that mean, that they had to have been a knitter someplace else before?
Some knitters do know how to put the needles in the machines if they break, but some don't.
That would be a job maybe the fixers would come …
That is a fixer's job. They'd come and do it if they were needed. But some of the knitters learn; as they learn to knit, they learn to put the needles in, and they can do it theirself. So I don't know. Everything's just getting more and more, so it wouldn't surprise me in years to come if the women wouldn't be supervisors.
Do you think you would have liked to work under a woman supervisor?
Yes, I guess I could have got along with her. I don't know. Just what
kind of attitude she'd have.
What does the floor lady do?
She goes around and fixes the tickets and does things like that. Now
she's worked herself up as assistant to the bossman.
As you were raising your children, did you live with just your husband and your children, or did you ever have other relatives that lived with you, or boarders?
Just my mother.
Your mother lived with you up until she died?
Yes. She died in 1952.
What are your kids doing?
They're all married. Part's in furniture, and part's in hosiery. One
daughter doesn't work; she's kind of got heart trouble. She's got five
children, and she's got enough to do at home.
What's going on there?
Oh, about the union.
Are they trying to organize the J. P. Stevens plant here?
Yes. They're having a time.
What do you mean?
Up here in this plant they don't want it.
The management doesn't want it?
No. None of them. They're even boycotting, people not buying what they sell. I don't know what they'll do about that.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
… about the boycott. Do you think that's a …
I just don't know. That just looks like, to me, that's going a little bit
too far to get a union. I don't know. But they said, too, that they
wasn't paying half their hands. It's all over their different plants.
But I don't know anything about the work force. I know they say they're
a dirty plant.
Yes, Stevens has a bad reputation.
Yes. They certainly have.
Who has helped you in different crises? Have you gotten help from your relatives or your neighbors? Who have you been able to call on for help in times of need over the course of your life, mostly?
I've called on my preacher for a lot.
Where do you go to church?
Bethany Lutheran Church.
Were you raised as a Lutheran?
Oh, yes. We were Lutherans. And I've talked to my floor lady, Lib
Teague(
Has the same minister been there a long time?
No. About how long has Pastor Whitener been there? About four years, hasn't he?
Yes.
He's been with us about four years. And then Reverend Conrad(
How did you keep from knowing about it?
There was lots of them didn't know. It was just a few of them doing it,
and there was lots of us wondering what was going on. And they wouldn't
bring it out in the open, you see, that all of the members could know
what it was. But then we got Pastor Whitener, and he is wonderful, his
whole family. His wife Joel(
Have you been active in the church all your life?
Yes. And especially when he had his surgery two years ago. He's had
polyps on his intestines and been going down to the VA hospital. Of
course, they had to take him to Duke to do the surgery. They didn't have
the to-do-with. The last time he went, they ruptured his bowels, and he
almost died. And I don't know what I'd have done without my pastor
there,
He took you in to Duke?
Yes. And just had prayer, and he just helped out in all ways, because I was out of work and he was out of work, and they helped us in our finances and just all. I just don't know what we would have done. Yet he's disabled. He's retired, but he's still disabled since they done that.
Did they make a mistake?
Yes, it was a mistake. They wouldn't have done it on purpose, but when they went up to get that polyp they just cut his bowels.
How did you feel about the doctors doing that?
I tell you, if they'd have did right, I would have done it.(
The doctor?
No, sir. I'd have to ask him, and then he'd just say a few words and go on. He wouldn't talk.
Why do you suppose that was?
I don't know why he wouldn't, unless he was afraid that we might have a lawsuit, malpractice or something.
Did you think about doing that?
Lots of people told us to, but we just didn't, because it would have been
lots to have gone through with. Now the VA Hospital didn't do it, but
they was the ones that had it after it was done. They had to take care
of him. Because it was done over at Duke, and a doctor over there did
it. Or one of the trainees; I don't know which. But the pastor and I
went over there. He was in the operating room over at Duke two hours.
And so when they brought him back, we came back. And we asked whether he
was going to be all right, and they said, "Yes, he'll be all right. You
can just go on home."
Would a lot of your friends from the plant go to church with you at Bethany?
No, I was down there among mostly Baptists.
Who did you have that took care of your health problems before you got involved in this whole thing with the VA Hospital and Duke? You had a family doctor?
Oh, yes.
That you had gone to for a long time?
Yes. I went to Dr. Seele for quite a while, a long time. But then he just got so busy. You would have to go down there and sit maybe an hour, two hours at a time before you could see him. So these three new doctors came in town, Dr. Young, Dr. Hodges, and Dr. Earle, so I changed doctors. So I'm going to Dr. Young; he's our medical doctor now.
Who delivered your babies? Did you have your babies at home?
No.
You had them in the hospital?
Yes.
All of them?
The first one, I didn't. It was Dr. Phipps. He's dead. But the others, I went to the hospital. Dr. Shuford and Dr. Hunnysucker. They're all dead.
When you were growing up, did your mother treat you for childhood diseases?
Oh, yes.
Did she have her own remedies?
Yes. Used to have to wear asafetida around your neck. Said that would
ward off diseases. And when I'd get the earache, she'd make little salt
poultices, make a little cloth and put salt in it. And make me lay down
in front of the fireplace and put my ear on it. And give me castor oil.
Did you use any of those same remedies with your children?
No.
Not any of them?
No.
How come?
Sometimes I would put the Vick's, but they came out with Musterole. It
was mild for children and strong for adults, and I'd use Musterole some
and grease them with it. And I'd give them Castoria, but I didn't give
them no castor oil.
So you went to the doctor's.
I generally took them to the doctor's if they got real sick. But you know, it's lots of these old ladies yet that's eighty and ninety years old believes in the old remedies.
You don't believe in them?
Well, they might help, but since the modern world's come along, has
That's the thing.
I'm telling you, it's going out of this world. [Whistles]
Did your mother ever treat anybody else in the neighborhood?
Not as I know of. She may have before I was born; I don't know.
Did you raise your children in the same way that your mother raised you, or did you try to be a different kind of parent?
I tried to make them listen and all, just like she did us. I let them go a little bit more, but it was about the same pattern.
What have been the happiest times in your life?
I've really been happy all my life, just a happy-go-lucky person.
When did you join the church?
I was thirteen when I was confirmed. And I've just been a happy-go-lucky person. Try not to worry.
You've had real ups and downs, though, haven't you?
Oh, yes, sometimes we didn't know where food might be coming from, in them other days, and bills to be paid. But when the time rolled around, the money was there. I just asked God to provide it or something; anyway, it was there. Of course, with children going to school and all, it took something, but we always got by. That's one thing I always thought about my mother. I wasn't born then, but she would tell me about sometimes she would get down low on food and stuff, and she'd just pray, and somehow or another it was a way provided.
If you had it to do over again, is there anything you'd do differently?
I don't know if I would or not. I wouldn't want to go back and live my
life back; I just want to look forward to the future. Some of them said,
"You're getting older." I said, "Well, my age is getting there, but I
hope I don't get older."
Have you always had good health?
Yes, I've had pretty good health. I was in the hospital right much before I had my surgery, because I've had three, but after that I've been healthy.
When did you have surgery?
The first surgery I had was gall bladder. That was back in '51 or '52. I'm awfully poor about remembering.
It's real hard to remember dates.
And then I had a hysterectomy about six years later. And then about a
year after that I got a hernia and had to have that. They had to go down
the same incision. Of course, they took my appendix out
You haven't had any problems after having a hysterectomy? It didn't make
you feel bad
No. See, I just had a partial. I still have my ovaries. Oh, I have arthritis up in there, and I have two ruptured discs in my back, and some burrs on it. Every once in a while it flares up maybe a week or two. I can't get up and down.
How many children did you say you had?
Five.
Did you ever think about having less?
No. I always thought that was a pretty good family, five. I have sixteen
grandchildren.
That's a lot.
So I think that's a big enough family. Of course, I don't guess I'll have any more grandchildren. My youngest daughter still can, but the rest had to be fixed so they couldn't have any more.
Why was that?
Kathy, on account of her heart, she did. And my oldest daughter had to have a hysterectomy. And also my two daughter-in-laws.
Wow. That's a lot.
Did you do anything to limit the number of children that you had? You
didn't use any kind of
No, they didn't have the pill and all that stuff like that.
Did you think about doing that, trying to use different methods to keep from having so many children?
Had them, and that was it.
Was going through the change of life hard on you? Did it make you feel bad?
No, I had one hot flash, is the only one I can ever remember. And I
thought I was going to die then.
Have you felt any differently afterwards than you felt before?
Oh, yes, I feel lots better.
I don't know if we ever found out why you decided to leave the Ivey Weavers?
I got pregnant with Kathy. It was three shifts on my work, so while I was out they cut it down to two shifts, and they put the woman on the third shift up on second shift on my job. So when I went to go back, I didn't have a job, but I got to sign up.
For unemployment?
That's the first time I got to sign up, for twenty-seven weeks. They
didn't appear against me, because they didn't give me another job, you
see.(
Was there a difference in the pay? Would you have made more if you had been able to stay on at Ivey Weavers?
Oh, yes. But still, I got raises on up, and I liked it, so I just stuck with it.
Had you always liked hosiery better than textiles?
Yes, I have. One thing, it's cleaner. See, textiles is so dusty, all that old dust and things. And hot. Oh, it's hot in a textile mill. But a hosiery mill is cleaner.
Are there any health problems associated with hosiery work? What about working in the dye room?
I don't know. We didn't have any dye room where I worked. See, that's in the finishing plant. I've never worked in a finishing plant. It was always the knitting plant where I worked.
Are there any dangerous machines or injuries on the job?
Yes, it's been some injuries. You can get your hand caught in a knitting machine or something like that and different things.
Did that happen very often when you were working?
No, not too often while I worked at the
What would happen if somebody got their hand caught in a knitting machine?
They'd have to turn it off real fast, or it would just cut it off, I mean just mangle it up.
Have you seen that happen?
No, but they've told me about it. That's the reason they wanted them to wear pants and shirts. They wouldn't let them wear dresses. That was before we all could wear pants. They'd want them to wear them on account of the machine, so they wouldn't get caught in it.
Was there a rule that other people had to wear dresses to work?
Before pants came in style we did. But I was real tickled when pants came
in, because they're so much [more] comfortable to work in. I've worn
them so long, when I have on a dress I just feel kind of funny. I hardly
ever wear one, only on Sundays to church. But now at lots of churches
you can wear pants. But I like to dress up once in a while. But it's
comfortable to work in pants, especially because when you wore dresses
you had to keep your legs together and everything. You had to mind how
you sit.
They're too comfortable.
I think so, too.
The changing dress styles have had a lot of effect on the hosiery industry, haven't they? Once skirts started getting shorter, then hose …
Yes, I know. Out there now you can wear shorts, but they've got to be so long. You can't wear short shorts. But that's a rule out there. And you couldn't wear those mini-skirts. That was one of the rules out there, too.
But once women started wearing pants all the time, they quit wearing hose as much.
Yes.
Didn't that hurt the industry?
No, it didn't seem to, but we made men's hose. And leotards they made out
there. But I worked in men's hose. If the men ever get like the women,
decide they're not to wear hose, they're going to miss it.(
That's right. Was there anything else that you …
I'm just kind of disappointed in our town, though.
Why is that?
Because the town is… So many stores is going to these malls. I've heard
that several stores are coming back. I just hope our town can be built
back up. Because I think the way they've got the common fixed is
beautiful. But it's just like a ghost town when you go down there. I
just don't know. I always loved to go to town, and it just kind of
disappoints me the way it's gone down. But these shopping centers is a
problem(
Where do you do your shopping?
Mostly at the shopping centers.
How else has the town changed from when you were growing up?
The common sure has changed, because back in my young days they called it
"Lover's Lane," and lots of cars would just go down there and meet and
ride around and around and around.
Oh, right. We went down there yesterday.
I want to go in. I never have been in it. They say it's kind of old-timey. Is it?
Yes. We just had a bowl of chile, which was real good and not too expensive.
We've been talking about going in there one of these days. I just want to go in and see, because I've seen it so much as a depot.
It's very different.
Were people supportive of you or did you feel and disapproval from your family …
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
You know, people's going to talk. I don't care if you're good or if
you're bad, they're going to talk. And one girl said, "Why, Carrie's got
more friends than I've got, and she's had two children." They said,
"Well, Carrie's just Carrie, and she's friendly and she loves everybody,
and that makes a difference."
But your mother didn't get upset or anything?
Naturally she did, but she was good to me. She helped me raise them and kept them while I worked.
Were you scared about trying to support kids by yourself? Did you feel confident that you could do that?
Yes, I did. That's the reason I went to work, and that's what I said today, that the girls that had them and they say they can't support them, if they go to work they can support them. But I'm thrilled, too, over that one thing this day: it's more girls keeping their babies than [giving them up for] adopting, and I think that's real nice of them to do that. Because, you know, back then, oh, adopt them, give them away.
Is that what
Yes. Well, shoot, I wouldn't give mine away. I loved them.
Did anybody try to persuade you to put your kids up for adoption?
No. It was one family said of my oldest little boy that they'd love to have him. He was so sweet, they loved him so much. Said oh, they'd love to have him. Said, "Won't you give him to us?" I said, "No way." But they loved him anyway.
Did people have abortions in your day?
Yes, I had a friend who had one. But she almost died. But she never did tell nobody, and I never did either. But she got over it.
Where would they go?
It wasn't public like it is now. I forget the name of the doctor that did it. He did it illegally; it was illegal back then. But I had mine. I didn't want no abortion. And now I'm glad. They're just as sweet, grown up and got children of their own.
We didn't ever get to talk about how you got married and started to work.
She didn't have any children.
No. I raised my brother-in-law, though. My husband's baby brother stayed with us, and then his other brother stayed with us.
I was married in 1925 and left that September.
How did you meet your husband?
In Gastonia.
You had already gone to Gastonia?
Yes. I went down there to work.
Why did you go to Gastonia?
Me and two girlfriends of mine went down there. He was engaged to another
girl, and he met me, and me and him got married.
How did that happen?
I don't know.
Think of the poor little girl.
I don't know how it happened, but it did.
What happened to her, the poor fiancee?
She was a friend of the family's
Then he died?
Yes. He died in 1970 on the ninth day of March.
You weren't able to have children?
No. I could if I'd had an operation, but I didn't. I'd say something
about it, and my husband would say, "Aw, what's the use? We're getting
along
What kind of operation would you have had to have?
I'd have to have my womb straightened. I had a friend that had that done,
and that's what caused me not to. When we was living in Hickory, I went
to Dr. Medsey(
They had the surgery. That's what was so funny; they had to give her surgery to quit.
So you didn't want to follow that example.
No. But she loved… I mean she was more… Everybody ain't alike with kids, you know. Of course, I wouldn't have minded if I had one. I thought well, if I was supposed to I would have; if I ain't, I ain't, so I never did go to the hospital.
But you went down to Gastonia with two other girls?
Yes.
Where did you live?
We got us a boarding place, and I met him in the plant. He was a second hand in the plant.
Why did you want to leave Hickory?
We couldn't find no job that we wanted. They paid pretty good down there. I never did like Hickory to work in.
Why is that?
I never could find a job in Hickory that really paid me as much money as they did down there. I always made more than my husband did down there. When we drawed our Social Security, I drawed $1.60 more a month than he did. Then when he died in 1970 I went to the Social Security Board and asked her his Social Security. She said, "No, you won't get none of his. You draw $1.60 more than him." See, she would have given me that if he'd drawn $1.60 more than me. Of course, he took his at sixty-two, and I got mine at sixty-five, because I got mine on disability. I got hurt in the plant while I was working out there.
What happened?
A lift hit me.
And broke your leg?
You know what a lift is, that loads yarn, and that forklift hit me. A
piece of iron at the bottom caught my shoe (sandal) and throwed me in
front of it and missed pushing me out in the Akers Motor Line truck.
There was five big bales of yarn up on top of me, and I was under it. I
forget how many thousand pounds they said it was. It happened that the
shipping clerk saw me under it. They said I screamed, but I don't
remember nothing about it. I really don't remember getting hit. My
husband worked on one end of town, and I worked over at the other one. I
worked at Ranlo, North Carolina, and he worked down in South Gastonia,
and so the last years I got a ride with Pete
What do you mean?
He wrapped it up and sent me home and saved the company a little money.
You see, that's North Carolina compensation. And he told me to see him
the next week, to call him the next Thursday—that was on a Thursday—and
he'd let me know when he could see me. My leg wasn't broke, but I had a
big old old purple knot(
And he said it was the doctor's fault?
Yes, he said he couldn't do nothing for that leg. I'd have to go to a surgical doctor. And he said, "You'll have to get you a surgical doctor," and I said, "You better get me one." So he called Dr. Williams, and I went in the hospital that evening and I stayed four months and eight days at Gaston Memorial Hospital before I ever went home.
Did the company ever pay for all your doctor bills?
They paid the doctor bill, yes. It was a little over $12,000 then. It
would have been a whole lot more than that now, but that's what it was
at that time. That was in '63. And they gave me sixty percent of my
wages for a little over two years. That's all. I never did
Your family …
Yes, both of my brother-in-laws was buried a week apart.
There was a news report from Channel 9 up here, wasn't it, on the busses
in Hickory. He said me and him was going to do conversation down the
road one of these days, but he ain't come back yet.
She and my husband were on television.
About what?
The busses in Hickory. We want busses for senior citizens in Hickory.
Have you all been trying to get busses?
Oh, yes, I've been in on a meeting or two on it.
Whose meeting?
The aged and the senior citizens.
And the city won't provide special
Well, they're talking it.
They said that they might by 1985.
We're in on a committee to get that building over there at Westmont [School]—they had first, second, and third—for the Senior Citizens' Recreation Center. And then we're going to have a recreation center over here on Seventeenth Street, a government… I reckon the city give them the land, helped them, and the county.
You were on a committee that got them?
Yes.
Who started this committee?
It started with this program at the church, eating, and went on. I'm on the planning committee down there now for the eats, make out the menus.
Were you in Gastonia during that 1929 strike, the Gastonia Strike?
No, I was living in Hickory at that time.
Did you know any of the people involved in it?
Oh, yes, I knowed Addie Holt and all of them that got killed. Addie Holt didn't get killed by the strikers; he got killed by the cops.
Is that right?
Yes. That's what everybody in Gastonia… Greedy. Somebody wanting a job. It was almost proved one time.
Do you know anybody that's still around that was involved in that strike that we might could talk to?
No, I don't.
Oh, you do. You know Glenn Lowdermilk.
Lowdermilk.
They're talking about Gastonia.
I'm talking about Gastonia. Addie Holt got killed.
How did you know him?
I knowed he was chief of police of Gastonia.
You just knew him as the chief of police?
Yes, I knew him. I knowed Earl Armstrong, the evangelist preacher down there. I knowed almost everybody down there.
How was Earl Armstrong involved in it?
He wasn't involved in the strike.
He was good in his way, but he was an evangelist preacher, had that big
tabernacle in Gastonia that the working
Why is that?
I don't know. That's the way it happened.
What denomination was it?
Wesley Methodist. That's what he was. But Earl Armstrong's Tabernacle is what they called it, I think. But I think everybody had it in their head down there—or I did; I don't know if everybody did or not—that it belonged to Gaston County, because the people built it.
The people paid for it.
Give most of it to the… They really had some good meetings there. My husband's people was that denomination, Wesley Methodist.
What kind of work did you do?
Wound in a mill and run creel warp machines, different things.
Was Earl Armstrong a real well known revivalist in Gastonia?
Yes, he was. He was a fine preacher.
And this church, have you heard of this tabernacle?
No.
No, I don't guess you all have, because it's been used for a warehouse ever since he died, for years.
Why did people feel that they needed to build their own church?
Everybody else went to church, but they'd have revivals and things here.
Oh, so this was not just a regular church.
Well, yes, he preached there every Sunday evening, and he broad cast it
on the radio. Nobody hardly ever would miss an Earl Armstrong
But it was really a church that working people built and working people went to.
It was more for evangelist work.
For different denominations.
They would let different denominations have it.
Kind of like evangelism work.
That's what it was. That's what he turned out to be. He was at one time pastor of the Wesley Methodist Church there in Gastonia.
But he wanted to leave there and have his own ministry.
His brother and his people run Armstrong and Ford. That's his brother. I think his brother's still living.
You don't know how many's living, do you?
No, I don't. Earl Armstrong was a fine preacher. I mean he was a real evangelist preacher. But the Ford place down here in Hickory is from his people.
What kind of effect did the Gastonia Strike have on that community afterwards?
It tore it up for a good while. I wasn't living there when they had the strike that they called the Wild …
The 1934?
No, I was living up here in Longview then, right here.
The Wildcat Strike.
Yes. That shut down the plants everywhere. You know, Gastonia was very involved in that. They went from one mill to the other.
The Flying Squadron. What did you hear about that?
I was living up here then. They did shut us up one night up here
What do you mean?
Got us out of the plant up here at Longview. That's the last I lived in Hickory then, and then I moved.
Why did you keep moving back and forth?
My husband liked Hickory better, and I liked Gastonia the best.
Were you involved in any of the strikes or ever in a union?
No. My husband was in a lot of the unions, but I never did join one. When they struck up here at Hickory Spinning, my husband was president of that union, but I didn't join it. Because I always knew that North Carolina would never stick. I always had that in my head, and they ain't never. And that's what it takes. You've got to stick together to win anything, and they won't do it.
Why is that?
I don't know, but they won't do it. Now Alec Shuford come to me at the plant. You see, he had a list of the ones that belonged, but my name wasn't on it. And he come to me on Friday; he knowed they was going out on strike Monday.
How did he find out?
They told him. They knowed it. The organizer notifies them. Anyhow, he
come to me and he said, "Are you going to work next week?"
What makes the South different?
I don't know, but they just won't do it.
Why did your husband join?
He always believed in it, and he joined. He always believed they'd stick, but they wouldn't.
He tried it.
Yes, he tried them.
Did he ever get fired or lose his job?
No.
It was the Textile Workers' Union of America that he was in?
CIO. He worked nineteen years at the mill, and he was secretary-treasurer of that union and president of it a couple years, at CDA's in South Gastonia. They had a union there at South Gastonia, but it wasn't no good. It wasn't enough of them would stick, see, to get nothing. They wanted the benefits from them, but they didn't want to pay union dues; let's put it that way. And you can't have nothing if you don't.
Have you noticed any changes in recent years, that people seem to
I ain't worked none since 1963, so you know I don't know too much about it. The last work I done was in 1963 in August, and then I got my disability when I come out of the hospital. I didn't get it right away, because I didn't think I'd get my disability. But Dr. Williams, the doctor who waited on me, said I would. He knowed what he was talking about, to go ahead. So I waited. I waited long enough I got $800-and-some dollars back pay, after the six months. It was six months, at the time, you had to wait. But I was in the hospital four months and eight days of that.
I wanted to ask both of you what kind of difference it's made since they started hiring blacks to work in the mills.
I've not worked since much.
Was there any trouble when that happened?
Where I am, of course, we didn't have too many.
We had some before ever I quit.
Did people get along pretty well?
Yes. I liked them. They were just as sweet as they could be, the ones that works out where we do, and friendly. And they're good workers.
There weren't any clashes when they first started coming in?
Not where I worked.
What you all trying to do, be news reporters?
No.
I guess I thought you all fixed the night news report(
Not out where I worked, it wasn't any clashes.
Thank you very much.
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
When did you first move to Gastonia, when you and those other two girls went?
In 1924 I went. Then I got married in '25.
Which plant were you working in there?
At Modeener Mill.
Did they have a mill village?
Yes.
What was that like?
The first house we ever lived in was a mill house there.
You had never lived in a mill village.
No, not till I moved there, because we owned our home. But later, after we sold ours, my mother lived on the mill village.
Did you like living in the mill village?
Oh, yes, it was all right in them days and times.
What was your house like?
You had to pretty well keep it up yourself. They'd give you stuff to fix
it, but I was always fixing mine, painting it. They didn't have any
paint during the Depression times, but you know what I done? I went to
the branch and got this clay mud and put Putman's dye in it and painted
my house. And then the dirt daubers nellied us up.
Was there any company-sponsored recreation or any social welfare work?
No, there wasn't no such thing.
In any of the places that you lived in Gastonia?
In later years, after Roosevelt got in, there was, but there wasn't
before. No, there wasn't no such thing before Roosevelt. You resisted
Tell me about how you got interested in Democratic Party politics.
That was in the Depression years. But the first time I voted, I voted for Hoover. The next time come around, why, it was too bad; we had four years' depression. Two years of it was really bad.
What happened to you during those first years of the Depression?
I just done like the rest of them, resisted it. That's all anybody done that didn't have nothing. A lot of the big men jumped out the window and killed theirself. Lost their money, and they couldn't take it.
You said the other day that those were the hardest years of your life.
Yes, that was the hardest, and the bluest time in my life. Because I
ain't a blue person. A lot of people sets around and broods about
things, but I don't. The worst thing I brooded about was when I lost my
husband and when I got hurt, them two things. But that didn't last long.
I got over it.(
Were you out of work?
Yes.
Did you get laid off?
Yes. They just worked the people that had children, and me and Cobb didn't have no children. But we still had a family; we had his brother, and then a woman and her son stayed at our house, and we took his aunt and her daughter.
How did you happen to take in all those people?
His aunt and her daughter didn't have nowhere to go, so they come in. We
done the best we could about them. And Ann Davis and her boy was staying
at our house when it hit, so I wouldn't want to tell her she had to
leave. And so her and Cobb just combined their… And they laid me off at
the plant to work the ones that had children. It wasn't nothing against
my work.
How did you get by during those years?
Everything was cheap. When we got to work, we could make a pretty good living. But you see, we didn't get to. My husband didn't get but a day or two. Now Rex never did shut completely down; he'd get a day or two. Enough you could get you a little bread.
Were you able to keep on staying in the mill house rent-free?
Oh, yes, they didn't charge us any rent.
You could stay there and just work every once in a while, when you'd
No, the rent didn't cost us nothing. If one hit now, it'd be terrible. We didn't pay no lights, no water bills.
Did you vote for Roosevelt the first time around?
No.
How come?
Because I wouldn't, because I was mad at the world.
But your family is …
Is Republicans.
Do you know why they're such staunch Republicans?
I can't figure it out. A lot of people don't pay no attention to that, but I do. I listen who votes in the Congress and Senate on each and every bill. They put it in the paper, and they put it on TV. Anybody that wants to can look it up, when a bill comes up. Now every little old bill I don't look, but anything that's concerning me or our living in America, I look that bill up. You hardly ever see a Republican who votes for it. Most of them's Democrats. Votes for bills that benefits you. I saw that. That's the reason I'm a Democrat, a whole lot.
What kind of bills have you been especially interested in in recent years?
All the aging bills in the past or anything, now like the Panama Canal and different things. And they make out like the Panama Canal shouldn't have been. Now this bill they're looking at right now, that he's over there, is going to make a speech on tonight, well, they claim that shouldn't be. But why did the other presidents behind him, Nixon, Ford, all of them, they was trying to get that. Why? If it wasn't all right, why did they start it? So I don't know. I always look at it. But you can tell. A lot of people don't pay no attention to who votes for who. Now you take Broyhill up here. He's a good man. I imagine he is a good man. He gives away furniture by the bushels, on TV and everywhere else. But you look up his record, and he'll go all the way to get you Social Security. And any kind of war veteran, if it goes to them he'll help it. But you notice his voting record. He never votes on a bill, Broyhill don't, in Congress, the Senate. We don't need them up there if they ain't going to vote yes or no. They should vote one way or the other, I think, don't you?
Yes.
Every one of them should. Let it be a Republican or a Democrat, I think they should vote yes or no on all bills. But he's never there to vote. But he's the best man you ever saw, and that's where he gets his votes. He don't help pass them bills, but he'll help everybody to get them after they do pass. See what I mean? That's the way he is.
Do you remember the night that Roosevelt was elected?
Yes.
What do you remember about it?
They was tickled. Everybody knowed-Hoover would get beat. I believe if they'd run anybody, he'd have got beat, honey. Roosevelt wasn't no outstanding president right then, but in later years he was. But I think most anybody would have beat Hoover, because he was so down. But I've had people tell me… A man stood up to me last week and told me that was the best president we ever had.
Hoover?
Yes. I told him he wasn't in my eyes.
You were telling me the other day about listening to Roosevelt's inauguration address on the radio.
Yes. That's the first president I ever listened at, I mean ever come over
the air. It wasn't no radios or nothing for it to come over the air. And
he was the first President of the United States that they broad casted
on the radio. It wasn't TV; it was radio. I had never saw a TV. The
first TV I ever saw was in New York. That was before we ever got it. I
was in New York and saw one. Roosevelt was swore in for president on
Saturday in March. I forgot what date. He was elected the first Tuesday
in November, but the presidents didn't go in at that time till in March.
Now they go in in January. And he went in, but he closed every bank in
America what was open; there wasn't
When you put your money in the bank?
Yes. I told some of them if Ronald Reagan got elected, I was going to
pump me a hole, that I didn't have much but I wanted to save it.
Were most of the people around you strong Roosevelt supporters?
No, never was.
What about your husband?
Oh, yes, he was convinced to be a Democrat the same time I was.
What did Roosevelt do then?
The first thing he done was close the banks and then made them
Have you ever been involved in Democratic politics on a precinct
Yes, me and my husband have hauled them to vote. I'd knock at the door, and he'd haul them.Oh, yes, lots of times. I've worked at the ballot box. I worked in the city election since I come up here.
In the Hickory city election?
Yes.
What about in Gastonia? Were you all in city politics?
We worked lots, yes.
Do you remember Governor Max Gardner?
Yes.
What did you think about him?
I liked him good.
Which North Carolina politicians have you supported or thought were good?
I've supported all of them on the Democrat ticket.
You're a real straight ticket.
Yes, I vote straight. I figure that when the Democrats picks them out, that they're all right or they wouldn't run them.
But there haven't been any local politicians that you had thought were especially good.
No. I just don't split my ticket. When they pick them out, I think that
they're all right. I just go ahead and vote for them. I don't see no
sense in that. I'll tell you what I think's wrong on this registering.
The Democrats, all these back years, has had primaries. The people that
don't vote Democratic go, and they register Democratic to get to vote in
the primaries. That's the reason, I think, a lot that the Democrats gets
bad people. When the primary comes up, then they vote for whoever they
want
I'd like to hear a little bit more about your husband. You said he was the president of the local union at Hickory Spinning?
Yes.
When did he get elected to that?
It was in the thirties. I don't know just what year it was.
How did he get involved in the union?
He just believed in organized labor and was always pitching.
From the very first, as soon as you married him?
Yes, all the time.
Had he already been involved in some organizing drives
No. He didn't get involved till later years. But in the South, why, you never could have nothing, because they won't stick. People won't stick together, and that's what it takes to have a union.
Did they win an election at Hickory Spinning?
Yes. Alec Shuford went and signed a contract, yes. Yes, they won an
election up at the Hickory Spinning that one time, and then he went down
there and signed a contract when they struck. And he was involved with
What is the CDA's?
They've got three mills there at South Gastonia. CDA. The last he worked was in the Armstrong, and he worked there nineteen years in the Armstrong mill. Claire, Dunn, and Armstrong is what they was called, CDA. That's what they call it.
How long was he at Hickory Spinning?
He worked there for two and a half or three years.
Was he there when they won the election?
Yes. There when they struck.
How were they able to win the election?
They had the most votes.
Did he go around house to house and talk to people?
No, just in the mill. They had meetings at different places, but that's all. There wasn't no rough stuff or nothing. Grady Falls went all the way; Hickory Spinning didn't. And Grady Falls come over here and tried to start some rough stuff, tried to shut them down up here, but they never got it done completely. That's when Alec went and signed a contract with them. But what made their union weak, they wouldn't pay the union dues, wouldn't sign up for the union. See? You can't make nothing out of nothing if you don't support it. So that's the way it went.
Is there still a local there?
No.
What happened to it?
I don't know, but people went on out. All Shuford's mill was on a contract there for years, but they ain't anymore. But you remember when they was on a contract, don't you, Carrie?
Yes.
Was the local able to get any of the grievances that they had settled?
They got a few of them, yes. But the ones that didn't pay union dues called it more than the ones that paid union dues. I mean they wanted more out of it. It don't work that way.
Was he involved in any strikes?
Nothing only this one up here at the Hickory Spinning. They never did strike over at the CDA's; they just signed a contract. They never did have no trouble over there. Because they knew them people wouldn't stick and they wouldn't pay union dues, so naturally it would go down.
So you think they just went ahead and signed the contract thinking that …
It would go down. They signed a contract there without striking.
Did your husband try to keep people from… Talk to people and try to convince them to stick and to pay their dues?
No, he just asked them to join. Most of them joined voluntarily from the organization, and then they just put him as president, that's all. And then he was secretary-treasurer a while.
At Hickory Spinning?
No, down at CDA's. He was secretary-treasurer there for a couple years. They had their union in there about eight or ten years, but a factory that way, they change hands, see. It's a different turnover every two or three years, a lot of …
A different management?
No, not different management. Different hands. But I never did join a
union, and I wouldn't if I was beginning working today, because southern
Why does that ruin it?
They shouldn't go out on strike. They ought to try to work together and
see. I don't think they should go out on strikes. You take that trucking
outfit right now, running around, going, doing all that. That ain't
doing them no good. They're just wasting their energy, their gas. If
they're getting gas to do that, why come they can't get gas to haul?
We were talking a little bit the other day about Gastonia and the strike at the Manbo Jinx Loray Mill in Gastonia. Did you know people who worked at the Loray Mill?
I wasn't working there at that time, but I did know a lot of them that did work there.
Had you heard any rumors about conditions being bad there, that anything was going to happen?
No, I wasn't living there. I was living in Hickory when the strike was. But I knew a lot of people that worked there.
Did you hear stories from them about going on strike?
Oh, yes, but that was just rumors. They always had rumors going around Gastonia that Addie Holt wasn't killed by the strikers. Anyhow, they cleared him in later years, the man over the union. He come out of the penitentiary, walked a free man. I think they even paid for what he did serve.
What about Ella Mae Williams? Did you know her?
No, I didn't know her personally, but my sister-in-law did.
Had you ever heard of the songs that she wrote?
Yes. My sister-in-law had some of them. Maude Croft knowed her pretty
well, but I didn't. Because Maude, my sister-in-law, was raised there at
Firestone(
Is she still alive?
Maude is, but I don't know where she's at.
You haven't been in touch with her?
No. Her and my brother-in-law parted years ago, and she married again. And my brother-in-law's dead.
So she left Gastonia?
The last account I had of her, she was living in Charlotte. I don't know where she's living now.
Did you hear stories about the National Guard being out and all the
violence in the picket lines(
I just heared rumors. I wasn't living there, and I don't know too much about that strike. All I know is what they told me. My mother-in-law and father-in-law lived there, and all [my husband's] people. Me and him was living up here at that time, in '29. That's when that happened.
About that same time, there was a big strike at Marion.
I didn't know nothing about that.
What did your husband think about all of that that was going on?
He never did say too much about it.
He was already involved in the union?
No, not then. In later years, he was. When the CIO come out,
He liked the CIO more than the AFS?
Yes.
Why was that?
I don't know, but he did. He was involved with the CIO, not the AF of L.
What was the difference in those two?
I don't know. I never did study much on that, because I never did think I'd want to join it.
I was real interested in Earl Armstrong. I had never heard about the tabernacle.
We had a big tabernacle there. They've got a warehouse in it now, though.
Do you know when the tabernacle was built?
I believe it was built in the Depression years, right about the time Roosevelt was elected. I know it was in '29 my mother-in-law died, and he was pastor at the Wesley Methodist Church. He was her pastor, and he preached her funeral. It was about in '31 or '32—it was up in the thirties—when that tabernacle was built, and he preached there, and they had some good preaching there. Then they could let other preachers come and run revivals there. They had big singings there, and it was a nice place to go. And a lot of people had a lot of confidence in Earl Armstrong. He was a good evangelist preacher.
Did he ever talk in the pulpit about what was going on in the country at thaat time, anything about Roosevelt or the organizing drives?
No, he never did preach on nothing much like that. He always preached the
Bible the most. He was that kind of a man. But I always had
[END OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE B]
Have you gone through and gotten all of the places she worked and followed them through, one after the other?
I'm not sure if we ever did get that straight.
In Gastonia I just worked at two places, and I worked at the shoestring factory and the hosiery mill here, and in textiles.
The Modena Mills was the first place you worked, and then where?
At Rex Number 1 at Ranlo, North Carolina. That's about the only two mills I ever worked in any length of time, in Gastonia.
Your husband worked at CDA's, but you didn't.
No, I never have worked there. But I think you got that all.
Carrie was talking about liking to work in the hosiery better than textiles in some ways. But you almost always worked in textiles, didn't you?
Yes.
She did work when she was young in the shoestring.
In the shoestring factory at the hosiery mill. The first place I ever worked was in the hosiery mill, and then I worked at textiles.
That's something to see, making shoestrings.
How is that done?
It's braiders knits the shoestrings, and I run sixty braiders. Walter Riley, that used to be Mayor of Hickory, owned it.
Did you like working in textiles better than working in hosiery?
Oh, yes. I could make more money in Gastonia than I could here.
But what about the work itself? Do you think the work is more pleasant or less pleasant?
I always could get along better on it. It could have been me, though, but I always could. I never did have a good job in Hickory. The only good job ever I had was down here at the Highland Mill. I was working for Bill Shuford; he was super. And my husband. And that was when the Depression was a-hitting, and they done cut wages down here. They cut my husband's wages from $17.80 to $9.60. And they hadn't cut wages at Gastonia yet, and that's the reason he went to Gastonia. And Bill Shuford come to me. When you lived there on the mill hill, your husband's name was on everything, your house, rent on the house and everything. He come to me and said "Sis"—he knowed Bill called me "Sis"—don't go down there with Bill. I ain't trying to part you. Now if you don't go, Bill'll come back. Stay down here." And that was the best job I ever had in Hickory, but it didn't pay nothing cut, and that was straightening up the winder room. I could work about thirty minutes, and then I'd have about two or three hours' rest. I went on with him anyhow, and that's when I went to Rex. And I had a pretty house down at Highland. I had one of the bossman houses, and it was painted pretty. It was four rooms.
How did you get that house?
They give it to us. They furnished the houses to the help, and they let
me and him move in it because they didn't need it for the bossman [and]
because we didn't have no children to tear it up. So I moved down at
How did you think of that? Had you heard about
No, we just… Mrs. Rudisell was nurse at Rex Number 1 and Number 2, and when she heared that I was doing that, she come by. I never heared a woman laugh so in my life. They wouldn't give you nothing. They didn't have no money to buy no paints or nothing. But they was pretty good to give you stuff if you'd keep your house up. I always had a pretty good, nice house, because me and Cobb would paint it. The company would give it to you back, but in the Depression they didn't have it to give. You see, they wasn't working, wasn't making no money, and what they was making they stored in the warehouse. And then when Roosevelt come in, they went and got on top, because the market opened up and they sold all that. So that put them on top.
Did you have any health problems from working in the textile mills? You've been hearing about the brown lung?
Oh, yes, I've heard about it, but I have never knowed nobody who really had it.
Really?
No. I mean personally know them. I just heared of it. I got along good, but I got hurt in the plant.
But up until that accident, you hadn't had any problems?
No. I enjoyed my job. I loved to work. And I always liked to be right at
the top of the payroll,
And did you, usually?
Usually I did, yes. I tried. I had a bossman come to me at Rex and told
me one time—Jim Wilson; he's dead now—"Cobb, you're going to have to cut
down. You drawed more than I did this week." He was overhead seer.
You've got to fight if you make anything on piecework.
Yes, you do. You have to fight it. And I enjoyed it. I was pretty active. Before I got sick I wasn't sick nor nothing, and I'd go in there and fight that eight hours. But I'd go down and set down and eat my lunch. Now I wasn't too tight to do that.
Did some people not even take any lunch?
No, they wouldn't even sit down. And one time they put a stretchout, this man at Modena. That's when they started giving you more work. Burlington's bought it, and Burlington's put it in.
When did they have it?
In the forties.
And they put in a stretchout?
Well, Burlington's always do. Anyhow, they was putting the stretchout in,
and I didn't work that day. There was something I had to be out. They
come around that day and told them not to set down and eat their lunch.
I went in a day or two after that. I was setting over there eating my
lunch. I never did pay no attention to it, you know. I sat down to eat
my lunch. The rest of them… One friend of mine was standing there. I was
doubling at that time. It's something like winding, but it was doubling
your threads. I was running a big, long doubler. And this lady was
standing up beside, watching her doubler, eating her lunch. Then a big
dressed-up man looked at me and went over to her, and he asked her,
"Little lady, why come
Who was this guy in the suit?
He was out of Raleigh, on the wage-hour program. And you ain't allowed to tell them not to set down and eat their lunch. They got laws for that. That was in the late forties, and Roosevelt made laws to that effect. You couldn't tell them not to set down.
But they'd do it anyway?
They did that time. But when he went out, the overhead seer come along
and said, "Everybody set down and eat their lunch, but don't take too
long."
Do you mean people would keep on working and eat at the same time?
Yes. I saw people do that when they didn't have to do it, though, in public work, because they was so greedy. That's what I told you a while ago; I never was that greedy. I always liked to stay on top, but I went to the lunch room and set down to eat my lunch. I wasn't ever that way. I don't think it pays you to be that way. It makes you nervous. If you set down and relax a little bit and drink something and eat a little something, when you go back you can do a whole lot more. That's the way I always had it figured, in this here lunch business working. And I never would work on a job that got on my nerves.
Did you have to quit any jobs that got on your nerves?
Oh, yes, I quit a few that got on my nerves.
What kind of jobs would that be?
At Modena they tried to put me on a warp machine one time, and I
Why were they going to do that? Why were they going to lay off another woman?
They were stretching out the jobs, putting more on them. They had
Have you had stretchouts like that at a lot of places?
Yes. I was out at Modena when Burlington's put it in Modena, and then I was at Rex when they put it in there. And about the time Hickory Spinning struck, they was putting in one up here.
That's why the strike happened, against the stretchout?
Yes, they was against that stretchout.
How did people feel?
They just take the board and go on and do what they can do, that's all. You can do that or quit, either one you want to do.
How do people feel about the more greedy workers, the people that work on their lunch break and everything? Do people dislike them, or is there some resentment toward them?
Yes, they'd think it was greedy. I always have had pretty good friends
where I worked. When I got hurt, they sure did have a fit about it. The
hands were so nice to me. They brought me enough cosmetics to do me and
the whole nurse staff up at Gaston Memorial Hospital.
Who helped you get your workmen's compensation? Did the mill cooperate with you on that?
The doctor that operated on my leg, Dr. Williams. And then I went to
their doctor. I'll tell you how that was. See, I had six doctors in the
hospital. I had my doctor. Then we had the doctor that wrapped my leg up
and sent me home. And then when my doctor sent me to the hospital, he
hired Dr. Williams; that was the third one. Well, Dr. Williams went to
California before they put the skin graft on me. He hired Dr. Tyner;
that's the fourth.
Why do you suppose he wouldn't sign the paper?
He didn't sign it for nobody. He was one of them old conservatives, didn't believe in it. He didn't believe in nothing that you could get. He didn't believe in Social Security; he didn't believe in no welfare; he wouldn't even take a welfare patient. If he could get out of it, he wouldn't. The only way he took them was pushed on him; he was a specialist and had to have them. But I didn't know that at that time, see. But he was a good doctor.
How did you get your workmen's compensation, your check that you were drawing, sixty percent of your wages?
They're supposed to give it to you if you get hurt in the plant.
The mill just went ahead and …
Oh, yes, they carry that insurance on you.
I was just wondering because some people have problems getting that.
No, that ain't what they have problems getting, honey. If you get hurt in the plant, everybody's entitled to it. In North Carolina, that's a law. Didn't you know that?
Yes. What were you saying, Carrie?
I said I didn't get it for my surgery on my arm.
No. If you get hurt in the mill, though, in the plant… Now at that time, at the mill, I was paying $1.10 for myself. That was a whole lot of insurance pay. It come out of my payroll every week, but I never collected a nickel on it.
Ninety(
But you did hurt your arm in the plant?
Yes, about eight years ago, it slipped off a board and I hit it.
When you were inspecting?
Yes. Well, the compensation paid the doctor bill, but then I was out two weeks. They didn't pay me nothing.
But when she went back, they didn't pay her nothing.
Why didn't they?
I don't know why they never did pay
So here three months ago, I was lifting a sack. They got some new sacks in the mill, and they were just old big stiff sacks, so big, and a knitter started putting lots more dozens in them. And we were behind, and up on the rack I tried to get one down. And when I got it down, it just wrung this wrist around. And oh, I almost went through the floor. So I worked a week, and it just got worse and worse and worse, so they sent me to the doctor's. I went to Dr. Peters, because there was another woman got her arm hurt, and she went to him, and he did surgery. Did the same thing that I did the first time, did it on the board. But Dr. Peters said he didn't think he could do that surgery, because they thought I had ruptured an artery. So he sent me on to another doctor, Dr. Gardner, and he was off for vacation for a week, so I had to stay out a week; he wouldn't let me go back to work. So he came in on Monday, and I went and I had surgery on Wednesday. But when they got in there, it was a ganglion cyst that had growed all these years where that first hurt, and it growed in my artery. And they had to cut that all out. So I turned it in on my compensation, and they didn't have no record of the first time, so they didn't pay anything, but my own insurance paid eighty percent of it. But all of it come from working down there, being hurt in the plant.
Do you think they conveniently lost the record? Do you know that they made a record of it the first time that you'd gotten hurt?
Yes. I told them that I went to Dr. Siegel and that they should have it.
The doctors should have a record.
He should have had it. But I don't know if they called him or not, but
they wrote and said that since it was a ganglion cyst they couldn't pay
it. But it was caused from my other hurt.
I was in there one day, and my bill was $1,230. For one day.
One day?
I stayed overnight. I went in on Wednesday morning and came out about lunchtime on Thursday.
And twelve hundred dollars.
Twelve hundred dollars was what they charged.
That's still a whole lot, even if they paid eighty percent.
Yes, I had to pay $179 on my hospital bill, and I just paid $48 on the doctor bill.
Do a lot of people have problems?
Yes, lots of them gets hurt like that, just minor things that they have to go. Because they have us report anything; if it's small or large, we're supposed to report it. And they didn't send my disability, so I called Barbara, the one personnel woman that looks after it, and I told her that the nurse over there had put it on the doctor bill so he wouldn't fill it out. So she called in at our main office and said that the girl down there said that she would send me a check in the next couple days. I don't know if I'll get it or not.
You're still waiting for it, then.
Yes.
I wanted to hear a little bit about the things that you're involved in now with the senior citizens and the aged and so on.
Oh, I just help them out a little bit.
But you said something about trying to get bus lines in Hickory for the…
Yes.
What is that about?
We was wanting busses to run in Hickory to take these old people, pick them up, that can't drive a car.
And we don't only need them for the old people.
We need them for everybody in Hickory. We need a bus line in Hickory the worst of anything that's ever been.
And especially since the gas is getting …
Yes, and it's so many old people, when they get old they can't drive. And then we've got a lot of children could ride the bus. And a lot of people would ride the bus if we had …
They've got four busses for the aged.
Yes, we've got four, but one of them's at Newton, and one of them's at Maiden.
[END OF TAPE 4, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 5, SIDE A]
… got a bus that was donated to us, and all we have to do is pay for the gas and bum us a driver or get us a driver. We've been lucky so far; we don't have to pay nobody to drive it. We've always got somebody that volunteered to do it, Mr. Buie and a lot of them, different people.
What have you done to try to get the city to rent busses?
We just put a film on, and we asked them to.
Me and her has been on TV for it and everything.
They put you on television?
Yes, me and him both was on.
How did that happen?
Somebody told them I run my mouth, I reckon.
And so you were on the six o'clock news?
Yes, I was on the six o'clock news, but I never saw it. I was out running
around.
We looked for a week.
Yes, and never saw it. And we went to the mall, and all them TV's at that new mall, we could have went We never saw it.
… and they were on.
That always happens.
And I never did get to see it. I didn't see it yet. Alvin saw it,
They ain't never here when nothing happens, and the telephone, I have to answer it all the time.
He has to answer the telephone.
Was there a committee that the senior citizens organization set up to try to do something about that?
You see, the taxi drivers of Hickory fought the busses that they got. Then we set up a committee to go, and they picked me to go with them on that committee, and we met on this committee with the taxi drivers.
You talked with the taxi drivers.
They was talking to get us off; I was talking to keep us on. These here busses that hauls us to eat and hauls these old people to the doctor's, they don't want. They say it's ruining their taxi business.
Have you been reading about this? Was it a public hearing?
Yes, they had it in the paper a couple of times, haven't they? This one taxi driver from Newton got up, and he said that he didn't think the taxpayers ought to pay for it, said people that's on the welfare is all they hauled. And boy, he sent me a blow there. Boy, I jumped up and told him, "Wait a minute, there, wait a minute. Everybody that rides that bus ain't on welfare. I ain't, and I know a whole lot more who ain't, and don't you go talking that way. We ain't on no welfare, but I think it's nice that they provide a way. What do you all just for the old people for? You've got a whole lot worse things going on than that." And I do think they have. He said, "Oh, I didn't mean to offend you." I said, "I ain't on welfare, though I wouldn't be too good to go on it if I had to. But it'll be a have-to when I do."
Do you all do voluntary work at the nutrition center?
Yes.
What kind of things do you do?
We dip up the eats and go on to meetings with them. I help plan the …
She calls bingo most all the time.
I call bingo, and she used to, and I go and help Betty Holmes over at the plan out the meals, what we eat every quarter.
I just started, and I guess this is about the fourth or fifth week.
I imagine she'll put you maybe on that …
The secretary, like, who keeps the names at the center …
I can't remember names. She wanted me to do that, but I told her I couldn't.
Oh, you're the secretary.
And then the ninth, the aged wants us to be on a committee to go somewhere. I don't know where Marge is going, but she wants us to go with her, because it's three more nutrition places or more.
Carrie, she wants Maiden, and they're different.
I know, but we're going to talk up for more money, our part and maybe a little more, for our new building site over here.
From the way we understand it, it's going to have to be a lot of volunteer work over there.
But that's what we're going to them; we're going to talk up for our nutrition centers(
Get some more money.
Yes.
Betty was talking to me today that she would help us on the others if
we'd do a little vol…
I'd rather do that.
Than just set there. A lot of people goes down there ain't able to do that. I hope I stay able.
And like I say, I hope I can work up that I can work with the elderly.
Doing this voluntary work would be good experience. Then if you wanted to find a job, you'd have the experience.
I'm too old for a job, though, but she ain't.
You're like me. I'm too dang old for that.
I told her, I done quit work lots of paydays.
But Mr. Yelton doesn't go down to the nutrition …
No.
He's going to our new place, though, when it opens up, he says.
Are there more women than men?
Oh, yes, there are everywhere you go.
Why is that?
Well, I tell you, the men died out quicker than the women.
Do you remember reading in the Bible where he said before the end of time it'd be seven women to every man's coattail? There are twelve already.
Our recreation director, Theresa Farley, got up the Senior Shufflers, a dancing group.
I've danced for a man for two years.
They have to have women dance as the men partners.
When we go to dance for the public, I dress as a man. I wear black
What kind of dance do you do?
Different. It's only similar to square dances.
About five or six different dances she's taught us.
But we're losing our Hickory Recreation Center woman, Theresa Farley. She's moving with her husband. Transferred.
She's very young, and she's so sweet, and she just loves her work.
Oh, she loves to work with old people. Kids, too. She's good on either one of them. I hate to lose her.
Are there any other issues that you've worked on, things that you've wanted to get changed to make things better for older people in Hickory? The busses are the main things, and the money for the nutrition science. Are there any other…
Anything that connects senior citizens, the aged. I used to help Margie, but I ain't helped Margie too much lately because she's got somebody to help her now. She was running it by herself. She's got a woman who works in the office now. She's got more time. I do help them a little to put on parties. We're going to have a watermelon feast down there the tenth of next month at the bridge at Conover. You know where the bridge is?
The covered bridge?
The covered bridge, that's where we're going. The AARP's coming, and the aged, Margie Abernathy's crowd.
And the aged meets once a month at the YMCA.
At Conover, Margie Abernathy's bunch.
This is the Council on the Aged?
Yes. They meet every second Monday.
How long have you all been involved in these organizations?
She has for five years, and I've been going about six weeks.
They started this in January, and I moved up here in April, and then I started in July. I got kind of homesick when I moved, leaving all my friends. My sister-in-law called around, and they come by and picked me up.
Is this sister-in-law still in Gastonia?
No, in Hickory. I'm talking about my sister-in-law on my side, Lucille Sigmon who lives over here on Twenty-fourth Street.
Now she could tell you lots about schools, because her daughter finished over here, and she's a teacher at St. Stephen's, and she worked in the lunch room.
She worked in the lunch room at the public schools?
Yes, up at Westmont for years. And her daughter, Judy Bass, is a schoolteacher.
I believe it was two years she taught in Maryland. Then she came back to live. She's been at St. Stephen's ever since.
It sounds like the Sigmons were a real close family.
We were. Over here now where the Snack Bar Number 2 is, all that used to
be a cafe and a shoe shop, and they'd hang out over there. And my
brothers would get together, and they'd just jabber and go on and talk
to each other. Some of the strangers would say, "Well, those boys is
going to get in a fight, aren't they?" They said, "Law, no, that's the
way they go on all the time. That's the Sigmon boys."
Are you still close as a family, even after all these years?
Yes, we get together once a We all live right around together.
We're all up here now, since I moved up here.
Have there been any family feuds, where people would get mad at each other?
Not as I know of. Not our family.
Oh, we'd argue lots. You ought to hear me and my brothers argue politics
sometime, them Republican and me Democrat.
Murphy was down here the other day telling me how lowdown Carter was, and
I started in on Nixon.
Do you feel like you had a closer family than a lot of other people?
I never remember being mad at any of my brothers or sisters.
Oh, that shouldn't be said. That's when she house. No, I don't remember that.
Yes, we always was a pretty close family.
And we could always joke and get along and not get mad.
Did you have very many occasions where you all got together? Did you all spend Christmas together?
Not lately, but…
We did when our mama and daddies was living.
But we ain't since.
After your mama and daddy dies, your family's…
We have a Sigmon reunion every summer, down at Oxford Ford.
We get together with all our families.
The whole Sigmon generation.
Everybody's dead now except for cousins. We have one aunt, and she was my daddy's brother's wife. She's the only aunt we have left. But the cousins, we all get together.
How many people came to the reunion last summer?
Oh, we have a hundred, a hundred and fifty, I guess.
How far away do they come from?
They come from Florida.(
Let me show you my six brothers and my daddy, and my husband.
And I've got and his brothers.
Here's my brother-in-law when he went in service. He was seventeen. My husband signed for him to go. Here's when he come out, twenty-one years.
He certainly grew up.
He looks like a boy there.
That's the first picture he had made when he went in. This is the last one he had made coming out. I like to have one.
How old was he when you started raising him?
He was five years old
What happened to his parents?
His mother died when she was twenty-nine. And that's how he looked when he come here. And this is my daddy right here, and this is his sister and his three brothers. They give them a birthday dinner, and I took that.
What's happened to this one fellow's leg?
He'd had a stroke. That's Van Sigmon. Now that's Wes Sigmon; this is Dad
Sigmon; this is Zeb Sigmon; this is Cebe Sigmon. And she married a
Sigmon, John Sigmon's wife Aunt Vi Sigmon. And this is my six brothers.
Next to this one that died
Which one is still living?
This one's a-living, and this one's a-living, and this one's a-living, them three, and the other three's dead. I've got four brothers dead, but this was taken before any died.
Where's your husband?
I believe he's further back. This is my husband.
He was really nice-looking.
That was in later years, though, whenever his health was going down. That was about the latest picture that was taken.
Where was that picture taken?
I really don't remember where that was taken.
Do you have any pictures of the two of you together?
Yes, I'll show you one of the last pictures we had made. There's the Sigmon reunion. That was all the cousins that was living in the whole Sigmon family. This boy I raised sent me this picture when he went to Frankfort, Germany. He was driving that jeep and hit that telephone post. He showed me where it dug him. Sent it to me. And this is him when he was in Frankfort, Germany. This was when I was in Florida. Some of these pictures is real old. But I don't see that picture.
Do you have any pictures of you and your husband when you were first married or in your early years?
No. This is Carrie's daughter there, that baby.
She is beautiful.
That's the one that plays the violin(
Susan? What's her last name?
Lale.
This is my niece that takes me a lot of places. This is Carrie's
I have a picture here. That was one of their wedding pictures. They got married in Maryland.
Now here's all that's living now. It was taken at the Sigmon reunion. Me and Carrie and my two brothers.
Of the brothers and sisters?
Yes, that's what's living right now. That's my big dollar bill.
Where do you have the reunions?
Down at Catfish, down at Oxford School, out there at the Bethel Lutheran church.
Here's a picture of me and my husband taken at the beach just before he
died. And this is my daddy's
This one's the best. She wouldn't ever hardly have a picture made.
That's a wonderful picture. Did she not smile very much?
No. She didn't like pictures taken of her.
I can't figure out where that picture of me and Bill is. I must have that in my pocketbook.
That's Alvin's mother. She's dead. Now this is my father and all of his brothers and sisters.
That's another sister?
Yes. I bought that down at the reunion. They had them way back, and they
had pictures made, so I bought
This was taken at Seattle, Washington, when we went. That's how George looked when we went to Seattle.
Let's see the twins now. He had three sisters.
This was taken in Virginia on a boat when we was on a holiday outing.
Th
It must be in my billfold. That's a good picture of me and Bill. I wanted you to see it. But it must not be.
I love these pictures.
Why is that?
She would just not wear them.
Did you think she was oldfashioned?
Back then they didn't wear many colors.
Does somebody cook for the family reunion?
We take a meal, fix a basket.
Who organizes those?
One of our cousins in Catfish. He died.
Who's going to do it now?
I don't know who will take over this year. I always help remind them up in this end. But we'll have to get a new president.
Do you elect a president and everything like that?
Yes.
That's neat.
But we'll have to elect a new one this year. We meet the second Sunday in September.
And you all meet out there at the Bethel church?
Yes.
That's neat.
This is my baby brother and his wife, Murphy Sigmon.
I hunted up all my pictures. Now I've got to them and put them in.
Mine are all just in a box.
I've got them that far; maybe I'll get them in there one of these days.
That's Preacher Huffman over there that we were talking about.(
I don't know if she has or not.
Is that…
That goes and sees them all at the hospitals and all, but he's just about
past going now. Preacher
END OF INTERVIEW