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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-0117, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Hoy Deal was born in Newton, North Carolina. After completing the fifth grade, he set out to earn money. He did so in a variety of positions in North Carolina's growing industrial sphere, handling wood at a few lumber mills and turning gloves at a glove factory, as well as spending time with a Works Progress Administration crew. Deal spends a significant amount of time describing his life at the time of the interview, including his difficult family relationships and his devout Christianity, but his memories of his early life in the rural South can be vivid, especially when he recalls his adventurous childhood and his macho exploits as a young man. This interview is a good source of vibrant stories about male life in an industrializing southern state.
Hoy Deal recalls his youth and young manhood in rural North Carolina, including stints at lumber mills and glove factories, two industries that, along with textiles, were a vital part of the state's economy in early twentieth century.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
I've got pictures all up here of all different kinds of people. There's Dolly (Parton), and up there is Little Betty Pruitt from Morganton. She used to put out records and tapes.
The girl with the blond hair put up on top of her head?
Yes. She telled… I believe nine or ten years old when she first started making records and putting out stuff. And then she got into a bad wreck and was about killed, and she was out a couple months, I think, on that. And then her daddy got to where he couldn't run around much with them, and her and her brother went to working down in the rest home up there in Morganton. And she don't do no putting out records or tapes now. I had one of her records that she made when she was about nine or ten years old, and I sold it here a while back to a fellow for fifteen dollars, and it had cost me five-something. But he wanted it.
It was a collector's item, I guess.
He wanted it and said he'd check in a while with me about it. And I said,
"Well, I can't get any more of it, and the only way that I'd sell it to
you at any kind of a price a-tall would be I'll call her and see if I
can get any more, or if she's got any more or knows anybody she can get
any from that she had sold." You know, she didn't put them out nowhere
but just sold them around and mailed them to people and stuff like that.
She didn't put none of them out in no regular store or nothing. And so
she said there wasn't any way that she could get me nar'one. Said they
had one, but they wanted to keep it in the family theirself. And I've
got about a half a dozen that she made afterwards with her family, but
she made this one just by herself, you know, and sung on it and
everything, when she was just small. And I told him that I couldn't get
any, and he said, "Well, what will you take for that one?" I said, "I'll
take it off on my tape"—my tape taped pretty good back then—" and I'll
sell you the record for
Who are some of your favorite groups?
I ain't especially got no favorite bunch, anybody that preaches the word of God and sings religious songs, why, I listen at them and like to hear them. But take this whole bunch of rock and roll stuff and kids' stuff like that, when such as that comes on my television I cut it off. And I've got two or three; I've got a television in about every room… I mean a… Yes, a tape… I've got a tape player and I've got …
A radio.
Two there. One of them won't play hardly a-tall. You can't hardly hear
it. And I've got one in that room, and I've got one there beside of my
bed. It's got a clock on it. It's got to where it don't play as good as
it did. But I can have music in every room I go in, some kind.
So you mostly listen to gospel stations?
Yes, I did keep that one on Statesville all the time, but
Nashville?
The "Grand Ole Oprey" station. Most of it's people that was in it way back years ago; them that's a-living still comes around and …
And this is what you pick up from Texas?
No, I don't pick up places like that. Since I found out where to get all
these stations that I used to get through Statesville, I can pick up
most anything through Winston-Salem. I keep it set to where I can… I put
a little tape on it before I can tell where the station is to turn it on
on Sunday morning. I get that on Sunday morning, get gospel preaching
and singing and stuff like that. I've got several different places on
these other radios that I can pick up gospel music and stuff on Sunday
mornings. I don't have too much time on Sunday morning, because I leave
here about 9:15 to go to my church and don't have too much. But on
Sunday evening, why, I get people from all different places coming on
Channel 14. I get about half a dozen different places that I can get
preaching and singing and stuff. And me and my neighbor out here was
aiming to go down to WHKY where Channel 14 comes on. We was aiming to go
down there tonight,
I was reading your Biblical Recorder's. Is that
something you get from the church?
Yes, it's a church book from Temple Baptist Church.
Where is that?
That's down in East Hickory.
How big is the church?
This ain't none of the church or nothing. It's just a book that comes out through the Southern Baptist Convention of the Southern Baptist Church. So there ain't none of the people or nothing; it's just reading about all different things that happens at different places through the Southern Baptist churches, and pictures of different people in different places.
What's Temple Baptist like?
It's a pretty good-sized brick church, and I imagine it'll seat 500. And
they've got Sunday school rooms all around over the downstairs of the
church and bottom part and the back part, and they've got a kitchen
downstairs in the bottom part in the back part of the church. When they
have a church meeting and they have dinner on the ground, instead of
having the dinner on the ground or anything, they have it in the back
part downstairs. Some people don't think that they ought to have any
place in churches to eat or anything, but I don't know whether that'd be
wrong or not, as long as you don't cook or nothing on Sunday, and
everybody cooks at home and brings their dishes and just takes it down
in
What is the inside like?
It's just got three rows of benches, and then the choirs and where the pulpit is, where the preacher's at, is back up here in front of all of it. And then they have an organ on one side and a piano on the other side. They have two, one playing organ and one playing piano. And then they have rooms in the back there where they take children and everything.
Is the preacher you have there now a young man?
No, I'd say he's around forty-five or fifty years old.
That's not too old.
I don't think he'd be over fifty. I may have heared, but I don't remember if I have, just how old he is. He's not too old.
What's his name?
Garland Early.
Has he been there for quite a while?
I guess four years.
How did he come to be there? Did the preacher you had leave?
They've had two or three different ones there. The first one that started the church was an old man, and he died before they got the second floor built. We just had the bottom floor and we had the preaching and everything in the basement. And then they'd started to build the other part, but he died before they got it all finished. He didn't even get to preach in there a time in the upper part. Then Preacher Baker was there after this man died, and he was a pretty old man. And his wife still comes there and helps to teach children, and when they have any kind of a meeting or anything she's there and helps to do things in the church.
And then you got Preacher Early?
Yes, they went and got him, and he preached a couple of sermons—they
could see how he preached and everything—and then they got him to come
regular. And wherever he come from, his choir leader come with him, and
he was there two years, I believe, or maybe three. And he decided to go
somewhere to some other church or somewheres, and then we got another
choir leader. I believe he come from the First Baptist Church to lead
the choir, and he'd been there six months or better before they taken
him in as a regular singer. And he's supposed to be a regular singer
from now on,
Does the regular singer get a gift or a donation maybe at the end of the service? Is he paid in any way by the church?
I don't know what they've been a-paying him. They're sure to have paid him something till he started in. They probably paid him out of the church salary that they have left over each Sunday.
What did people like about the new preacher's preaching when they came down and they were proving and said he was a good preacher? What makes a good preacher?
One thing is preaching the word of God, and another thing is about going
and visiting the sick and everything, when there's people sick and in
the hospital or anything like that. About going out and preaching and
visiting the sick that's in the hospital and in the rest homes and stuff
like that and having prayer with him and everything. I think that is
more important than just preaching. Because there's so many people
that's sick in the hospitals and rest homes and stuff like that that
can't come to church every Sunday. And whenever anybody spends a lot of
his time when he's not preaching in the church and stuff out going
around visiting the sick that's in the hospitals and rest homes and
having prayer with them, I think that's the most important thing,
besides preaching the word of God, that he could do. And of course, if a
man ain't going to preach the word of God, why, he ain't got no business
in the pulpit. That's the way I look at it. Because if anybody don't
preach the word of God, why, it ain't important for him to be in the
pulpit at all. If a man gets up there and takes his touch on one thing,
and then jumps off on something else and don't preach the Bible, why,
people don't want to hear him long. And I believe this man's a good man,
and he does go to visit the sick all
How does he compare with some other preachers at the other churches that you've been in contact with previously?
I don't go to too many other churches, but I mentioned a while ago about we was talking about going down to WHKY. There's a good preacher on there. We was aiming on going tonight, but we decided to wait till next Tuesday night to go to hear him preach. He's a good man preaches. He's a real old man, a white-headed man. He's been preaching for many, many years, and he goes to other places. He preaches himself on Tuesday night and sing and has stuff. And then whenever another group comes on, why, he stays with them and testifies and helps to sing and carry on part of their preaching and stuff for a while. Anything that he can do to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ, why, he's willing to do it. And that's one thing that any Christian is supposed to do when they get a chance, to witness to anybody about the Savior. Just anything that you can do to hold up the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, why… I don't know whether you're a real Christian or not. I can't judge you or nothing, but …
I know you know enough about the Bible to know that Christ come into the world and gave His life on the cross to save all sinners, and that's one …
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
… go to church as much as I should, but I ain't got
Do they have a Wednesday night prayer meeting at your church, too?
Yes, they have prayer meeting on Wednesday night.
Do they ever have revivals?
Yes, they have revivals every once in a while. And they had a meeting for the young children just last week. They had programs, all the young children, and then they had the people that finished high school there then telling their experience and stuff, telling what school they went to and where they went and what kind of work they was going into and all that stuff. There was two or three in our church that finished, and then there was a couple from other churches that was there, too.
When you were home with your parents as a child, did you grow up within a church?
I grew up in Newton in the Lutheran Church and was a Lutheran until I come to Hickory. I was about thirty years old when I come to Hickory, and for a couple of years I went to a Lutheran church down here part of the time. And then they started up a church in the old school building down there. We had church in it a while, and then this preacher decided to build a church up there next to where it's at now. And we first had church in the first floor till they then decided to put another storey on it. This preacher that died was the one that started to do all that, but he didn't live to do it all and get it all finished.
What made you decide to change from the Lutheran over to the
I thought the Baptist was more a right church than the Lutheran after I
heared the Lutherans and seen how some of the Lutherans carried on in
the church that I went to up here after I moved to Hickory. I went to a
little Lutheran church down there a while, and I went to it a few times. And then this preacher come to my house and talked
to me about the word of God and all about the church and what they stood
for and everything. And I figured that I wasn't really a Christian as I
ought to be. And I went to this Lutheran church, and he asked me if I
thought I was saved and whether I thought I was living without sin. And
I told him no, I didn't think so. I didn't think anybody could live
without sinning some, because there wasn't nobody ever perfect but
Christ. Christ was the only perfect man that was ever on the earth, and
He was born of the Virgin Mary. He was the son of God, and He was born
without a father. And so he got me to start going to church up there,
and then I joined the Baptist church because I didn't think the Lutheran
church, the one I was going to down there… When you'd go out of church
between Sunday school and preaching and when the members that belonged
to that church would go out in the yard and stand and cuss and talk
about going rabbit hunting and about what good dogs they had and stuff
like that, I thinked, "Well, that ain't no kind of a church for anybody
to belong to," so I never did join that church. So I joined the Baptist
Church, and I've been a Baptist ever since.
Well, that's neat.
And that's one thing that I see about the Baptist Church, that they don't
go out in the yard and stand and talk and everything between preaching
and Sunday school. When Sunday school's over, we go right on up into the
auditorium where we have our preaching at and everything.
Was there a lot of difference in the type of service between the Lutheran Church and the Baptist Church?
There's not too much difference, really, in the preaching part. But back then I didn't know enough about the Bible or enough about anything but just what was in the catechism book to know when a preacher was really preaching the word of God. But now I've he ared so many preachers preach on the air and then heared this man preach for a long time and everything till I can tell pretty quick whether a man's a-preaching the Bible or not. If he ain't a-preaching from the Bible, I don't want to hear him.
I want to go back to the early part of your life. Were you born in Newton?
I was borned in Newton about a half a mile from the covered bridge in
north Newton, where the old depot is. And I lived in Newton in several
different places. I lived in north Newton in about five or six different
places. We owned a big two-storey house in north Newton, and then we
traded it for a place out on what they called the old Claremont
What did your father do for a living?
He was a carpenter, contracted and built houses and all that stuff.
What did he do in his shop?
His last years that he lived he was a carptenter down in Newton, and a car run over him there in front of the North Newton stoplight. He got killed right there at that stoplight in front of where the Northgate Drugstore… There ain't no drugstore there now, though, is there?
No. It was in the basement of the old hotel?
No. That building that stands there now is not any drugstore any longer; it's used for something else. His sister lived right across the road in that big old two-storey house in north Newton right across from the stoplight. He's got a sister that lives there. I don't know whether she's dead or not. But he was staying there and working down in the lower end of town. And a man down in town that he worked with stopped up there beside the drugstore and called him to come out there. And he started to go across the road, and the light was on "Cautious", and he speeded up to go under that light before it changed on red, and that was where he run over Daddy at. And he didn't live but just a couple of hours after they got him in the hospital, and he died the same night.
How old was he then?
I don't remember that.
How old were you?
I can't even remember that.
Were you real young?
No, I was up in years quite a bit.
When your family was moving around a lot, why did they move, just to get to a better house or a better location? Why did they move so often?
Every time that he could sell a house and make quite a bit of money on
it, why, he'd sell it and build him a new one. He done his own carpentry
work and building on the houses, and, say, if he could clear a thousand
dollars on a place or something, why, he'd sell it and then build him
That's interesting.
But I don't even remember just how old I was when I bought that place over in the country. He never got to come over there to see me but one time when I bought that place in the country, until he was killed.
Up here in Hickory.
He was staying at Newton most of the time working, and my two sisters was living in the house there in Hickory.
Did your mother ever do any work outside the home?
No, she never did do nothing after she had married. I think she lived on a farm or something before she was married. I forget what town she did live in. She wasn't born and raised in Catawba County, I don't think; she was born and raised in some other county.
Was your father born and raised in Catawba County?
I don't know about that neither, but he had about five or six other
brothers that lived around Newton. He had a brother Sid Deal that lived
down below the courthouse in Newton. And he had a brother Will Deal that
lived up here in Hickory before we ever come to Hickory, any of us. And
he had a sister that lived down in the country, down in the Mt. Olive
section somewhere. She married a McRee. He had a twin sister that lived,
I believe, in Charlotte. He had Pink Deal; I believe he lived in Hickory
I'm familiar with that name.
I don't know whether that's all the brothers and sisters he had or not.
What were their jobs?
Sid Deal that lived down in North Newton worked a bunch of men all the time; he didn't do anything himself. He just walked around with his collar and tie on and smoked his cigar and had other people doing the work.
Where was this at?
He done rolling all kinds of buildings, old houses and any kind of buildings like that. He had them jacked up and rolled them from one plot to another and stuff like that. As far as doing any work, he wouldn't know to do any work. I worked for him a little while myself way back when I was small. And me and him couldn't get along good. He was kind of a crabby-talking man, kind of a short-talking fellow. He wasn't like my daddy.
How old were you when you were working with him?
I wasn't but about sixteen or seventeen, I don't think, when I was
a-piddling around working with him some. And my brother was working for
him awhile. And he come around one day, and I was under the house
setting a jack under a timber, fixing to jack it up. And he come around
and said something to me, and he was kind of hateful. He didn't mean
nothing by it, but he'd be short-talking. And I was pretty hateful
myself then, and I didn't take no foolishness off of nobody. I wasn't
living for
I worked on the relief work back during the Compression [sic] when you couldn't hardly get no work, you know, here in Hickory. That was later years, after I'd moved to Hickory. What little bit you got, you had to take it out in groceries and stuff. I've helped digging ditches and everything all around over here around the town of Brookford, digging ditches and cutting out thickets. He was digging some ditches around over in there behind the old Brookford Cotton Mill, and old Mr. Jim Hart—he's dead now—was another one of them men that come around a-short-talking and cussed lots, and he didn't do no work. He carried a little old stick, like, made with a chair and a walking cane made together. He'd set that three legs down and set that walking stick back and sit down on it, and he could shut that up and go around and use it for a walking stick when he had it shut up, too. And he come around there one day and …
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
… and said something to me. He told me to backfill somewhere else or
something, and he commenced to cussing. And I didn't like that a litle
bit. I said, "You're an old man. You can come around and tell me what to
do, but don't cuss when you talk to me. If you do, I'll take this shovel
and trim your ears off." And he went on down the ditch. There was
another boss under him, and he went on down the hill and told the other
boss about it, and he come up there and said, "What got the matter with
you and Jim?" I said, "Well, he come up here telling me to do something
and was cussing and a-snorting, and I told him that if he went to
cussing me or cussing when he was talking to me, that I'd cut his ears
off with that shovel." And he said, "Well, go ahead and do what you was
doing." And directly, old man Jim come back up the ditch then, and he
said, "Little Deal, you go up on the hillside. Take your shovel along
and go up on the hillside and pick up all of the loose tools that we
ain't a-using." It was geting up pretty close to quitting time. "And
pile them up in a pile up there where the truck can get to them. And
when you get that done, if the truck ain't come just stay up there and
wait till the truck comes." And so after that, when old man Jim come
around me he was quiet.
And when we got through with that work up there, we went to the Hickory
Airport up here and went to working on the Hickory Airport, building it
bigger. And old man Jim would come around every morning. It was getting
cold weather then, and we was cutting brush and grubbing out stumps and
stuff, and we was burning it as we piled it up. We'd pile it up in piles
and burn it. And he come around up there and said, "Little Deal, you're
the only one that seems to know how to pile brush so they'll
Where did you work after the Work Projects job?
I went to Hutton and Bourbonnais and worked twenty-one years there.
Nearly twenty-one. Then the bossman up yonder tried to make a fool out
of me, and I told him off and quit after I'd built [up] twenty-one year
What was your job at Hutton and Bourbonnais?
I guess I worked on the ripsaw about ten years straight. I didn't run the saw, but I helped to keep the material to it. You have to keep the lumber cut. Every hack of lumber, they put a stick between every layer of lumber so it would dry when they put it in the kiln, and I taken the sticks off of them and hacked them up on the rack ready to haul back out and take out on the yard to put under the other lumber when they done that. And then they got that new smart bossman in there, and he tried to run everything. And that's when I got my hand all tore up, while I was on that ripsaw. I got that joint in that hand tore up, and they taken about fifty stitches.
How did that happen?
Got it under a gear wheel on the ripsaw. I was cleaning out under there, getting the dust unstopped out from under the saw, and I let that gear wheel run over my hand. Just run it under that and cut that hand all up.
What was this new bossman you were talking about like? What kind of things would he do that would not be good?
He was just a young guy, a smart guy, you know. He hadn't been working
there but a year or two, and he hadn't been a bossman more than about
five or six months. And whenever he got to be bossman, he tried to make
everything look easy on his own self, tried to get the hands to put out
more work than what they'd been doing, and didn't want to give them no
more money or nothing. Whenever he started on me… Me and him had had
words before, and that's why he wanted to jump on me. Because he had a
little authority, and he could tell me what to do. And he wanted to jump
on me, because he'd tried to be boss before he got to be boss, tell you
what you ought to do when he'd come around doing things. When he was
working around the flooring box, he tried to be smart. And after he got
a little authority of his own then, he tried to get people to do more
work and didn't want to pay them no more money and give them no raise.
What he was trying to do was to work hisself up to a better job hisself.
They got a new superintendent at the office, and Charlie got in with
him. He put Charlie on as a bossman. And they told me it wasn't too long
till they got rid of him and Charlie both.
Why do you think they got rid of him?
They sent him away from down at this shop up on the other job. People
around here wouldn't work for him, what was in the other office.
Who was this that told you that?
Ralph Crowder. He'd been working down at the other shop, and he
transferred him up there to help work up there and help get the stuff
out up there, and he wouldn't stay up there. He stayed up there a little
while, and he said right after I left he said he quit down there and
went down to the other place. And they wanted him to come back up here,
and he quit the whole business. I seen him up here about two months ago
out here working for the City of Hickory. And I said, "What are you
doing working out here for the city?" He told me how long he'd been with
the city. He was bossman on the ditch line working for the city. He
said, "I'm making a lot easier money than I made up there at Hutton. We
worked up there for nearly nothing. They just thought we had to stay
there. I finally decided I'd find something better or not even work
a-tall." And so he quit, and they hired him on with the city, and he
worked for the city a while and then they put him on as bossman over the
city over the
When you quit, were you afraid that you might not be able to find a job somewhere?
No. There was a fellow told me that they was wanting a hand down yonder,
and he said he'd tell the man down there that he knowed where he could
get him a man. He said he was pretty well sure he could get me on, and
so I just quit anyhow in a couple of days. I quit before I even knowed I
was going to get on down here. I knowed I could find one somewhere,
because there wasn't no kind of machinery in a shop but what I couldn't
tail… Catch the lumber, you know, comes from in the machine. And I got
on down here then in the sanding room, and I wasn't fast enough to work
with the other fellows that was on there doing that. And then they put
me and the other fellow off of that job that we was on and put a man and
his wife both on that job, but they was both used to doing that kind of
work. And they put Shorty Bumgardner over there doing something, and
they put me back there then with a fellow Bowman, tailing the cutoff
saw. The boss part of the time run the big planer. And he put me over
there, and then whenever he'd want me over there to tail the big planer,
he'd call me and I'd go over there and tail the big planer. He said,
"You've surely
Was this other shop another place you worked at before Hutton's?
Yes.
Could you tell me about that?
There wasn't even much to tell about that. I just worked there a but a
year. And we went out to bring in a truckload of lumber, and I smoked
cigarettes back then. And I was out in the yard, and I was smoking while
I was out there. And I went back in, and Carroll Somebody said, "Don't
you know you ain't supposed to smoke when you're out in the yard?" I
said, "What time you think a man's going to smoke? You don't get but one
little break, ten minutes to eat a sandwich and smoke a cigarette." He
said, "Well, I can't help that. You ain't supposed to smoke out here." I
said, "I smoked when I wanted to before I come here, and if that's what
it takes to hold a job, why, I'll give it to you." And me and Fred
Little and Perry Bumgardner, all three, quit the same day and all went
up here to Hutton's. And old man Sid Black was the boss there then, and
he died while I was up there. And we went in there, and old man Sid
hired all three of us at the same time, and we all three went to work
there. Portions of this tape are inaudible due to the poor technical
quality of the tape.
Perry Bumgardner [was sick]… I believe he was the one … [He] wasn't able
to work. He [was a crippled] fellow, and he couldn't … couldn't do two
jobs … keep two jobs down at once. So they laid him off … Me and Fred
stayed … [We] went to work… Fred quit later, some time before
Do you think they did that intentionally because they didn't want him around anyway?
Well, there wasn't much that he could do with one hand. He was just working with one hand, kind of. He just couldn't [do much]. There wasn't very much that you could do in there with one hand, and he didn't have much strength … They wanted to give him a chance to try to work … They told him he could work, but he couldn't run that [ripsaw].
When you were working, did they ever bring in those people that timed your job, that carried a stopwatch around and timed people's work?
I don't understand what you mean.
I mean, some of the cotton mills and stuff would bring in timekeepers to time people's work and make sure they were working fast enough. And they'd follow them around all day … Would they ever have people like that?
No, I don't think they done that back there … watch.
So they never timed you.
Not as I know.
Not while you were there?
I think they had enough bossmen … to keep you at work… If you didn't know
how to work on one job, they'd put you to doing something else. Then they had plenty of work. They could give you some
kind of job doing something.
If the people working in the plant had complaints or problems about working, what could they do about it? How did they go about making complaints? Did they go to the bossman or what exactly could they do about it?
[They had] about three or four different bossmen there while I was there. A couple of them just left themselves, because they weren't making enough, wanted a little more money. Sid Black, he didn't come back [one day] after dinner. Why, somebody called over to the house from work, [over to the] boardinghouse, called at Sid's room. [They] went in Sid's room. He was dead on the bed. They called back to the shop and said that they found him on the bed dead. They shut the plant down, and we was off a day.
What was Sid like as a boss?
He was a good boss … awful good bossman. He wasn't hard on us … he'd let
you do about anything you wanted to do, in the line of work… pretty bad
… He was an awful good bossman… walked on by… nothing. He didn't try to
get us … work, you know… They hired another man after Sid died … He
didn't stay … he didn't stay but … and then they put Charlie(
Why do you think they moved all that stuff … Did they ever say why they moved the plant up to Granite Falls?
Yes, because they condemned the building because it wasn't safe for hands to work anymore, and said the machinery was too heavy in it.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
… so bad, and they had to get the machinery out of it. And they built a building up there towards Granite and moved all the big, heavy machinery and stuff up there in it and around on the yard together to where all the building rough lumber and stuff like that that they wanted to use toward building houses and stuff, why, they moved it up yonder. And they just moved a few of the machinery that they had in the new part that they had built up there to this old part. And then they quit having any wooden or anything much up there to fire with, and they couldn't afford to buy the coal just to fire for that one little building, and they mostly put everything in it and hooked it up to where they could run it by electricity. And they didn't do much drying no more of lumber up here. And then they'd had to move about all the machinery off up here, so they didn't have much up here to work with. And after they done that then, they said they transferred Charlie up yonder to that other place, that they didn't need him down here anymore, and said there wouldn't none of the fellows worked up here work for Charlie because he was just too overbearing and smart-aleck. That's two reasons that they moved up yonder, because what was up here, they didn't need Charlie for no bossman, what few they had up here, because the fellow that worked in there knowed more about that work than Charlie'd ever know about it. Because he helped them to get started on this work and everything, and they kept him up here as bossman on that to help get to do the work and help to see that the work was got out right and everything.
You were born in Newton?
Yes.
What was your house like in Newton?
I can't tell you. After I got about nine or ten years old, I seen a couple of little old bitty two- or three-room houses where they said that most of us was borned at. There was three older than me. I guess I was borned in North Newton, a big two-storey frame house. It had about eight or nine rooms. How old are you?
Twenty-two.
I don't know whether that house would have been standing when you was old enough to ever seen it or not. It probably was tore down before you got big enough to see it, because it was a tolerable old house, and there's been lots of houses tore down on that road. If you've been around Newton in the last few years, you know where, if you go up above the depot on that road, there's a little church there on the left-hand side of the road, coming across towards where the new depot stands? Just a little bit further there's a couple of buildings along there, and there's one road goes towards Conover, and one turns to the right going towards Claremont. Right up above where that road starts going towards Conover, there used to be a two-storey house right along there. I don't know how many years it's been tore down. And that was just a dirt road along there then.
Did your father build that house?
I don't know whether he built that one or not, but that was his work that he done, building houses. He built lots of others around in North Newton and around for other people, and built two or three for his own self.
What was your father's name?
Poly Carp Deal.
Do you have any idea when he was born?
No, I couldn't begin to tell you.
Do you know when he died?
No, I don't know that, either. Things twenty-five or thirty years ago, I've forgot all such stuff as that.
Where was he born?
I believe he was born in Catawba County somewhere.
Did he ever go through school?
I don't know how far in school he went, but he had a pretty good education to read blueprint and build all kind of houses and stuff like that.
What was your mother's name?
Matilda Jane Laws.
Was she born in Catawba County?
I don't think so. I believe she was born in Rowan County.
Did she ever do any work to get any money?
No, she was a housewife all the time. She never did do any public work of any kind as I ever knowed anything about.
Do you know if she could read and write?
Very little.
Did you ever get to go to school?
I went, but I didn't make much headway learning when I went. I know one
thing: when I'd set down of a night, I'd set down and go to sleep. My
daddy drug me to bed.
Do you regret that now?
I sure do.
Do you think you could have maybe gotten …
I could have been a couple of grades higher in school than what I… I didn't get no further than the fifth grade. I fooled around and didn't… I could have made a couple grades more if I would have studied harder, I have an idea. But I was just a crazy young'un like and didn't put too much… I was more interested in doing something to get money right along then. Times was harder, and you didn't get much money, and us young'uns, if we got shoes and clothes and books and stuff to go to school, why, that's about all you got then, and what you eat. You didn't get no money to fool around and blow in like young'uns do now. Now when young'uns get big enough to get out and do little things and get a few nickels… This place here, the young'uns runs around over it all the time, young'uns that ain't big enough to hardly carry trash and put it in the trash box get out and want to do something to make a nickel or a dime, carry your trash out and get you to give them something to eat, some candy or an apple or something. It was altogether different back then when I growed up. If five or six of us got a dime's worth of candy, we thought we was lucky.
Did you go to school with a lot of the kids of the people that worked at the cotton mills there in Newton? Were you familiar with people that worked there at the cotton mills?
No, I didn't know too many people that worked in the cotton mill. We
wasn't interested in finding out anything about the people's parents so
Did you think of your father as being a pretty strict disciplinarian?
Yes, I thought so, of course, but he made us listen. If we done anything that we knowed was wrong and got a whipping at school for it, why, he'd give us one when we got home. It was just like I was telling that woman out there a while ago. I was talking to her. She was telling how she used to have to whip her two oldest boys for not listening to her. Said she could whip them, and they'd just take the whipping and still wouldn't do what she tried to make them do. They had a wood stove, and said they had to have wood to cook, and said she'd try to make them two oldest boys carry in the wood so she could cook her meal after she got home from work. And said that they'd just take a whipping and set down beside the woodpile, wouldn't even carry in no wood after she whipped them. But she just got to where she felt sorry for them, and she'd whipped them and it wouldn't do a bit of good. Said she'd tried talking good talk to them, and that didn't do no good; they just wouldn't carry in wood.
Did your mother ever do any of the disciplining in the family?
My mother'd try to make us listen. Some of them would listen to her, but
I had a habit, when she'd get after me, I'd go out and climb up in a
peach tree or apple tree or something. And she'd try to get me to
Who was in charge of the money when you were growing up?
My daddy always done all the buying for the family, buying all the groceries and everything and bringing everything in. My mother didn't work and didn't make no money, and all she done was just stay at the house. We'd all go to church on Sunday, and all that she done was just stay at the house and do the cooking and the washing and stuff like that. My daddy done all the buying and handling the money. Of course, if she needed money for anything and he wasn't there to buy or to get, he always give her the money to pay for it when she wanted it. Because he worked all the time, and he couldn't be there all the time, just on Saturday evening and Sunday and the nights was all the time he was there.
Did he ever keep his money in a bank?
No, I never did know of him keeping any money in the bank. He generally kept it at home all the time. People back then didn't have too much money to keep nowhere. Up till I got big enough to go to work myself, I never knowed of him having more than just money enough to buy what he needed and pay his bills and stuff.
Was his job working as a carpenter a better job than doing other things like working in the cotton mill?
Yes, you made good money working. He'd set down and figure about how long
it would take him to build a house and figure about what the material
would cost, and he'd figure what he could build it for and make
So he never did want to go work in the mill or anything.
No. He worked in the shop a few years back in his early years.
What kind of a shop?
A lumber shop. I was telling you about the Setzers that was working there. And getting up into years later …
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
Oh, there was quite a few people building houses then. You could build a house then for about what it'd cost you to build one good room now. And up in the years when I got big enough to work with the carpentry trade some, I worked with him for a few years around and about.
Was this when you were still real young?
Yes.
How old were you?
I must have been about seventeen, eighteen. And when he made several hundred dollars extra above our work, he'd give me part of that. Like we taken one job building a little storehouse on the road going up towards Conover for a fellow Campbell. And he figured about what it would cost him to build that, and we built it in about four days. And he'd give me so much a day, and then when the job was done if he made a couple hundred dollars extra, he'd give me maybe twenty-five or thirty dollars extra to have of my own.
What did you spend your money on? Were you living at home then?
Yes, I was still at home.
What would you spend your money on?
He'd give me extra money like that, and he didn't charge me no board or nothing, and he'd let me buy my own clothes. All I made, I had it to… I'd take money to the church, and I'd buy my clothes and stuff like that. There were a lot of jobs that we done like that. He'd give me extra money when he'd make good out of it.
Where did you go after you stopped working with your father as a carpenter?
I worked in the glove mill in Newton for a while.
What was that like?
It was a pretty good job. I worked in it a while, and I went to the cotton mill and worked a little while there, but I didn't like that; it made so much racket and everything, and I couldn't stand that racket. And I went from there up to Conover and worked in the glove mill there several years.
What did you do at the glove mill in Conover?
I turned gloves. They're sewed up wrong side out, and then you had a machine there with a pedal on it, and you put that glove down on the thing. It had four fingers. You'd turn the thumb first, and then you'd turn the four fingers, and they was ready to wear then. But before you sewed them, you had a thing there with a hand. Have you ever been in a hosiery mill where they'd put socks and stocking on a hot board to press them?
Yes.
Well, this hand in the glove mill was like that. It had a little
Did the company try to stop that?
No, they didn't pay no attention to that. You just had to go on and… The girls couldn't possibly get up and go every time they wanted a drink of water. If they did, they wouldn't get nothing done, because they …
They wouldn't get their production.
They wouldn't get enough gloves made that they could make any money on sewing them up. If you didn't get around fifty or seventy-five dozen or a hundred dozen a day, why, you didn't make too good money doing that sewing.
Was it mainly women that were doing the sewing?
The girls done all the sewing, and there was about four or five
Did you have any kind of breaks?
I don't remember whether they had any breaks during [between] the morning and dinnertime or not.
I guess maybe that came in later.
In the later years I imagine they got to where… I know way back up in the
years after I was married and went to work on my own, that things got
different to where you had time sometimes to go out and smoke and maybe
have ten minutes off to eat a sandwich or something between dinner and …
But back in the early days like that, I don't believe they had too many
breaks. Because I know after I got to working at the other work in the
shops and stuff, like I told you the other day, there was three of us
quit at one time on account of they wouldn't let us smoke when we went
out in the yard to take a break.
What was the name of the place that you worked at right before Hutton and Bourbonnais, that the three of you quit at because you couldn't smoke?
That was the Martin Furniture Company.
And you didn't work there very long, did you?
No. A year or two.
And what was your job there at Martin Furniture Company?
Helped getting in the lumber and cutting it ready to make furniture out of. In other words, it was taking it from the dry kiln and bringing it in the house and helping cutting it up.
And at Hutton and Bourbonnais, what was your job there, tailing the saws?
Yes. We brought the lumber in from out of the shed and cut it up, and I helped rack sticks there for a good many years. And then they put me to doing different kinds of jobs and stuff around over the shop.
And that was twenty-one years.
Twenty-one years.
How old were you when you got married?
I was twenty-one years old.
How old was your wife?
Eighteen.
What was she like?
She was just a small mountain girl.
Yes.
That's where she came from.
How did you meet up with her?
I was up there working and staying up there with a fellow Herman that went from Newton up there, and me and my daddy and brother, all three, was working up there and staying with him.
Building houses?
No, we were working on a high school building.
So you met her up there?
Me and my daddy didn't stay up there too long. I didn't know too much
about carpentry work, and after they got the main foundation down up to
the first floor, my daddy was getting up into years and he couldn't do
too much climbing around. And they laid me and him both off, and we come
back to Newton. And then my brother and the fellow that we was staying
with, he moved his family back down here, and my brother and Herman went
Did she have an eye out for you then?
I don't know. I don't think she was doing any courting or anything then, but she was just a rough-ridey little girl, a-running around there climbing up trees and everything else then. But after they come back down here, why, I started going up there in my old A-model Ford and taking her riding around places. It was, I guess, three or four months after I started hauling her around before I went to going out regular or anything. I never went with her over six months, I don't reckon, till we got married. We lived together about… I don't know how many years we did live together. Long enough to raise four children of our own and taken three grand young'uns and kept them till they all got up big enough to be out on their own, about. And then we… Of course, I stayed in the same house where she was at.
With the Hermans?
No, a house of our own. Whenever we got married, we left the Hermans
right straight. I had a house of my own in North Newton that I had
rented. After we got married, we didn't stay with my daddy but just long
enough to give the man the notice that had mine rented, and said we'd
And so you just rented it until you got married.
I already had it when I got married. I lived there a couple of years. Then he sold all of his property out around Newton and come to Hickory. And after I got married and after we lived there then a couple years, then I traded it for three acres and a half of land down below Newton, and then I come up to Hickory, and I built one …
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
I traded it to Thurman Van Horn for a place on Robinson Road.
Why did you move around so much?
I don't know, young'un.
Just got tired of the place?
No, I don't know. I just …
Did your wife want to move?
She'd do anything I wanted to do.
What was your wife's name?
Ina McCraw.
Did she ever work outside the home?
That's about all she's ever done.
Is housewife?
Is she still alive today?
Yes.
Where is she now?
She's staying with her youngest daughter out on Route 10 somewhere.
What kind of things happened when you all decided to separate and go different ways?
That's a long story.
This is your daughter?
Yes, my daughter and son-in-law. They're one of them kind that knows more
than anybody else, and they knowed enough to lie me to get all I had.
And about four and a half years ago they had to sell the place, or did
sell it. They said we was all going to have to get out of it. And so I
couldn't get them to make it back over to me to where I could have
controlling interest over it or anything. And they lied me about that
and wouldn't make it back over to me or nothing, and so they said we was
all going to have to get out of it. And the two grandsons that was at
home got out and got them a place to go to, and so I put in for me a
place up here. Then after they notified me that there was two apartments
empty and I could have either one I wanted to rent, and so I come up
here and looked at the apartment and decided I wanted this apartment
here at this end. And they went ahead and fixed this one up, and I moved
in it then about two
And they got this on this deed thing that they made you sign? They got it somehow…
By lying and stealing it, you might as well say. They cheated me out of it.
That would really make me upset.
Yes.
If something like that happened… Oh, my gosh.
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
… like her high school picture? She's pretty, though. Has her hair all done up, and just a real pretty lady. Do you get to see your kids much any more?
I don't see them quite often.
Not as often as you'd like?
Part of them I see every couple months or something.
And your wife is living with Alice?
Yes. This is the one that finished high school, and my wife's living with
her. They've got a big mansion out here on the river, close to the
river. I believe it's on Route 10. And they're building another one out
closer to the river. They was up here a little while before Christmas a
little bit, her and my wife. She's been over here about three times, I
think, since I moved over here. But it don't differ to me whether they
come, any of them, or not. Because the way they done me and the way they
beat me out of everything that I had, why, it don't make no difference
to me
I was looking on your walls over here and looking at all the things you've got up here. I noticed the pictures there of President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Are you a big fan of theirs?
No, not good friends, but I did vote for the Kennedys. I'm a Democrat in my voting. I really thought they would be a good man for the job. And they tried to get the other one that's living to decide to run for President, but I think his people that he's got living persuaded him not to go ahead and take a chance of running, because they figured that somebody would kill him. That's the reason that them got killed, I think; somebody done it in order to keep them from holding the President's job, because they figured that they would…
Do too good of a job.
Get the job theirself or something, I think. That's what I figure it was done for.
Would you vote for the other brother—I think his name's Ted— if he ran this time?
Yes, I'd vote for him. I'd hate to vote for him and then see him wind up getting killed like the rest of them did, but I believe he'd make a good President if he would run.
And then I noticed you've got some pictures of the mountains there.
I've got all kinds of pictures around here. You ain't seen no pictures yet.
Why don't you wait a minute? I want to ask you about some of the other ones you've got up here. I see a picture of Dolly Parton and Little Betty Pruitt, and you like their music pretty good?
Yes, I've got records. I've got a record of her what she made when she
was just a kid like that is there, about nine or ten years old.
And then you've got a lot of pretty religious pictures.
Yes, I've got all kinds of pictures about. Up there's part of the Pruitt family, her mother and her daddy. That's when she got a little bit older that she went to singing on the records with her family. That's her mother and her brother, and that other one at the end, I believe that's her daddy's brother. And I don't think he's on there. Her daddy's brother worked with them instead of him. I don't think he worked with them on making records or anything much.
Did you ever do any singing in church?
I couldn't carry a tune if I had it in your suitcase.
But you like music.
I like all kinds of gospel music, and I like string music and stuff like that. But I can't sing; I never did. I never could sing.
Did you used to go see some old string bands here in Hickory?
No, I never did go to dances or nothing like that. I don't go for dancing
and frolicking.
Does the Bible say anything about that?
Yes, just religious songs mostly. I like good string music, what they call country gospel, but this old rock and roll stuff and stuff like that, I don't go for anything like that.
Did you ever hear of the Blue Sky Boys?
Yes, I've probably heared them back years ago on a record or a
I'd like for you to show me them, if you want to. I'd like to see what the names of some of the groups are that you like the best.
Oh, my goodness.
And maybe even hear some played.
You know, the fellow says it'd take many moons to show you anything much.
Let's look and see what you have here.
There's Barney Pierce. That's a pretty good record. Here's one with Don and Earl, "Gospel Light." Old-time records. This one here is a good record right here. Now that's of a young boy preaching; that's really a good record.
Ralph Morton. "Leave Them and Let Go: Have Faith in God."
And then in later days, as he grew older, why, he… You see, that's nine years old. And then here he is; as he gets older, he's still preaching. I believe they sent me this one first, and I wrote back and told them that they'd sent me the wrong record, that I wanted the one that he preached when he was nine years old, and I think they sent me then the other one.
Don and Earl.
Ma'am, I can show you lots more that's different from what Don and Earl is. I've got more. That's another religious record, and here's "Power in the Blood" by Londan and Parris.
The Phipps Family Quartet.
Let's see who this was put out by. This is a good record.
I was just looking at one of your… You like Loretta Lynn?
Yes. Loretta puts out good songs.
"Award-Winning Gospel." Rick Foley and the Jordanaires. Is that a good one?
Yes. Loretta… These people puts out good songs.
The Spear Family?
Yes. They put out good religious songs. And Dolly Parton is a good singer. That's one of Loretta. I don't know how many I've got of Loretta.
You got a whole bunch? Wendy Bagwell and the Sunlighters.
Yes, that's a good song.
You've got quite a few of those. The Inspirations.
Good singers.
"What Is Sacred?" The Searchers and Rosie Roselle. And The Prophets Quartet.
Them's about all good records. I don't play them often anymore. I've got so much here, I never get around to, don't stay at home long enough to play half of them.
The Singing Wine bargers and Grandpa Jones. Grandpa Jones.
Grandpa Jones is a good…
Well, that's meat. I like looking at all the different records.
And you say you've got quite a bit on tapes, too?
I've got a bunch on tapes.
You've got a lot of sermons on tapes here, too, it looks like.
Yes.
Where did you used to buy your gospel records?
Different places. Some of them I order from the people, and some
That's neat.
He preaches stuff that has happened and stuff that's supposed to happen on betwixt now and 1980.
Is something going to happen in 1980?
There's different countries and stuff that's carrying on. Colin Deal, P.O. 455, Rockford College. Big Russian war. Now this here is one side of that. The Russians is supposed to be a-having war more than they are now, between now and '80, and all that stuff. And here's "Rock of Ages." Tuesday, August the fifteenth; that's when that was taped, I think.
In all of your work time, was there any other job you'd have rather done than what you've done?
When I worked on the relief work, I preferred doing anything more than getting out and digging ditches and beating rock and stuff like that, but I didn't have no other choice back then.
Right. Do you think you got paid what you should have gotten paid all those years?
No, I didn't.
Did anybody have any ideas about how they could get better pay?
No, not back in that kind of times. Now here's some of the last pictures that I made. Now there's a little house uptown here.
Yes, I've seen that. That's pretty.
I made the end of that before they had the chimney on it. This is a woman standing down here on this other walkway, Mrs. Burns.
Yes, those are really pretty.
This series I made down below the radio station, Channel l; down along the road somewhere I believe I seen that. And just all kinds of pictures.
Do you think you raised your kids the way your parents raised you, or did you do it different?
I don't know as I was as strict on mine as my parents was on me. Now
here's all kinds of little books I order and keep on hand to give people
that I think needs to read them.
I'd like to have some.
Here's these three. Now I fixed them purpose to give you.
Did you! Thank you. Thank you. What's that?
That's a little cup.
It's cute. I've got one more question about your work history. I guess it has to do with some things I have read in the papers and stuff. I wanted to know if, all the times you were working, you ever had any contact with any of these union people that used to come around, union organizers? I've been reading in the paper every day about how they're coming around now, but way back then did you ever hear tell of any of them?
No, there wasn't much like that going on back years ago. That's a new…
I know that you're really involved in the church and that's an important thing to you. What does the church have to say about work and whether people ought to work or what?
The church don't bring up nothing like that. The only thing that they was
involved in, as I know about, they probably know about what most of the
people works at. But mostly all that they is involved in is
Well, that's good. I don't have any more questions. Can you think of anything that I haven't asked you about?
Not much.
Okay, I'd like to see those.
END OF INTERVIEW