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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, NC. 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 20th 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.
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