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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-0128, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Gladys Irene Moser Hollar and her husband, Glenn Hollar, describe their childhood in rural North Carolina and their working lives in the glove industry and elsewhere. The Hollars grew up in large families in which everyone had to contribute to eke out a living. As a married couple, the Hollars spent most of their lives near Conover, North Carolina, moving from job to job and weathering the 1918 influenza epidemic, the Great Depression, and hostile supervisors before reaching retirement. In this interview, the couple shares recollections about laboring and rural life in the early twentieth century.
Gladys Irene Moser Hollar and her husband, Glenn Hollar, share recollections about work and rural life in the early twentieth century.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Jenny is Dolly Moser's stepdaughter but you're her natural daughter.
That's right.
Do you remember anything about your grandparents?
No, I didn't even know my Moser grandparents. But I knew my Grandfather and Grandmother Holar. They lived on a farm, too, mother. She was Dutch, and he was Irish. She was a little, short, tiny, real pretty woman, and he was big, tall, and kind of rough-looking.
Did they live just down the road from where you were living when you grew up?
They was about four miles. But my grandmother would walk down to the house to see us. She'd come with a big basket on her arm with food; I can see her come down the road yet. Her children were all married then, and so she would make jelly and things like that and bring it down. You know how mothers are.
Did you see very much of your grandparents then when you were growing up?
Yes, I did. We would visit quite often with them. They raised all kinds
of animals and their own pork and beef. They had cattle, chickens, and
everything that you have on a farm. And they raised all their food.
About the only thing that was bought back then was sugar and coffee,
rice, and things you couldn't raise on the farm. And usually they would
exchange eggs and butter and things they had to sell for those things.
That's the way my mother did. I can remember taking a little basket of
eggs to the store and getting sugar and coffee, and so happy that there
was a couple pennies left over that would get a piece of candy or two.
So that wasn't unusual at all, just to take your eggs to the store?
No. That's the way we did back then.
That's the only money you had.
Yes, we didn't have any. Cotton and sweet potatoes and things that you sold in the fall, and fruits through the year. We had an enormous amount of fruit all summer long we raised. Had so many fruit trees of all kinds, peaches and cherries, apples, plums, pears, even Damsons. Any kind of fruit you could …
What are Damsons?
They look a little like a plum, and they're shaped a little like a plum. But they're real dark blue, and they're sour. But they make delicious pie and jam and jelly.
Your mother would preserve the fruit?
Oh, all that. We had so many jars. And she would put a lot of things in crocks, like pickles and kraut and even pickled beans. And then she would dry beans. We had a dry kiln, and we'd dry all kinds of fruit and vegetables. I can remember drying beans and corn, and it was so good. And peaches, apples, a lot of those things.
Since she had gotten married so young, I wonder how she knew how to do all those things.
She learned at home.
She had already learned from her mother?
Yes. And I can remember her telling me so many times that she and her
mother had a cotton patch of their own the year she got married. The
cotton wasn't ready to pick yet when she got married; it had just been
hoed and cleaned. So her mother gave her ten dollars for her part of the
cotton patch. And she went over to Claremont to this store and bought a
bed and the ticking to make the mattress. (They used to make their own
mattresses.) And material for the sheets and pillowcases, and the
pillows.
Wasn't there a little dresser in it, too?
No, she didn't buy that with this ten dollars. She had enough left over that she bought her a dress.
This was all for ten dollars.
All for ten dollars.
Did she tell you stories about how she happened to run away and get married?
Yes. I know that her father and mother didn't want her to marry him.
Why?
Pecause, you see, he had these four little children, and she was so young. It wasn't that they had anything against him. It was just that they didn't want her to marry into a family like that. And so they went off to camp meeting and got married down there.
Jenny told me that story, and I think his brother was the preacher at the camp meeting who married them? Your uncle?
No, I don't remember who married them.
I was kind of surprised that the preacher would marry them if they didn't have the girl's parents' permission.
Back then you didn't have to.
I know you didn't have to, but I wondered if people …
You know how people in love are.
They were all right. I guess they felt that that's what she wanted. Because it wasn't that they didn't like him; it was just that they didn't…
You didn't sense any tension between her parents and her over the marriage.
No, there wasn't. But she really had her hands full with four little ones. But they listened to her, and do you know, I didn't know until I was almost grown that we weren't all brothers and sisters. I never knew, because she treated them all alike, and it was just like we were all brother and sister.
How did you find out that they were your half brothers and sisters instead?
I can't even remember. But I remember that I didn't know.
Do you know how big your grandparents' farm was?
I don't know.
He had a pretty little patch of land up there, with a house and all.
But then it had been divided up. A lot of his children… I don't know how much he had to start with, but he must have had fifty or sixty acres, maybe more.
He had to have right smart to raise enough stuff to feed all them kids.
Yes, but you see Uncle Ed lived right out there, and Uncle Charlie, and
they had got land from him. And Bertha had got some. It was on the back.
I just don't know exactly how much it was, but I know it was a big farm.
One time my great-grandfather owned from on there where he lived on back
down to the river. But, you see, it was all divided up. It kept being
divided up with the family. We had fifty or sixty acres there left. Our
son bought our homeplace back there. She had sold a little piece to one
of my half-brothers, because he had bought some land and
You're talking about your parents.
Our homeplace, yes. But we still had about forty-nine, wasn't it?
I think fifty acres.
That's what he bought.
When you were growing up, did you have a sense that your mother had to work awfully hard or was having a hard time with so many children?
Yes. But we all helped. The whole family helped and worked real hard. Of course, she worked the hardest, because she worked in the field and she would go to the house about eleven o'clock to get dinner and have dinner on the table at twelve when we got there. And she would make half a dozen or more pies, so she'd have enough for supper, too. A great big dish of beans and potatoes and corn and all that. And how she would do it in one hour I never have figured out. It'd take me a half a day. But she was so fast. She'd set down to peel an apple, and she'd go around that thing, phew!
What was your father like?
I can't remember too much about him. He died when I was about five years old. But I can remember us little ones would fuss and carry his shoes to him and things like that, but I can't remember too much about him.
He was a good bit older than your mother.
Yes, he was.
How did your family life change after he died?
We just had to work that much harder. I was little; I wasn't
So she didn't lose the land.
Didn't lose the land.
Did your father make most of his living by farming, or did he do other things as well?
He did other things. He clerked in a store when I was right little. I think he worked for about fifty cents a day.
Just clerking in a general store?
Yes, in a general store. But that was good then, you know. This was before my time, but he was sheriff. I know Mama said a lot of times she'd get so afraid that something was going to happen to him. But he was sheriff for a while. And when he was married to his first wife, he was jailer. And he was jailer when they hung the last man in Newton. I guess Jenny told you that.
No. How did he manage to run a farm and do all those other things at the same time?
I don't know.
Did you have hired hands?
I don't know. I was too young for me to remember. I don't imagine they did too much farming when the children were so little. When he was jailer was when he was married to his first wife.
After your father died, then your mother stayed there on the
Yes. She lived there seventy-two years.
And she supported herself and all of you kids by farming?
Yes. Her and the children.
Had the children already been used to working in the fields before your father died?
Yes.
So it wasn't such a big change.
No, not really. Well, it was, too, being without a father and all. But I know Mama said a lot of times she'd go to bed of a night, and she wouldn't know where the food was going to come from for the next day. But, she said, there was always plenty there. I know she did work hard. She lived there for seventy-two years, and even after all of us were gone she still worked and kept everything clean around that house.
When did she finally quit farming?
She rented the land out after she quit.
After the kids all got married off, she started renting it out. And then she farmed some of it, too. I know when we got married, I helped some there.
It was about till after Jean moved away from out there, she did.
That's when she'd have to quit, after Jean left.
I imagine that was around 1950 or '60.
It was about thirty years ago.
When did the children in your family start working doing public work, getting jobs other than helping on the farm?
When they started getting married. Willie started it. She was the first one, wasn't she?
No. Ross.
They helped on the farm till they were grown. I guess Ross must have been about nineteen or twenty when he left. And he worked on construction work. He got married and took his wife along then where they worked. And my two oldest sisters worked a little over at Claremont. There was a hosiery mill over there. They worked there before they got married.
Was that Claremont Hosiery Mill?
Yes. It seems like it was a Carpenter.
You think the Carpenters ran it?
It seems like it was, but I can't remember exactly who ran it.
I think it was the Carpenters.
Were these your half sisters?
Yes, two of my stepsisters. I had a full sister, but she never did go out to work anywhere. But this was my two half sisters. They worked over there for a while, not too long, but they worked over there a little. That's the only place they ever worked before they got married.
Did they keep working after they were married?
After they were married, they moved.
They moved out of the area altogether?
No. They didn't work over at the hosiery mill. Like I said, they worked there for a while, and then they quit.
But they still lived around here all their lives.
But they didn't work anymore.
No, they didn't work there anymore.
Why did they go out to work rather than helping with the farming?
They thought they could help, and they did.
It was the only way they had to get a little money, I guess, for the family.
Yes, and of course they wanted a little money for themselves, and then they bought the smaller ones things, too. They were real good that way. And then my other half brother went off to work. He went to Hickory and stayed up at Hickory with some of our cousins.
He worked in the hosiery mill, didn't he?
He lived up there, yes, and worked. Then they built this railroad from Claremont up to Oxford Dam, and my three brothers worked on that and brought some money home. But they still farmed.
Your one brother went off to the railroad when he was about fifteen or sixteen, didn't he?
Yes, after that then he went off and worked on the railroad. I think he was about sixteen or seventeen.
I think that one was real young, this little one.
He was small for his age then, but he grew up to be a big man. He grew till he was twenty-one years old. But he was real young when he went to the railroad, and he never did come back to stay at home anymore then. He worked on the railroad until he retired.
How did your mother feel about the kids leaving home?
She knew that she couldn't keep them at home always. But now the rest of them didn't leave until after they got married. After they got married, they'd move out somewhere.
When did you get your first job?
In 1927.
Where was that?
At the Conover Glove.1 It was over here
where this shop is. That's where he worked. That's
where I met him.
You were working at Conover Glove?
She did work about a week, and I got a date with her.
I worked there then, and I boarded out here because I had no way back and forth. And of course I gave Mama part of my money, because then there was just three at home to help her on the farm. And I gave her part of my money, and she was satisfied and she didn't say a thing about it. Because all the other girls were going out to work. She knew that I wanted to, too, and she didn't say a word; she just let me go.
Your friends were going out to work?
Yes.
How did you happen to get a job at Conover Glove?
Wasn't Jenny working out there?
Yes, that's right. Jenny lived out here, and I come out and had her to help me get the job, or talk to them and ask them for me a job. And I stayed with her for a while. Then I moved out to another place with a friend, and I stayed there till we got married.
Did you board at somebody's house?
Yes. Paid three dollars a week for room and board. Good, wasn't it?
Who owned Conover Glove at that time?
Adrian Shuford. Adrian Shuford started out, and then Shuford bought Brady
out, and Brady taken the furniture plant. Lumber yard
And we worked there until they built this new plant right across from Mackie's here. The Shufords built that. And we moved over in that plant then. That was along in the late forties.
Was it still called Conover Glove?
No, they sold out to Riegel's.
So this is a Riegel's plant.
No. It was, and Riegal …
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
… milk products and …
Gulf States.
Gulf State milk. And so everybody scattered. We had to get jobs somewhere else. And I went to work over here at Southern Glove and worked over there a while until Fred Fox and Dan Long put a glove mill in this little building out here beside the service station [1961]. Then I come over there and worked SIDE and I worked for them till I retired a year and a half ago.
How would you compare these different places that you worked? Were some of them nicer to work in than others?
She's kind of under the same supervision about all the time, in a way, I mean the superintendents. Fred Fox was working in the glove mill when you did, when Doc Holland was superintendent.
I worked at all three plants. I worked at Southern, and I worked
For which one?
Southern Glove they call this one now. But it all kind of sprung from the Shufords, from the same management and everything. And I'd rather work there than either one of the others.
You retired from Conover Glove after.
Yes.
Why did you like to work for Southern Glove better?
I liked their management and their, it seemed like, friendlier attitude toward their hands. These other places, you didn't see much of them. Well, Southern Glove you did, but they never had airconditioning.
She said Southern Glove there, and you was talking about Southern Glove, but you were really working for Conover Glove. That's what she meant; that's where she retired. She got mixed up.
I said Conover Glove sprang from Shuford's, you know.
So you're saying that you really enjoyed working for Conover Glove when Fred Fox and Dan Long ran it …
Yes.
More than those other places. Fred Fox, I guess, had been your supervisor when you had worked …
Yes.
He supervisor out here. And Millard Holland was supervisor for what started out as Warlong Glove. That was the name of it. The old one over here at the railroad. That was Warlong Glove, and Millard Holland was superintendent. And he stayed in there as long as it was there, and then they moved out here.
And he was over there a while, too.
Yes, he was out here, and that's when Fred started in. And then when Riegel bought them out and it closed up, that's when Fred started this one out here, him and Dan Long.
And they called it Conover Glove.
It got too little, so they added an industrial part. And they built the big building out there. It still went under Conover Glove, but it's owned now by National Linen Service. But they still go by Conover Glove.
Is Millard Holland alive?
No, he's been dead for quite a while. But Dan Long still lives out there. Fred Fox got out about a year or so ago, and he's got a furniture plant down here.
When you got your first job in 1927, were you a sewer?
That's what she learned to do.
Yes, I learned to sew.
Who taught you?
Hazel Baker showed me how, and that was it. Then she pushed me to make all I could make, because she got paid for what I made. I got paid by the day, and she got paid what I made for teaching me. So when my six weeks were up, my learning period, I was making more than she was.
Because you were able to sew faster?
I was able to sew faster. She never could sew fast. But I didn't make a good glove. Then after I worked several years, I learned then that I had to make a better glove in order to get along better. So then I had to teach myself to make a better glove. I had to work at it.
Why did you have to make a better glove in order to get along better?
So I wouldn't get so many bad ones back to repair.
Mender's eye
See, she didn't teach me to make a good glove; she just taught me to make a fast one, to get the boxes in so she could get the tickets off of them, get the money.
What did you do differently so that you could make a good glove, instead of just a fast one?
I just had to be more careful that I didn't leave holes in them.
Did you have to slow down in order to do that?
Yes, naturally it slowed you down some.
But after you got to where you could run it through there and got a-hold of it, I call it, why, it would just go right through.
After I learned to sew and not leave holes in them, then naturally I got to where I could sew faster that way, too. But, oh, I made a mess there for a long time.
Did your supervisors get angry when you made a lot of mistakes?
No, not really. They never did say anything to me. They'd just bring the
gloves back, and I'd have to repair them. The boys that steamed the
gloves were the ones that got mad, because they didn't like to have to
do them all over. See, they'd bring them back to me, and I would do them
over, and then they'd have to take them back and steam them again. So it
was double trouble for them; they were the ones that didn't like it. But
I wasn't the only one. Almost everybody got a lot of…
I've gone through a glove mill recently, but I was wondering how the process of making gloves is different now than it was in the twenties or thirties when you all got …
There's not any difference in it much. It's practically the same thing. The only thing they've improved on, it's nothing in the sewing. They've got better machines, yes; they're faster. But just from start to finish, it's all the same thing as it was when it first started out.
What about cutting?
Cutting the same way. Of course, they started with one little single die to cut everything. Now they've got them in sections; it cuts all the way across the table at one time. They've improved a lot of things, but as far as the sewing, it's all about the same thing.
That's what I thought.
That is, making the glove is about the same, but …
They've got automatic turners and all that stuff. It's just tempered
How was turning done in the twenties, as compared to the way it's done now?
Four or five steamed up like that. Four prongs come down and a pedal down here, and you tramp on it. Turn your thumb, and then turn the rest of the glove. Everything was by hand and foot.
They still use a pedal.
Some of them, yes. But some of them, they've got the big automatic
turners on the regular work instead of by pedal.
They just slip them on these hand-like things and turn them automatically.
How did you like working in the glove mill?
Oh, I liked it.
Did you like it better than you had working on a farm?
I liked it better.
How come?
On the farm you didn't get to be with other people much.
And there wasn't no money, not hard cash, coming in, either.
No, I never did have any money; that was the main thing. I never did have any money to carry or handle, no money to buy anything with or anything. And when I got there, I got a little paycheck each week, and that was really thrilling.
Buy a new dress sometimes.
What did you do with your first paycheck?
I gave Mama part of it. And I paid for my room and board. But I don't remember what I bought with my first check. I probably didn't have much left.
Two or three dollars went a whole lots then.
Yes.
When you first started, did you feel pressured about trying to learn to sew fast enough ?
No. I was too thrilled to be there.
How many people were working there in '27?
When you started, it might have been fifty.
It was bound to be more than that.
Yes, it was, too. But it wasn't but about twenty-five or thirty when I started there. It had growed.
I imagine it was about a hundred.
Yes, that's close.
So that's a pretty big operation.
Yes.
There was three rows of machines, wasn't it, upstairs there when you started?
Yes.
Three rows of sewing machines?
Yes, through that big long building.
Yes, three, so it had to be about seventy-five. Counting turners and steamers, there was probably around a hundred people.
Were there quite a few people there that you already knew?
Yes, there was a lot of people that I knew.
Like girls that you had grown up with out in the country?
Yes.
Back in there, a lot of Gilberts.
Yes, Gilberts and Sigmons.
Carpenters;
And Browns. Yes, there was quite a few.
Did you socialize with people after work?
Yes.
What kind of things did you do?
There wasn't too much to do except go to the movies.
There was a lot of pictures.
Sometimes different ones would have parties. They'd have dances
Did you get to do a lot more things like that after you started working than you had before?
Yes, I sure did.
Did you have any rules at the place where you were living about when you had to be in, what you could do and what you couldn't do, or were you pretty much completely on your own?
Well, no, when I first went, you see, I was with Jenny, and she bossed me. In fact, she didn't want me to go with him.
Why was that?
She didn't like it a bit.
I was too rough.
I wasn't rough. I just…
He had started running around young, I think. Getting out young.
Yes, going with girls.
He knew too much.
I tell you, when they was coming over, I'd get in a ditch.
So you asked her out after she'd been there for one week?
What was your job?
I was fixing belts and cutting cuffs, run cuff machines.
Before I come out here to work, I'd go to Claremont a lot. There was a lot of girls over there that were my age. And they'd come spend the night with me some on Saturday nights, and I'd go there some weekends and spend the weekend. After my brother got married, he lived over there, and so I could go over and stay with them. And his sisters-in-law, his wife's sisters. There were about three or four of them, and I'd go over there and spend the night and have a good time. Enjoyed it a lot. And we always had a party in somebody's house. We'd all get together that night, couples, and have fun. But there wasn't much to do back then, many places to go.
Once you all started going out together, did you go out with anybody else?
Not often. Not but a few times, we didn't.
Yes, a couple times.
How long were you courting before you got married?
About a year.
That quick? I thought it was longer than that.
No.
No, it was about a year, I think.
I come to work in May, and we got married the next March.
Did you go out to meet her mother and get …
Oh, yes, him and Mama got along just like that. Always did. Do yet.
So she approved.
Yes. Yes, they've always got along good together.
How old would you have been when you got married then?
Seventeen.
Do you remember exactly how you decided to get married?
No, I don't. Do you?
I know we decided at Christmas that we were going to get married. I know we talked then about getting married, when we was going to get married.
Yes, that's when we started talking about it.
Along about the first of the year, we decided we'd get married.
And then we coasted along a little while and finally got married in March.
It wasn't very long.
Did you get married at a justice of the peace or at church?
York, South Carolina.
That's where almost everybody that I've talked to got married.
Back then.
Why was that? Could you get married quicker there?
We went down there and got married and come home. You have to go down there now, I think, and spend the night in South Carolina. My brother-in-law and my sister taken us down.
I knew I couldn't have a big church wedding, and so his sister and brother-in-law said that they'd take us to South Carolina, go down there and get married.
The funny part about it, I didn't have enough money to get married. I sold my payroll before I got it.
What do you mean?
I was working down here at the furniture plant then, and I didn't have
any money to get married. And I got the money from my brother-in-law and
let him get my check. That's how we started; I didn't have nothing.
No, and back then they didn't have showers like they do now, so every panny's worth we got we had to buy. I didn't have any money, and he didn't, either.
I went back to work in the glove mill with Mr. Shuford. He loaned me the money to get an acre of land down here with. I paid him, and we was putting a little in the bill and loan. They had just opened up a bill and loan up here, and we got a little saving in there. And then finally we got a house built down here.
Where did you live when you first got married?
My daddy's. We stayed there a little while. Then we rented a house up here. We had rooms uptown up here.
We stayed up there till we could find a place to… And get some money to buy some furniture.
And then my brother-in-law built a new house. He was living in a little house, and we moved out there and we lived out there a while, till the second kid was born.
We moved around a lot. Our youngest child was about two years old, I believe, when we built finally.
Two or three.
When did you have your first baby?
We were married on March tenth, and he was born the next March seventh.
Did you stop working for a while when you had your baby?
Yes, not too long. I was so sick that I couldn't work before much; I
didn't get to work much before he was born. But I went back pretty
You were what?
I was so sick all the time before he was born that when he was born I
didn't weigh but ninety-eight pounds, and he weighed about eleven.
Did you have a midwife or a doctor?
A midwife. We were living out in the country then, and my brother-in-law
went down to get the doctor that I'd doctored with all the time. I went
every two weeks. Part of the time I'd go every week. All the time I was
pregnant, because I was so sick. And he went down to get him, and he
said he didn't go out at night. So he tried all the other doctors, and
wouldn't any of them go because they weren't my doctor. He come back up
here to Conover, and old Dr. Herman was here, but he was too old to go
out. So he started down to Catawba to get that doctor,
and he said well, he'd been gone so long, and he was afraid that I might
need somebody. So he stopped on his way going out from Conover here.
There was a midwife lived there, and he stopped and picked her up and
brought her over to the house. He was going to bring her over there and
then go on after the doctor, and she wouldn't let him go after the
doctor. She said if we needed a doctor, she'd tell him in time, so she
wouldn't let him go. So I got along so good that time, the next time
then we didn't even go for a doctor; he just got the midwife. But then
the third one, I had the doctor over here. New doctors had moved in. Dr.
Kim Clenninger had moved over here, and who was with him?
I don't remember.
Anyway, he was over here and I went to him, and he was my doctor when I was pregnant that time. And he delivered that baby for twenty-five dollars.
Fifteen. The three didn't cost but twenty-five. The midwife, five dollars each, and then him fifteen.
That's right. He delivered him for fifteen.
You got three for twenty-five dollars at that time.
Yes, it was. Now they're three thousand dollars every time.
When I was talking to Mrs. Gilbert, she told me a story about her father, your father saying before he died that he didn't want his children to work in any of the textile mills around. Do you remember anything about that?
That's the first I ever heard that.
The first I ever heard anything about it. Of course, I wasn't old enough to know things like that, though.
Did you go to church here in Conover?
Bethel, back at Oxford community on the way back.
That's the church you grew up in?
Yes, that's the church I grew up in. We go down to old St. Paul's, near Newton, now.
After you had gotten married, did you keep going back out to Bethel, or did you start going to church in town?
We went out there some. We went to both our churches some. We'd go to his, because he belonged down to old St. Paul's.
After we built out here, then she decided …
After we built down on the old St. Paul's Church road, I went down there all the time. I started going before that, because we took the children.
Because we lived out here.
I tell you, when we rented this house out here, I think, from the Shufords.
You rented a house from the Shufords?
Yes, he had bought a few over yonder behind the schoolhouse there, and we got one of them. And that was five dollars a month rent, five or seven. It wasn't much. And we lived there several years.
The children were little, and so we could go to Sunday school down there, and we'd go down there most of the time. Once in a while we'd go back to my church, but I had joined down there and went down there nearly all the time.
When you were first working at the glove mill, Brady and Shuford both owned it, I guess.
Yes.
And then Shuford took the glove mill, and Brady took the furniture?
They split up. They had this lumber plant or whatever you want to call it and the mill together, and then they split up. Mr. Brady taken the shop, and Shuford took the glove mill.
Was there some conflict between them?
No. It just got to getting a little bigger and bigger, and Mr. Shuford
had some children coming on, a few, and then Mr. Brady had a bunch of
boys and a couple girls. He had a big family. And they decided
After the First World War.
The baby was born in the midst of this flu epidemic?
My mother had pneumonia when the baby was born. I tell you. I never… Phew: I don't know how we ever survived that.
You couldn't get a doctor …
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
That's when that flu epidemic hit so bad.
That was when it first come around.
It was after the First World War.
Were Mr. Brady and Mr. Shuford very different from each other?
No SIDE not a whole lot of difference. They was just good
What kind of things did you learn from him?
I don't know how long I'd been there, but I got in the shipping department, and I was over the shipping and all that for years. That was mostly figuring and planning things. You learn a lot that way. I worked with him about twenty-eight years, I reckon.
Were you in the shipping department in the furniture?
No, in the glove. I never did do much in the furniture. I did after I got out of the glove mill there. For a while I worked in the furniture plant. But I finally went back to the glove mill after a so long time, and retired from that here.
Since your father was in furniture, why did you go into gloves instead of into furniture?
I took the first job I could get. Because you couldn't get a job back then. There just wasn't any jobs. And I wouldn't have got one if it wouldn't have been for my daddy and Mr. Brady and the Shufords all…
You started real young, didn't you?
Yes, I wasn't sixteen yet. I quit school, and I got a job. As I said, I
could get a job; they'd give me a job. In fact, they'd come
Let me go back a little bit and find out a little bit about your family. Do you know anything about your grandparents?
Yes, I knowed my grandparents. I stayed with them a couple years and farmed with them when I was about twelve or thirteen years old.
Where did they live?
They lived over here out on old St. Paul's Church. And then they did live right down back here at Conover for a while. He didn't own his home or anything for years. They'd just rent from people. You know, back then you'd live in their house and farm their land for them.
That was your Sigmon grandparents. But your Hollar grandparents.
They lived out here. They was on a farm, too.
When I grew up my mother, she'd rent pastures out for cotton. And hoe it and pick the cotton for a third of it, to buy clothes with for the kids. And my daddy, what little he made in the shop, would take in what he made, too. He was in the shop then.
Your mother would do what?
She'd rent maybe two or three acres, whatever she felt she could work,
and hoe it. And then we'd plant it and plow it and everything,
Did you keep living at home when you started working?
Yes, I stayed there, and then I stayed with my grand parents, when they moved down and were living behind where we lived there. Me and my Grandmother Sigmon was always good buddies. I'd stay with them sometimes. I stayed with them about a whole year there one time.
Why would you go out and live at your grandparents'?
Me and my daddy, we'd kind of get on the outs. He was
What did you have arguments about?
I'd want to go to the movies, and he didn't want us to go to the show or anything like that, hardly.
Why didn't he want you to go to the movies?
He was just that much of a Christian, he didn't believe in it. Back then, those people were strict.
What about dancing?
He wasn't too bad against that, because he made some music hisself sometimes for the square dances. They'd have little dances.
He played …
He had a banjo he picked, and he'd play a harp. I was so little, he'd bring me up on the table on the bedding. In that corner of the room, they'd have a table setting there with bedding tacked on it. He'd set me up in there, and I'd watch them dance. I was too little. But he never did approve of going to the show and things like that.
Oh, he loved his string music and singing and dancing. He loved to sing. Even after we were married, his friends and neighbors that belonged to the church would gang up and sing.
At somebody's house?
Yes.
What kind of things would they sing?
Church hymns.
Hymnals, yes.
I'd go with him, and I got to singing in there with them, too.
They were all real good singers, and they'd gang up and get together and sing.
Did they sing any music that wasn't religious music?
No, not hardly ever. Back then you didn't have all this kind of music and stuff. There wasn't that much back then. Some of them had phonographs, but there wasn't no songs, not anything compared to what it is now.
But they would have square dances and play music?
Oh, yes, they'd have square dances. Well, they'd have cornshuckings.
They'd have square dancing. They'd have a big old pot full of
dumplings
What about the boys, though? Would the boys start drinking?
All the parents were pretty strict on them. They couldn't just get out and do anything.
Did they sneak off and drink?
Well, yes, some of them. I have a time or two. But you had to be awfully careful, though. In fact, there wasn't too much in this… I guess it was some sections, but out through here it wasn't too bad.
But your grandmother wasn't as strict as your father?
No. When I stayed over there with them and farmed them two summers,
they'd send me to the store every once in a while to take eggs or
something, and she'd always give me money to get me a poke of smoking
Are you talking about your mother's parents or your daddy's parents?
That was my parents there. My grandmother would do the same thing for me, too.
That was his mother's.
Your mother's parents.
Yes, my mother's parents. She was a Sigmon, and they were pretty easy-going. But they wasn't rowdy or nothing; they'd just give in a little quicker.
He didn't have too much to do with his dad's parents, because his
grandmother
We'd have to be quiet if she come out and stayed a couple days.
So the Sigmon side of the family was a little more easy-going to get along with than the Hollar side.
Yes, they were good. They'd treat me just like one of their own kids, about.
What do you suppose made it different? Were they different religions?
No, they were all Lutherans.
There was just that difference in the people.
Do you know Blanche Killian and… Are they …
Blanche Settlemyre and Katherine Killian.
Yes, I went to church with them and growed up with them.
Have you met them?
Yes.
They're good friends.
Their daddy and my daddy, that was some of the singers.
That's what I wondered. I remembered that they talked about their daddy singing.
Bradford Settlemyre.
He's one that liked to sing so good, too.
I loved to hear him sing.
He would sing real good.
Did your daddy work in the furniture plant the whole time that you …
He did up till he got the shaking palsy and his health got bad. He had to quit.
She means when you was little.
Yes, because I'd carry him lunch up here.
Did he farm at all?
He didn't do much farming then after I was…He did for a while till he got in this plant. But I remember I'd bring his lunch up here. I was about eight or nine. I'd walk and bring him his lunch.
How far was that?
It was about a mile or a mile and a half, I reckon. We lived out towards
Rock Baptist, Rock Pond Road out here. Out there
You lived in a log house …
In a log house out there when I was a kid. And then we lived down here below St. Paul's Church. I started school out here. My brother and sister went to school down there.
What was your daddy's job?
When they first started him there, he was just helping build these
chicken crates
How did Preston Yount get the money to start his own factory?
I don't know how them Younts back on behind him, but they had always
A Copperhead car?
A Copperhead Ford. Around the radiator was copper; they called them "copperhead." That was in about '17 or '18. And he was one of the well-off. Old Mr. Brady had a car. I don't remember what he had.
Was Preston Yount a supervisor at the …
I think he was over some of this over here with Brady first, and then he… They made picker sticks over here, I believe is the way it was, and they went out of the picker stick business. He moved out and started a shop of his own. And my daddy went with him.
The furniture industry had a hard time during the Depression, didn't it?
Oh, yes. They sure did.
They would close down. Did your father get laid off during the Depression?
No, I don't think so. He worked most of the time, as well as I can remember. Some of the older ones, the better hands, they'd keep on and try to give them something. There was right much trouble over here in the glove mill back then. They had a hard time in the Depression. I was helping unload coal. We'd fire the boiler with coal. It come in coal cars, and they dumped it off. We'd have to shovel it up on a truck, and they'd have to shovel it off the truck. If we didn't have nothing to do in the mill, didn't have no orders or nothing, we'd do work like that. And then when they built to it there the first time, I helped wait on brickmasons, and I hauled dirt, do anything. He'd give me something to do. That's when we was raising our family, too, I reckon, there. Yes. So I got to work about all the time through the Depression.
No, he never was off any. I was off a week or two a time or two, but that's about all.
If they'd get an order, he was there to ship it out. If
Do you remember your daddy talking about any of the strikes in the furniture plant during the thirties?
No. Well, I knew about
What do you remember about the strikes at the furniture plant? What caused them, or what happened?
They were dissatisfied, I think, with the way everything was going, a lot of it. And then business got rotten, too, and it was first one thing and then another piled up. But we didn't have any trouble at the glove mill or nothing; we worked about all the time.
Was your daddy involved in the strike?
No. He never would have nothing to do with them. They tried to pull one there at the glove mill one time. They wanted me to get in on it. I told them no, I wasn't in on it. I said if they shut it down and nothing doing, I'd have to go home, but I said, "As far as me having a hand in it, I'm not in it." I didn't believe in it myself. I thought they just made trouble and made it hard on everybody. And Mr. Shuford even told us that he had enough to live on; if they wanted to try, go ahead. He got them together and talked to them, and he had some of them crying; they went back to work, and that's the last we heard of that.
What did he say?
He just talked to them and explained to them and told them how everything
was and how it would affect them if they… They couldn't find nothing
else to do, and so they knew they had to live. But after he got back to
work and everything, it kept getting better and it'd straighten out and
Who tried to organize in the glove mill? Did some labor organizers come in from outside?
No, it was some of the hands. You know, you can find some bullheads
Were they trying to bring in a union?
No, they just wanted to get more money, trying to get better wages. But they couldn't afford to pay it. I wasn't that sharp on it, but I knew what we was shipping and what was going out. And if you don't sell nothing and you don't have nothing coming in, you can't put it out. I figured I'd be better off if I just stayed for what I was a-drawing; it beat nothing.
Who were the ringleaders of it? Were they young men or women? Were they the sewers?
One of them was a couple years older than I am. He was pretty hot on it. But I don't remember who pulled the switch. It was one of the girls pulled it, I think.
Who?
Gladys Ackery
I don't remember.
I know Ed Poovey
Yes, and then he wouldn't have anything to do with it.
Yes, he wouldn't have nothing to do with it. I know he returned.
After that he didn't have a thing to do with it.
I told
Weren't there a lot more women workers than there were men in the glove mills?
Oh, yes, there was five or six times more women. Most of it is women in a glove mill.
Except for the cutters and the turners.
Cutters and a couple turners. I don't believe they had any women turning the steamers then. Mostly men.
Yes, they did, though. Smith.
Yes, they did. Della Smith. There were several of them. Walt Bellinger's wife turned and steamed some. When they started out, one of them would turn the gloves and send them over to you, and you'd steam them on this hot form. That's what I was doing when I started, with Walt Bellinger's wife. She was on one hand, and I was on the other. She'd steam one glove; I'd steam the other one. That's the way I started. But I don't think I made but about ten cents an hour or something. Don't remember what I made to start with. Might have started for nothing, just to get the job. I don't remember.
Were there quite a few women that were involved in this effort?
It was mostly women that was in, more or less, that they got them stirred up. Well, it had to be. But I don't remember exactly who the leader was anymore, but it wasn't a union or anything.
Is there anybody still around that was involved in that?
Yes. I meet some every once in a while there. I've met some. One girl a while back, I work down here at the service station sometime to pump a little gas. There was a woman come in here a couple months ago. She knew me, but I didn't recognize her. She worked over there at the mill when I started.
What was her name?
You got me there; I done forgot it.
What do you mean, somebody pulled a switch?
That was the main switch for controlling the juice that run all the machines.
Oh, there's one switch that turns all the sewing machines on?
It would cut the whole thing, but most of them rows had a motor at each
end. That would stop that row. But this here one, pull the one switch
over on the wall, it would cut off all the juice.
So they actually did this?
Yes, they pulled it.
And then what did they do?
Mr. Shuford come down there to see what was wrong, and he'd done heard a little bit about it, I guess. He come down there and talked to them. They didn't even leave the plant.
So everybody was just sitting in their place?
They just stayed there, and they just let him talk. And he just give them
a good talk, and, well, he might have made it sound a little
He told them that they weren't getting enough orders, that they couldn't pay any higher wages?
Well, yes. And they couldn't. They just wasn't shipping it out. There wasn't nothing moving much. Everything was dead, about. And then when Roosevelt got in and froze the money business, he didn't have enough to do anything with. A lot of the hands would loan him so much out of the payroll till everything got straightened up, and then he paid them back. It was some rough times along in there.
When did this incident take place?
I don't remember what year it was.
In the thirties?
Yes, it had to be in the thirties. The sewers were downstairs there in the basement at that time. I remember that, but I don't know what year.
Were you working there at the time?
Yes, but I don't remember what year it was.
Hugh was a little kid then.
Yes, it was in the thirties.
It was the early thirties, I think. It had to be.
What did you think of all that? Were your friends involved in it?
Oh, yes. There was some involved in it all over the plant.
Did they try to get you to join in?
Yes.
What did you say?
I didn't say anything, because, like Glenn, I was too glad to have a job
and make what you could. And I knew, too, from him that Mr. Shuford
didn't have orders for the gloves, and that it was hard for him to make it, that they couldn't pay any more. He was an
honest man.
He was a man, if he'd see scraps of cloth laying on the floor or a cuff throwed down on the floor, and if he'd see you walk by it and you didn't pick it up, you could vow he'd get after you. Because he said that was the only way he made his money, off of their waste. See, they'd bale that waste up, scraps and stuff, and sell it. He said, "That's my profit, and there's where I make my money." Now he was a man like that. He didn't believe in wasting a thing.
He even got after us about the toilet tissue. You know how it is in public rest rooms and things like that, how people are. They'll have it all over the floor and everywhere. He said, "Use all you need, but don't waste it." He wanted you to have what you needed, but he didn't want anything wasted. I'll never forget that.
No, he didn't believe …
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
Did Mrs. Shuford ever come down to the mill?
She'd be over there right smart.
What did she do?
She'd just come in and look around. She didn't do anything. She'd come over.
Just kind of to visit.
Well she helped to run it, too. She was right
After he come back from service, he helped to …
Yes, he went in the service, and he come back. He run the hosiery mill, but he was still helping in the glove mill, too. In other words, the father and son worked together They were good.
Did Mrs. Shuford ever do anything to help the hands out, like when people were having problems? Somebody told me about her bringing coffee down to people when they were working at night.
Yes, I think theydid bring coffee over there to some of them that worked nights. Yes, they were good.
Back then we worked ten hours a day every day.
Five hours on Saturday morning. Fifty-five hours a week. And you had to
work, too; if you didn't… Me and another fellow,
When did you quit working on Saturdays?
That was after the NRA come in, and they cut down to make a forty-hour
work week. But I used to work fifty-five, work a ten-hour day, and then
go back. Especially in the fall of the year. Go home and eat supper and
go back and work till nine or ten o'clock and get out your fall orders,
ship them out. Just three of us, and we couldn't do it through the
daytime; we didn't have time when all the mill was there and all the
hands. So we'd go back two or three hours a night and mark up
When the Shufords sold out to Riegel, did you move over to Riegel?
No, I didn't get over there. I quit then. Me and the superintendent got to where we couldn't get along too good.
Why was that?
He'd rather tell a lie on me than tell the truth. Me and Mr. Shuford talked it over, and he… What had it messed up was, Millard Holland married one of Mr. Brady's daughters. And they put it in the deal that Holland would be superintendent as long as he was able to work, in the glove mill. And one time Mr. Shuford told me, "I can't get rid of him." So I finally heard what it was. But I put up with it for years and years.
What was wrong with him as a supervisor?
If something would go a little wrong, he'd put it off on you or
something, even if it was his fault. Sometimes I would have an order
made wrong, and I'd always go up and tell Mr. Shuford before the
superintendent got up there. So when he'd go to tell him, Mr. Shuford
done heard about it. And he told his secretary in the office there,
"That's one thing I like about Glenn. If he makes a mistake, he will
come tell me." And I said,
But he was in that business for years and years and years, and he never did learn anything, did he?
No.
Millard Holland?
Yes.
Yes. He never did learn anything.
Set up nometers for each style. He didn't know any of them. Never did learn.
He would make mistakes, and then he'd run and say that Glenn made them. Well, Glenn would take his own mistakes, but he didn't like to take his, too.
Did Mr. Shuford know what was happening?
Yes, but he'd halfways believe him. Like I say, he had to keep him. If
he'd let him go, he'd have had to pay him off
Did the other hands also have trouble getting along with him?
No. They didn't have close contact like I did. In other words, I was
doing the work he was getting paid for, and he was trying to make him
think he was doing all that. Looking after all the orders and the
numbers and everything. In fact, one time we got into it, and I that boy. But he didn't stick there long. And
that guy told me… That must have been ten or twelve years ago. And he
still lives out here on the other side of Conover. He was talking about
it. He said he couldn't help it. Said Doc was having him to do it. I
said, "I know. I didn't blame you for it. I didn't feel mad at you about
it. I know that's what was happening." But he said he didn't have a
thing to do with it.
Were you making more money than you would have made …
No, I wasn't making… In fact, I couldn't get a raise, because the superintendent would hold me down. So I met Mr. Shuford and his son up in the hosiery mill one day, and I was hot anyway. I told them, "I want a raise, or either I'm getting out of here." And he said, "How much do you want to satisfy you?" I should have said ten cents more than what I did. I told him what I wanted. But I was stupid; I told him twenty-five cents on the hour. I got eighteen and a half, I believe it was. They wouldn't give me what I asked. I don't know why I said that when I did.
You should have said thirty-five, and they would have given you twenty-five.
If I'd have said thirty-five, I'd have gotten a quarter, maybe. After I told him that, I thanked myself for talking too fast that time. But I did get it, and then the superintendent had given me a couple of checks before he ever noticed.
He didn't realize you had gotten a raise?
He said to me, "Did you get a raise?" I said, "I've had that. You mean you didn't know it?" I said, "I went to the big man." That's what I told him. Oh, he didn't like that a bit. But he never would …
Had you asked the superintendent for a raise before?
Oh, yes, I had asked him.
Did he have the authority to give people raises or to not give them raises?
He would some of them. But he just… I don't know why. I never did do him nothing that I know of. But he just never would see eye to eye with me.
He just never did like Glenn for some reason or other. I don't know what it was, but…
Now the fellow that had the job before I did, they were paying him real good.
I thought it was because Glenn knew so much more about the job than him, and Glenn let him know it. He shouldn't have let him …
I had to know what I was doing. I knew every style number and everything like that. When I started in with Shuford, I got me a little book, and me and Mr. Shuford's secretary were good friends. She'd keep my book typed up to date, and I'd keep it down there in my desk. And I had everything down there.
How did you learn to do all that?
It just come to me, I guess.
You just taught yourself?
Yes.
Nobody taught you?
I just growed into it. But I done it for years, and I just… When I got out of there, I went down to Newton Glove. Well, I stayed home for a while. And they started a glove mill out at Falls Creek. And they come over here one day. It was in the summertime, and I was sitting out there under a tree stringing beans. We'd picked them the evening before, and I was stringing them to can. They come out there. They wanted to know if I'd go along with them out there and help them for a while. I went out there and stayed out there about a year and a half.
What did you do out there?
First one thing, then another, whatever needed to be done around there,
and helped them. They was just starting out. Then they put me over the
steaming and turning and finishing part. I done that for a while, and
then the guy out there was bad about drinking. He come in and wanted me
to change some hands around one day, and everything was going good. I
knew if I'd switch them around. They were all up with their jobs, and if
I'd change them it'd cause some of them to get behind. It was a heavy
glove; it was hard work. And I didn't change any. He come back over
there an hour or two after that, that morning. Come in cussing. I said,
"I'll just go on home." So I had one of the boys bring me home. I didn't
drive; I rode in a bus they had. I come home. When I was home, I went
back over to the warehouse over here. Between Conover and Newton they
had a warehouse; it was on over there. And I went to J.W. Abernethy, Jr.
to get my check. He said, "Aren't you working?" I said, "No." He didn't
Where was that?
That was over here at this warehouse across from Southern Furniture. They're still there. They've done all their shipping. Their plant's there.
Of gloves?
Yes. Then I went to Florida and stayed. While I was down at Newton Glove,
I went down there and shifted back,
At Newton Glove?
No, Conover Glove.
What did you do in Florida?
I worked in a service station. I worked in a brassiere plant a while. She went down there. Her sister-in-law was floor lady and wanted us to come down. And she worked in there, helped her, made brassieres and things. They give me a job over there. I worked a while, and it went busted. Went over and talked to a fellow at a service station. I told him I had never worked in one. He said, "Can you grease a car?" I said, "I know where the fittings are." I got to work with him, and I worked there till we come back home.
How did you like Florida?
You did like it?
Yes.
Did you like it?
Oh, yes. I made draperies in this store. They sold the fabric and then made the draperies upstairs in that shop.
What made you decide to come back?
Her mother was sick. Nobody to help with her come back.
Did you like Florida better than you like living here?
I like Florida, but still our children and our little grandchildren all were up here, and it was kind of hard to be away from them like that.
I have a brother down there. He's been down there thirty years.
See, we have three children and twelve grandchildren, and now we have nine little great-grandchildren.
And one on the way.
You got your own service station after you came back here?
Me and my brother's boy, this one over here, bought it out, and I stayed
in there a year and then sold out to him. I worked around other stations
for a while, and then I went out here to the glove mill. That was before
they moved out to the Industrial Park. I just worked out here to help
them ship and set it up. But when we got out there, I was out there a
while, and then they put me over the shipping and the packing and all
that, the finishing
Then he worked there till he retired. But he still works a little at the service station now and then.
Down here at the Petty
Was it different working at Conover Glove than it had been working at Warlong Glove?
Well, yes, it was different. They (Conover) didn't have a shipping system
like we had over there. We had everything over there just lined up. The
material went in one door, and after it was made and shipped it went out
and laid back over there at the other end and out the door
But at this first mill, it wasn't as well organized? When Conover Glove first started up, and Fox and Long …
No, it wasn't organized. Well, they started out small. And they would
wait. When they moved out there, they wouldn't start shipping anything
out the way they done over here. They didn't do no marking up or nothing
till it got late in the evening, about two or three o'clock. Then you
had everything piled up; you just couldn't hardly get through till three
or four o'clock. After they went out there and they talked to me about
taking over, I told them, "All right, but I'm going to start shipping in
the morning or marking up, getting my shipments ready. As an order comes
and is complete, I'm going to have it sitting back here waiting on the
truck. I'm not going to wait until after dinner to go to marking up." I
finally got them into it. Well, they found out it worked better. And
when three-thirty or quitting time come, we were ready to go home, too,
because everything was setting there in the trucks, and they'd start to
come in at about two o'clock to pick up the shipments. And half the
time, everything was out by the time. We'd just tell the trucks when
it'd be ready.
How would you compare Shuford and Fox as bosses?
Both of them were good. I growed up with Fred Fox and worked with him. In fact, I was in the glove mill before he was. He was in hosiery to start with; he was a fixer in a hosiery mill. He just kind of worked in a glove mill, but he was whole lots older than I was when I started. But I still ahead on a lot of that stuff.
You grew up with him?
Well, yes. I'm a little older than him. I expect I'm about ten or twelve years older than him. But they lived down there right where we lived for a while. But I've known him about all his life around here in Conover. But me and him never did have any trouble working together. Whenever I went out there, he said, "You work it like you want to back there," and that's what I did. And he never did grumble about it. We'd have a run-in every once in a while, but that'd do us good, both.
Well, we'd maybe disagree on a few things. And Dan Long was the
president, and Darrell Webster the vice-president. And they put a
conveyor system out there one day. Dan, he's a-flutterin' and telling
how they ought
Do all the glove mills around here pay about the same, or do some of them pay a little bit better than others?
I think they all pay about the same now. Southern down there used to pay a little above the rest of them, but I think they've all got in about the same bracket now.
Why do you suppose Southern paid a little more?
He kept the best help.
In order to get the best help?
Yes. A lot of good sewers can make a little better up there, so that
helps out some, too. In fact, when I was there they didn't have an air
conditioner or anything. That made a difference, too, because most of
them have air conditioners now, and that working where it's not air
conditioned, you'd get stuff stacked up around windows and you could
Do all of them use about the same kind of machinery, or do some of them have a little bit more modern machinery than others?
They're all about the same. I think most all of them have got the late-model machines in. It's all about the same thing. All the glove mill operations are that I…
Did you ever hear anything about how the glove industry first got started in this county, the very beginnings?
I don't know exactly how it got started. I know who started it, though.
Who was that?
Preston Yount. He started one out here, it was Southern Furniture there in an old building. I don't remember, but it seemed like somebody else with him. But anyhow, I think he's the one that got it started. And then Mr. Brady bought him out and moved it up here. And I believe Yount come with him a while, but he didn't stay long. But that's where it started from; that's the first one I know of around here.
Did you ever hear of women on the farms sewing gloves in their houses before the glove industry started, having the material shipped in from someplace in the North and sewing the gloves and shipping it back out? Somebody told me that Yount, I guess, got the idea for starting a glove mill from these farm women sewing gloves in their homes for some northern manufacturers.
I don't know how they got started on that, but I do know I remember that. I was just a kid. I can remember the building out there.
You remember that Yount glove mill.
Yes.
Was it called Warlong Glove?
No, that wasn't Warlong. I don't know what they called it. I don't even remember a name or whether they had one or not, to tell the truth about it. And then Newton Glove come in down there. That's an old one, too. That was Hub Yount started that one down there at Newton. That was way back, years ago. I don't remember what year this one started over here.
Was Hub Yount a friend of your daddy's?
No.
Of yours?
No, I don't think so.
That was a bunch of Younts down here. I didn't know several of them.
They're about all dead now. But Rob Macon owned that out there. He run
it for years. Then he sold it out to Norton Company
You were talking about your father's singing and playing for square dances. When you all were coming up, did you do things like that?
Oh, yes, we used to go to square dances. I never did make any music,
though. I done it all with my feet.
You were a dancer, not a musician?
Yes. We used to go. When we were first married there for a long time we'd go around; they had square dances. They used to have them out here, two a week. Right up here at Conover, that was before we was married, but Mary Brown and them had this one up over a grocery store up there. They had a big old building. That was the first dance I ever went in up there, square dance.
Just a room up above the grocery store?
Yes, go upstairs. About twenty-five or thirty couples,
How old were you?
I was about seventeen, I reckon, eighteen. But they did have calling
He'd just walk all around?
Yes, we just walk.
Would he be dressed up like Santa Claus?
Yes. At one time he had one made.
Yes.
Was he giving out little presents?
Yes, he'd have a little candy or peanuts or something.
Did other people do that, or just him?
Well, there was a few of them would …
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
When we lived out here in that old log house SIDE me and him and my
oldest brother headed out and went all the way down to Catawba. I don't
remember how we went anymore, but we walked down there.
What have been the hardest times in your life?
When that flu epidemic was, and they was all sick. That was the roughest time ever. Like I say, people would come up and look in your window and holler and see if you was still alive, is about all. They wouldn't come in. And our aunt finally come over there. I never could eat her cooking, but I put up with it. She stayed with us a while there.
What would you say the best times have been?
I don't know. I've had it pretty good all my life. I've never been sick or anything. I was lucky. And it seemed like I got along pretty good all my life. But the best time, I think, I was around eighteen till about thirty-five. But I never did have it too bad after that flu epidemic.
Do you think your lives have been very different from your parents' lives?
The way things have changed, there's got to be a big difference.
How has this area changed? I know it's changed tremendously.
There used to not be nothing here. I played around in here; it wasn't
nothing but woods in all around here. There was nothing but a dirt road.
Was all that went through here, to Hickory and all. Conover was a little
old dirt road. Had a store up here. It didn't even
This was in Newton?
No, this was Conover. They had a couple mean ones
When did you all move to this house? You built a house on an acre of land, and then you …
I built down here in '36 or '7.
'35.
When we lived down here on St. Paul's Church road. We lived there twenty-seven years and bought one down here on Emmanuel Church Road then and sold that one and lived down there five or six years.
We lived down there for four years.
And we've been here eleven or twelve years.
Did you move just to move to a house that you liked better?
She didn't like it down there in that section; it was just where the house was at.
I got homesick.
And then this guy was building apartments around there, and there was all kinds of people moving in and out there. And had to cross the railroad. She didn't like that. So I run across this and we liked it, and we just bought this one and sold that one.
You said you got homesick?
Yes, I got homesick.
She didn't get homesick. She just didn't like it.
No, I got homesick. Every time I'd go across that railroad, I just got sick.
It was a nice house. We liked it.
I felt like if I didn't get away from there, I'd go wacky.
What was the area like that you disliked so much?
It was just real different from what you'd been used to?
I don't know. It wasn't really that. Mostly I just got homesick, like you get homesick when you go away from home.
Is this more the area that you were used to living in?
No. I don't know what it was, really.
I don't know. I liked it all right.
I guess I was just homesick, and then I put it on the railroad, because the railroad was there and I had to go back and forth across it, and I was afraid because several people had gotten killed on the railroad track.
And a couple got killed out there where we had to go across the railroad. There wasn't a real light over there. And I just got so homesick. But I've liked it up here ever since we moved up here.
Do people live around here that you knew at work?
Yes. Well, people lived out there that I knew, too. A lot of people I worked with lived out there. But it wasn't that. I don't know, really, what it was. I just got homesick. It's a beautiful house, much prettier than this one.
It had a closed-in carport. And you'd go in your utility
Have to come through the living room.
Living room. That's all I don't like about this. I don't know why people build them like that. You've got to come in the kitchen, or you come in there, you're in the living room, and you've got to go through it to go to the bedroom.
Strangers is all that comes in at the front door.
Nobody ever comes in the front door. Very seldom. Everybody comes in through the kitchen.
And it's close to town. It's a good location.
Our youngest son wanted us to move up here, too. He said, "You need to be closer to town when you get older." And it's handy to the store and handy to town. It's just a good place to live, and there's not much traffic back here, just what lives back here. And it's kind of quiet.
Oh, it's built all around
A pretty good place to live, really.
How long have you all been retired now?
I guess I've started my eighth year. I'll be seventy-two in June. I retired when I was sixty-five.
How have you gotten along, being retired?
Fine.
You haven't been bored or anything?
No.
We don't have time to be bored.
At the mill?
Yes. I got working part-time for a while. I'd get the dirty end of the deal. And I didn't want it, and I just quit.
What keeps you busy?
We've got so much going to do now
Do little things for them. And this fall and winter we've made chicken pies.
To freeze?
No.
To sell them?
Yes. One week I made ninety-four.
Ninety-seven.
Yes.
Where do you sell them?
I taken sixty-some out to the glove mill where I worked one day. Had orders for them.
We sold about sixty or more out there that
The order was sixty-three that one week.
The week we made ninety-seven.
Where did you get the idea to start doing that?
My daughter-in-law was off from work some this fall, and so she was off
this one week, and she told me she was coming out on Monday. And I
thought, "Well, what in the world will we do?" I know she doesn't like
to sit around and do nothing, and I don't either. So she come in, and
when breakfast was over I said, "Well, what do we want to do today? Do
you want to go shopping?" My granddaughter-in-law's baby was due pretty
soon. I said, "Do you want to go out and help Sally get things ready for
the baby? Or do you want to make some chicken pies?" She had bought
chickens the week before, and we had, too. And she said, "Well, that
making chicken pies sounds pretty good." I said, "Well, let's make some.
We can freeze them, and then we'll have them later for the holidays.
You'll probably be working then." And so we made fourteen that day. And
so her husband—that's our son—took some with him to work for his lunch,
and some of the men wanted one. They wanted to know if we'd sell them
20-something. That's the first day I went out to the mill, wasn't it?
Yes.
I went out there to the glove mill and parked there at the back and went
in there and told some of them I had chicken pies out there.
I thought well, if they would buy some there, wanted some, I knew how they were apt to buy things where we both worked, that maybe they'd take some there, so that's what we did. We took them what they wanted and then brought the rest over here. And they just went like hotcakes. So then the next week or two, they were hollering for some more. And we took them up there every week then for several weeks.
A couple weeks
In the bank over here they bought a lot over there in the Duke Power.
Yes, I got some. The beauty parlor out there.
One lady picked up about fourteen one time.
Eight up there at the beauty parlor. I didn't know the beauty parlor was
up there. This one friend of ours works at Duke Power, and
Do you plan to keep on doing this?
Well, if anybody wants… I give them the number, and then if they call, why… I've got to take some along up to the nursing care. Them women up there have been wanting I don't know how many. A couple of them wanted some, and I thought I'd take maybe half a dozen along. We made some today.
That's what we did today.
We made nineteen.
Have either one of you ever belonged to any kind of clubs or organizations or anything besides the church?
No. We'd been planning to go to some of the meetings of the senior citizens, but we never have time.
We went over here to the YMCA.
One time.
They were playing bingo
And they all seemed so much older than we felt.
You all seem awfully young.
I told them I might come back. I said, "I'm telling you, those people
over there, it looked like they really enjoyed it." And I know they'd
enjoy it more than I would, because we're able to get around pretty good
and all. And I said, "I'd rather see them enjoy all of it than
I felt like it was more for, you know, if you don't have a partner, don't have anybody to be with, for lonely people.
There's so many widows.
They don't have any place much to go or anything. But we've got too many children, too many grandchildren, and too much stirring around and too much going to do anyway. Maybe when we get a little older and don't do all this running around and everything.
That could happen next week.
I don't know if that time will ever come or not. In fact, we don't go to see our families much.
Not too much. We was up there above Ashley. The youngest one lives lives out between Ashley and Williamsville, and they have a couple of kids. They're married, all of them. We went up there last weekend to Harold's, and they was all there. We seen all the grandchildren up there, and the great-grandchildren, too. We go up there every once in a while.
And our daughter works up at the hospital. She's in x-ray up there. And she's busy all the time. We do little things for her, too; once in a while we may.
Then we've got one granddaughter and three boys lives at Lexington. She wants us to come down there, and we go down there every once in a while.
It sounds like you're busy.
During the fall, they would try to step up production?
That would be a good time.
More orders would come in.
Could you make more? Were you working on piecework?
I didn't, because I did about all I could do any time. I never did play around.
But they'd want you to work regular. Of course, back then, they worked
But it did go hard with some, because everybody isn't the same a-working. Now you can take one person and maybe she'd be real fast and work real fast at something else, and you'd think, "Oh, she'll really make a good sewer." But you'd put her down to sewing, and she was slow. And then somebody else that looked like they'd be so slow at sewing on piecework like that, then they would be fast. You couldn't tell till they… And me, I was one of the lucky ones. I could sew fast.
She always was a fast sewer.
Did people complain when they stepped up production in the fall?
Yes. Some of them would. The ones that didn't care. It's the same today.
Some, just so they make enough to live on, they're all right. Like this
one girl that I worked with for several years. It wasn't too many years
before I retired. She'd start figuring along about the middle of the
week, see how much money she needed. And then when she got it made, what
she needed to pay her bills and things, she didn't care whether she made
any more or not. And I'd ask her, "Wouldn't you like to have a little
money in your pocket once in a while? Or wouldn't you like to have a
little money just one time when you have to take your baby to the
doctor, that you wouldn't have to charge it?" But now she didn't care;
just so she had enough to pay her bills, she was
Did the supervisors try to get those people to work faster?
They used to, but they don't now. You can't say nothing
No, she was fast. She would work fast. Yes, they'd get after them for fooling around and messing about. But it didn't do any good, because, like he said, they could go somewhere else and get a job, so it didn't do much good. Especially when business was rushing.
END OF INTERVIEW