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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