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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-0163, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Edna Yandell Hargett grew up in a working class family. Originally from Camden, South Carolina, Hargett's family lived for a time in Rock Hill and Burlington, North Carolina, as well as Charleston, South Carolina. By the early 1920s, they had settled in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they lived in the mill village, North Charlotte. Most children of mill workers, Hargett explains, left school in order to start working in the mills when they were sixteen. Hargett dropped out of school at around the age of 14; still too young to work in the mills, she was sent by her father to work in a local dime store. At that point, the family was living in Charleston, and Hargett took advantage of an opportunity to attend Hughes Business College, where she studied stenography. Her studies were halted when the family moved to North Charlotte, however, and she went to work in the textile mills. According to Hargett, because of mill traditions, parents would train their children, and she describes how her father taught her how to weave. Once she was trained, the mill hired her, and she worked in various Charlotte mills for the next several decades. Shortly after she became a skilled weaver and smash hand in the textile mills, Hargett married. Because she was only seventeen, she and her husband-to-be traveled to South Carolina, with her father as an escort, where they were married. Within a year, she had given birth to the first of her three sons. Hargett describes the effort of caring for her family while continuing to work at the mill. Like most of the other mill families, Hargett had the help of an African American nursemaid, which was particularly important following her divorce. She also received help from the close-knit mill community. Because they worked together and lived together, the inhabitants of the North Charlotte mill village were like "one big family," one she discusses throughout the interview.
Edna Yandell Hargett describes life and work in North Charlotte, a mill village in Charlotte, North Carolina. Focusing primarily on the 1920s through the 1940s, Hargett discusses her work as a weaver in North Charlotte textile mills. In addition, she explains in detail how textile mill workers functioned like "one big family" both at work and in the community.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
But you knew your mother's grandparents?
Yes.
What did they do?
Was farmers down in Camden, South Carolina.
Was that where your mother was born?
Yes, my mother was born down there in Camden, South Carolina. She was Emma Victoria Stokes before she married my daddy.
Do you know how your parents met?
No, I don't know that. Daddy was a mail carrier, and I reckon maybe that's the way they met. I don't know. He said he used to deliver mail with a horse and buggy.
How did your family come to Charlotte?
We was living in Rock Hill—that's the Highland Park Mill there—and Daddy wanted to get out of mill work, and he went down to the Charleston Navy Yard down there to where my brother was bandmaster in the Navy. And I wasn't old enough then to work in a mill, and they put me in a dimestore then. And I have asthma, so the damp climate didn't agree with me. They told my father he'd have to leave the damp climate if he wanted to raise me to maturity. So then we went to Burlington, North Carolina, to the E.M. Holt Plaid Mill, but I still wasn't old enough to work in a mill, so I worked in a dimestore. So we left Burlington and came down here to North Charlotte. And then I was sixteen years old, old enough to work around machinery, and they put me in the mill. I learned how to weave, and I worked in the weave room. So I was smash hand in my regular job.
What year was that that your family decided to move from Rock Hill to Charleston?
I was about fourteen then, and I'm seventy-two now. You'll have to figure it out.
Let's see, that's fifty-eight years ago, so 1921. That sound about right?
I think so. I worked in a dimestore down there almost two years, and I was trying to take a stenographic course from Hughes Business College, and I didn't get to finish it on account of my asthma got so bad. The damp climate didn't agree with me. So then's when we moved to Burlington.
Did your father work at the Highland Park Mill in Rock Hill?
Yes, he did.
When was he a mail carrier?
That was before he married my mother.
Why did he quit that job and go into working in the mill?
I can't answer that; I don't know.
Do you know why he wanted to get out of the mill?
Yes, it was hard work. They had to go to work at six in the morning and get off at six in the evening and an hour for dinner. And they'd have to work on Saturday till dinnertime. Too many long hours; he wanted to get something different, so he went to work down at Virginia and Carolina Fertilizer Plant when we lived in Charleston. But then after he had to leave on account of my health, he moved to Burlington and took a job up there as weaver.
Why Burlington?
I had a brother living up there at Burlington.
Did he work for Holt, too?
Yes, he worked at the E.M. Holt Plaid Company.
Did he tell you about the job being open or something like that?
No, whenever you learned to work then in the mill, your parents would take you in and teach you theirself. You wouldn't get no pay for learning, so you stayed with your parents till you learned how to hold a job of your own. Then they'd give you a job.
But did your brother tell your father about jobs being available at the Holt Mill? Is that why they chose . . .
I imagine it is. I never have discussed it with him, but I imagine it is, because he was already there at E.M. Holt before we moved up there. So we moved in a two-storey house. It was a boarding house and we kept boarders, and Daddy worked in the mill, and our boarders was mill workers. And I went to work at the Woolworth's five-and-ten there in Burlington. Then when we left Burlington we came down to North Charlotte at Highland Park Number 1, I believe it is, and I went in there as a learner because you had to have a learner's permit to be around the machinery.
What made you decide to try that stenographic course that you took?
Because I'd always wanted to be a stenographer. I went and took classes three nights a week, but I didn't get to finish it because we had to leave on account of my health. When we moved to Burlington, there wadn't no college around there where I could take it.
How did you feel about not being able to do that?
Well, it wadn't a matter of how I felt;
it's what I had to do. I was disappointed, naturally, but I
had to work to help because the wages were so cheap then. I think, if
I'm not mistaken, it was around sixteen dollars a week in the
mill then.
So you were disappointed that you couldn't . . .
Yes, I was disappointed, but still my daddy was the boss, and I had to do what he said.
Children then didn't do like they do now, express their unpleasantness about anything.
That's interesting. What were your relations with your parents like?
I had a stepmother, and what they said was boss, no matter what I agreed with or disagreed; what they said went. Indeed, with all children back then, we had to mind our parents. Now a child can express their disapproval of anything, but they couldn't do it then.
What would happen if you got bold enough to try?
I'd get up off the floor.
How would they punish you?
They'd whip us.
Who was the disciplinarian in your family?
Daddy. My stepmother'd tell him, and boy, he didn't spare the rod, I'll tell you. He made us walk a chalk line.
Do you ever remember getting . . .
Yes, I remember getting punished.
Do you remember an incident that kind of stands out?
Well, I went to the Baptist Church there when we was living at Rock Hill, for the BYPU, and it was raining, and I stayed for the preaching and didn't come out. We lived right across the street from it. I come home at that time—I waited for the preaching to be over with—so when I came home, why, Daddy was standing behind the door and started whipping me as soon as I got in the house for being late coming in. And I said I'd never whip one of my children for going to church, if they were late coming in. But he wanted us to be home at nine o'clock.
What was life in your house like when you were a child? What do you remember about it?
We didn't get to play like children do nowadays. You'd come home from school, and we had cows to stake out and hogs to feed and gardens to work. We didn't get to play.
How many brothers and sisters did you have?
I had two brothers and two sisters. I would have had three brothers; one was stillborn.
That's interesting, you say you didn't have time to play. Did each child have chores that were his or hers?
Yes, they sure did, and they had it to do. Because when they said do it, they meant it.
What was your job?
I had to bring in the wood for the stove and stake the cow out and had to help slop the hogs. Then we had chickens, and we had to gather in their eggs.
And that was when you were living in the mill village.
Yes. They didn't have a city ordinance then like they do now.
Did most people have animals with them?
Yes, I think most of them did.
You said you had a garden. What type of things would you grow?
Daddy had an old plow, and he'd put a harness around him, and we had to stand behind that and guide the plow.
And your father would pull it.
Yes, he'd pull it. So we raised vegetables, just like they do
nowadays, and we had some fruit trees. Then when we got our work done at
home, we had to study our lessons by a lamp. They didn't have
It sounds like with the garden and the hogs and cows and all, you must have been pretty self-sufficient. Did you have to buy much from the grocery store?
Yes, they had to buy quite a bit of stuff, the sugar and coffee and things like that that you didn't raise. But Daddy raised his meat, and we had the cow—we had milk and butter—then we had the vegetable garden. But times was hard. Daddy told me he'd worked many a day for fifty cents a day. I never done that, but he did.
Did your mother can?
My stepmother did. I don't remember my mother. Yes, she'd can and make syrup peaches and peach pickles and dried apples. And then, as I said, we raised our own pork. And we had a cow for milk and butter. Then we had a chicken that laid our eggs.
Did you ever sell any of that, or did you consume most of it yourself?
They consumed it theirselves. Then Daddy had bees, too; he would raise our honey.
Did he sell that?
He sold some of it, but not much of it. I remember we had two great big old apothecary jars sitting on each side of the mantel in the kitchen, and he kept it full of honey in the comb; it was so pretty to look at. But till today I don't like honey, because I had to help rob the bees and was stung too many times. I don't want no honey.
That filled me up with honey.
You said your stepmother canned. Did women get together at the time or . . .
No, you canned it in your own home.
How about when it was time to butcher the hogs or the cows? Was that kind of a social occasion? Did people help one another?
Yes, they helped one another with the killing of the hogs. There was a colored man around there usually went around, and he took his pay out in meat. But when ours was killed we was always in school, because we'd make pets of them and we couldn't stand the idea of it. They already had them killed when we came home.
So this man kind of travelled around from house to house, and you could get him to butcher your meat for you?
No, he lived there in the community just like we did. He was good at killing them right there on your own lot. And they had the big barrels of hot water they rolled them over in and shaved them. Then they had to fasten up on a pulley somehow or another and gutted them.
That was at Highland Number 1 or Number 3?
Number 3, I believe, is at Rock Hill. This was at Rock Hill.
What did the black man do? He didn't work in the mill, did he, or was he a groundsman or what did he do?
I really don't know. I think he worked in the mill, too. I believe he was a truck driver for the mill company. I'm not sure about that now, it's been such a long time.
Were there many blacks living in the mill village?
Not many, no. Most of them was on farms.
Were there many working in the mill?
I don't remember seeing many of them. The sweep person was
white people, but the scrubbers were usually black people. And the ones
that did the bathroom work were black. Then we had a black man that
What did people in the mill village think of blacks living there? Did they mind that?
I never heard that discussed at all. We always called all the black peoples "uncles" and "aunts." We didn't call them "Mr." and "Mrs."; it was "Uncle" and "Aunt."
But no one really objected to them living there?
I never heard any of it.
We were talking about food. I was interested in what you ate. What was a typical meal like in your house when you were a child?
We had plenty of vegetables, and we had cornbread. Cornbread and milk was very good. Then we had good old homemade butter to go with it, to put in the cornbread or the hot biscuits. And we had some kind of meat on the table at every meal.
What type of vegetables would you eat?
There'd be turnips, and there'd be collards, and there'd be carrots, sugar peas, green beans, and okra. We never was too crazy about squashes, but we had some squashes.
Did your mother have any special way she prepared any of those foods?
Yes, my stepmother would fix cornbread without any salt in it, and I thought that was the awfullest-tasting cornbread I ever tasted because it didn't have salt in it. But we all ate it, and we didn't complain, either.
Did she have any other special recipes?
No, I don't remember any. She wouldn't let us get in the kitchen. We had too much outside work to do.
When the children got some free time, do you remember any of the games you used to play?
We didn't have any free time. When we had got through with the work, we had to study, because it was by kerosene lamp, and you couldn't see half to study. Then we had to go to bed early, because when Daddy got up in the morning at five o'clock, the whole house got up.
Did you ever play any games? Do you remember any?
We played there in the yard sometime, hide and seek. Then when Daddy had a bicycle shop and he'd fix bicycles, we'd ride the bicycles around the house. We didn't get out like a lot of kids, but when we did get out to go visiting anybody, we had to come back in an hour's time.
Did he do the bicycles on the side?
Yes.
He was a weaver, right?
Yes.
Did he ever fix the looms?
Not that I remember.
I just wondered, since he was repairing bicycles, if he had been a mechanic in the mill. You were talking about getting your lessons. What was the school you attended like? Was it mostly mill children?
Yes, it was. It was in Highland Park Mill, Brady's School. And then at Rock Hill they had just built a new high school. But I didn't get to go to high school then, because we left then and went to Charleston.
Was that school provided by the mill?
I think it was.
Do you remember any of the lessons you did? Do you remember the type math problems they would give you or the reading lessons you would have?
Yes, and we had spelling lessons. I was always pretty good on spelling and writing; I always topped the class on that. And I was pretty fair on arithmetic. But now history, I didn't care a thing about that.
Reading about wars and all, I didn't care a thing about history. That was my lowest grade.
Did any of the reading lessons or math problems you ever had ever deal with the mill or with cotton manufacture and so on?
No.
When you were a child and going to school, did you ever have a sense that you were somehow different from other children because your parents worked in the mill?
No, all the children's parents worked in the mill. We'd just take that as for granted.
Did anybody ever call you a linthead while you were a child?
No. I never heard that name until I came up here.
Until you came to Charlotte.
Yes.
That's interesting, because we noticed that Charlotte really seems to be a place where that was used quite often. When did you first hear it? What happened that. . . .
I don't remember any special occasion about when I first
Did you feel like there was a real difference between people that lived in North Charlotte and people that lived in town? Did you feel like there was any kind of division between them?
Yes, I reckon there was, because, like I said, we worked in the mill, and we didn't have the conveniences the other people had. We were very conscious of that.
How did that make you feel?
Kind of an inferiority complex.
Did you feel that maybe you somehow weren't as good as those other people?
No, we felt like we wasn't dressed as nice, because most of our clothes were made out of gingham. When we went to school, most of the children wore clothes that their parents had made for them and all. I don't think there was much of a difference there except that whenever a mill child got sixteen, they had to go in the mill and the others didn't. We knew that was the way of life we was brought up, and that would be the way of life we had to expect.
How did you feel about having to expect that?
Like I told you, I wanted to be a stenographer, and when we went to Charleston I thought I'd found time for it then, and I went to that Hughes Business School, but I didn't get to finish the course, and when we went to Burlington then they didn't have a business school there, so I just dropped it altogether.
How did it make you and other children feel when somebody would call you a nappy head or a linthead?
I don't remember ever being called that, but I have heard it, and we knew what it meant.
Do you ever remember children getting angry or kind of revolting against that idea that they would have to go in the mill like their parents had?
No, I can't say that I do, because we always expected a way of life just the way we was reared, and that's the way we expected it to be. Of course, I must have a little bit of a revolting in me, because I wanted to be a stenographer so bad, but I didn't get to go to high school.
If you went into town, how did town people treat you? Did they treat you any different because you worked . . .
No, they didn't. Back then you could go to a show for a nickel and a nickel for popcorn, and you'd have a good time. We lived about three miles from town then in Rock Hill, and we went to the show. They had a jitney then. For ten cents you could ride to town, and ten cents you'd ride back. We weren't given much of an allowance then, and we'd want our money to spend there for popcorn, so we'd walk it to town. Then we'd walk it back. But going to church and the show was about the only recreation we had.
Did you ever know any people who worked in hosiery mills?
I didn't till we moved to Charlotte.
How did they treat cotton mill people?
They treated us the same as. . . . They were working in the mill, too. There wasn't any difference that I could see about it. They made better money.
One fellow had told me that he felt sometimes hosiery people looked down on people that worked in cotton mills.
Maybe they did, but I never was conscious of that.
You said going to church was kind of a form of recreation.
It was, we got away from the house a while.
Didn't have to do all the chores.
Was the church real important in your life?
Yes, it was. I've always enjoyed going to church, and I still do. I was baptized down there in that pool at Rock Hill Baptist Church.
Why was it important to you?
That's just hard to answer that. We loved our preachers, and they'd come around and visit you then. Nowadays they don't want to visit you when you go to the hospital. But they'd come around, and they'd have dinners with you. You'd invite them in the home, and they'd eat with you and all. And it seemed like it was just a way of life we was all used to, and we expected it. The preacher would come down to the house, I know, and he'd stand around and eat honey with a fork out of those apothecary jars.
And I'd look at him, and I'd just think,
"Eating that stuff. I hate it."
So the church was really kind of a big part of your life as you were growing up.
Yes, church has been the biggest part of my life. I've had to
work hard, but I enjoyed it, and I'd love, in a way, if I
could, just to go back and re-live some of those days over again. Then I
left the Highland Park and came over here to the Chadwick-Hoskins
Company. And
The Louise.
This was a long ways away then, wasn't it?
Yes, Louise is over yonder on Louise Avenue, and so we had to ride a streetcar or trolley over here.
Where did he go to work after he quit?
Over here.
At Hoskins. He came over here.
Yes.
Was that when the Louise mill was part of the Hoskins chain?
Yes, it was all a chain. I worked some in the Calvine. There was the Calvine, the Louise, the Chadwick and the Hoskins, and the Pineville plant.
That's interesting, that he could be able to quit over there
He had to come over here to get his money, you see. They didn't pay off over there when you quit, so he come to get his money, and the weave room boss was in the office. And I had worked for the weave room boss when I married Bill, and he knew me. He knew I was a good smash hand, so he give me work and we got a little three-room house right across the street.
And did your husband go to work in this one, also?
Yes.
I just thought it was real interesting that he could kind of get mad and quit over there and, although the same company ran all the plants, he could come over here and get a job.
Usually they wouldn't hire them like that, but they needed a smash hand, and Mr. Fowler knew I was a good smash hand so he wanted to get me.
So did he kind of have to hire your husband to get you?
No, my husband went to the card room. But then people would quit the
mills and go to another mill, and I could always find a job if I wanted
to quit and go to another mill. But after I came over here I liked it so
well I just stayed. But with the Highland Park mill it was box work and
you had to have different shuttles, as many as four shuttles to a loom.
And the looms was Crompton and Knowles, and then they had dobby head
looms, too. Well, over here it was just the Draper looms, which just had
two harnesses and one shuttle. So by me knowing how to work on the
Crompton and Knowles or the box work, the gingham, I could be their
draftsman. In the blueprints, kind of, you call it. We called them
drafts, to know how to draw in for new patterns when we'd get
new
So the Hoskins plant was just the Draper looms.
Yes, it was Drapers.
Which plant had the Crompton and Knowles?
Our box works was Crompton and Knowles, and dobby heads on some of them, and some of them out here at North Charlotte was two beams, because they wove that cloth they made the Army outfits out of.
I'd like to talk a little about the differences in those looms, but first let's talk about your husband a little bit and how you met.
He was working in the mill where I was working. We'd see one another going in and out, all going out at the same time and coming in. So I met him; we used to sport and go to church on Wednesday nights and church on Sunday nights. Saturday night we went to a movie. That was our entertainment.
Which mill did you meet him in?
Louise mill.
You came to North Charlotte when you were sixteen years old?
Yes.
And went to work at Highland Park.
That's right.
What made you decide to go to Louise?
I left home then. Daddy had to leave the mill when his health got bad, so
he got a job working for the A and P warehouse. So he had to give up the
mill house whenever he didn't work for them. So then I went
to boarding with some people and went to working in the mill there. So
I'd seen him [husband] coming in and out and knew he was
single, and we'd walk together and talk to one another
sometimes. And
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
How old were you when you moved down to the Louise mill?
I was about seventeen, because I married just a few months before I was eighteen. I married in December, and I was eighteen in July. And Daddy went with us to Lancaster to get married.
Daddy used to be on the police force down there, and he wanted to go down there, so we went down there and was married in Lancaster, South Carolina.
So he approved.
Yes, he went with us. He approved of it.
What was life like in that boardinghouse? You said your mother also ran one, too, when you came to North Charlotte?
Not in Charlotte, in Burlington. Well, it was pretty hectic, because when I came home from working long hours in the dimestore, we had to get in there and clean up behind the boarders, wash the dishes and all like that and get everything fixed up for next morning and take a bath and everything, because we had to get ready to go back to work the next day. So it was just the routine work; there weren't no activities of pleasure about it. It was just, as you might say, hard work, and we knew to expect it.
Was your mother working in the mill at the same time she was . . .
No, she kept the boarders. She didn't work. She had been a farm girl and never had done any kind of mill work.
What type of people would board there? Would there be men and women?
We didn't have any women boarding then, but it was men boarding there. Always you'll find single men. You didn't hear of divorce and all back then, but you'd get tired of a job and go to another mill. Well, they'd have to have a boarding place there for them to work [stay], and that's where we kept boarders for the E.M. Holt Company Plaid Mill.
After you married your husband, when you were eighteen, did you continue to work in the mill?
Yes. I continued to work in the mill till I got pregnant, and then I'd get off to have my baby and go back in then, back on my job.
How old were you when you had that first child?
I was a little over eighteen.
Then you went to work right after you had the child?
Five weeks afterwards.
Who took care of the child?
You had a colored woman to come in and look after him. They'd let me come home at nine and three, and I went home at twelve to nurse the baby.
They would let you take a break then, three times a day, to come home.
Yes.
Was that pretty routine in most mills, to let nursing mothers . . .
It was then, but I think people started feeding their baby on bottles; they quit their breastfeeding.
How did you feel about your pregnancy? Did you want to have children?
Yes, I wanted to have children, but I didn't want to have one that quick.
We was both mighty proud when a child came, though, a strong, healthy baby. We wanted to get our furniture and stuff paid for first, but we didn't get that done.
How many children did you eventually have?
Three boys. And not any of them works in the mill.
Are you glad of that?
Well, I wanted them to do what they wanted to do. My oldest boy's a druggist. And then Jimmy's a mechanic. And Everett retired, twenty-two years in the Air Force, and he lives down in Marietta, Georgia, and he runs a service station down there now.
Did you have those children in the house, or did you go to the hospital?
With the first one I went to the hospital, but the other two I had at home, on this bed right here.
Was there a midwife that came in?
Yes, there was a midwife came in with the doctor, and sometimes the next-door neighbor. Because you didn't go to the hospital for that then; it was just looked at as something that had to be done, and you'd send for them, maybe they'd come over.
Did you want to have more than three children?
No, I never did want a very big family, but I wanted a daughter and never did have a daughter.
Did you decide to stop at three?
With my health, I had to. I had trouble carrying the last one, and I was put to bed several times. So after that they said I'd have to have a clean hysterectomy, so I did.
The reason I was asking that is we just found it real interesting; it seemed that people had real big families while they were on the farm, and then so many mill people didn't have very large families. They'd only have two or three children.
My health prevented me from having more. I would have loved to have a daughter, but now I don't regret it at all because I've got three boys I'm proud of.
Did most people only have two or three children? What's your impression of that?
Most of them that I remember had four or five, and some of them had more than that.
Was any kind of birth control available to people?
No, people didn't talk about that at all. And it's amazing to hear how they talk about it now. I've told people that I was born a hundred years too soon, because I don't see the things the way they see them now.
You feel like it's wrong?
Yes, I do. A lot of it, I think, is wrong. So many of these young girls now, just living together and having babies and all like that. I think a child should be with married couples. I don't like to hear of illegitimate at all.
Did you ever know of many illegitimate pregnancies in the mill village?
Yes, once in a while, but that child was an outcast after that happened.
Oh, really?
Yes, the parents didn't want you to speak to them or nothing.
Would the family usually have to leave the village?
No, they didn't have to leave the mill village, but it seemed like that was the difference there then. People didn't associate with them like they used to, because they'd disgraced.
That's real interesting. You said you had three sons, and you were working. I guess your husband was working in the mill, also?
Yes.
How in the world did you manage to raise three children and work, too? It must have been a job.
It was a job. We all had to burn coal, had fireplaces we had to stay by, and get up in the morning and make a fire and all. But with God's help, I got it done. I was left a widow before my children all got grown. So I got up in the morning, and I'd make up the dough and have biscuits for them, so whenever they got up they'd put it in the oil stove oven and cook them. And I'd have stuff on the stove for them to fix for their breakfast then, because they had to go to school. And then my colored woman would come in, and she'd take over.
How long did you have a woman working for you?
I just don't remember now how long that was, but up till my children all got in school. Because when they got in school, by that time, you see, they had changed and it was eight hours a day working then that you had to do instead of all that other.
Did that make it a lot easier for you?
Yes, it did. I can look back now and see where we'd come home
and do a washing and had to wash on a board outdoors and boil your
Yes, it does.
When you were still on twelve hours, what was a typical day like for you with all your housework and the children?
It was just a day of drudgery, but it had to be done. You
didn't have time to stop to compare it. I remember when we
got our first radio, I would get to sit up on Saturday night to hear the
Grand Old Opry.
Could you describe the day for me, what time you'd get up and what you'd have to do through the day?
I'd get up at five o'clock in the mornings, because
you had to be at work at six. Then you had to wash your hands in an old
wash basin and all, because you didn't have water in the
house. You had to carry your water from a pump two or three doors down.
And in the wintertime it was awful cold to wash your face and hands in
that cold water.
That was here at Hoskins.
Yes.
Was that in the late twenties or early thirties?
Yes, that was in the thirties, I think it was.
Did you work the day shift or at night?
I had to work both of them. We didn't have a union then and didn't have seniority. You just worked wherever the bossman wanted you to work. But I was on the second shift from three till eleven, and then I got a little seniority and I got on the first shift. I worked over here till the last day they worked in this Hoskin over here. That afternoon I went to work as a waitress, so I never did draw an unemployment check.
That's real interesting. Could you tell me a little more about the difference this change to an eight-hour day made in your life?
We were just tickled to death to see that. We thought we were going to
have time for all this, that, and the other, and time to visit.
That took a good little bit of your money then, didn't it?
Yes, it did, but things were cheap back then. You could go to the store with five dollars and come back with a little wagonload of it, and now you go to the store with five dollars, you come back with it in one bag.
I'm interested in this visiting. You said people visited a lot. Was the mill community real close?
Yes, we were. The mill community was a close bunch of people. Now
neighbors around, you go to the hospital and stay in there three and
Why would people visit? What different things would they do when they visited?
We always went to see every little new baby. And then when anybody was sick, we'd go and bake a pie or something and go down and see them and take it to them. And all of us understood we couldn't stay long because we had to get up and all. We'd go and stay a while with them. If we got a new recipe or made a cake or something and it was good, we'd divide that with the others. And we were just like one big family; we just all loved one another.
This love offering is really interesting, too. Everybody would chip in and make up this person's day's wages?
Yes. Make up a purse and give to him. Just like they do now when anybody dies. They go around and make up the flowers from the neighbors. We'd make it up in the mill up there then. And when they got paid, why, they'd come and pay them. I was usually the one that had that to do in the weave room. And they'd come and pay us, and we'd take their money and give it to them, and they'd be so proud of it, because they didn't have any wage coming in then.
So that would kind of help them make it through that period of sickness.
Yes. And back then you didn't hear of people borrowing this, that, and the other. They had their gardens and all, and they raised stuff, and we were self-supporting. We didn't have time to get out for foolishness. Everybody around then planted gardens.
Do you remember how the two communities here interacted, the Chadwick
village and the Hoskins village? Did people visit back and
Yes, they visited back and forth. They've cut off the road right down here. It's Gossett Street now. I lived over at Chadwick one time, and you'd cut right through there and go right by the mill to where I lived. But the highways has cut through it now and blocked it off. But we was all just one big community and one big family. And on the Fourth of Julys, they'd usually let us have a little celebration, and they'd have fireworks at the reservoir and around for us to see.
The company would sponsor that.
Yes.
How about with courting? Did men and women in the different villages court, or did each village kind of stay to its own?
It didn't matter where they worked. If a boy wanted to go to see them or they wanted him to, they'd court like that, you see. But sometime we'd have square dances we could go to.
Some people had told me that in some villages they wouldn't let guys from other villages come in and court their women.
I can't say that I ever seen anything like that. But back when anybody got married back then, we'd celebrate them, beat on tin cans and things like that around, give them a serenade, and I remember that real well.
Would you serenade them on their first night?
Yes. Because they didn't go off on honeymoons back then, you know. They went on back to work right after they got married. So we'd go down there and we'd take cans and beat them together and holler. They'd raise the window and come out and speak to us, and then we'd come on home, but we had a good time celebrating them.
What other kinds of special occasions were there in the village? You were telling me about the fireworks and marriages. Were there any other community celebrations?
No, we had to work too much to have any other kind of celebration.
Do you remember any tent revivals coming through?
Yes, tent revivals and then old minstrel shows would come around. We'd get out to see those. There'd be medicine men on an old wagon, and they'd be selling some kind of medicine, and they had a few comedians with them which would do a little act. And part of the time they had snakes along to look at, and we was always scared to death of those. But it was a big time when the circus came to town, and they'd give the school children free passes to go to that, and we'd have to take them, because you didn't let the kids go out by thierselves then.
Did those revivals actually come into the mill village?
Yes.
What were they like? Did you ever go to any of them?
Yes, I went to some of them. It was just like Sunday school every night. We couldn't go every night to see them, because we had to get up early and we didn't have time to get our work done. But they had tent meetings, and we'd try to go to see those sometimes.
Do you remember people shouting and things like that?
Yes. There was a Holiness church near us down there at Rock Hill, and I
thought many a time if I could shut their mouth, I'd be glad
of it. I couldn't go to sleep, because we lived there and
they was shouting.
It must have been pretty loud then.
They were; they were loud. In summertime, they didn't have screens on the windows then; they had the windows raised. And their voices would carry, and they'd be shouting and clapping their hands and hollering and keep me awake. And I'd wish a lot of times they'd shut up.
Did you ever go to any of those?
We went to a few of those, but we was Baptists, and that was a Holiness, a different denomination, and the denominations kind of stayed to theirselves.
What did you think of the shouting and all?
I just thought it was a bunch of foolishness.
I was a kid; I didn't know. I thought it was a bunch of foolishness.
How about when you became an adult?
When I became an adult, I joined the Baptist Church, and I was well satisfied where I was at.
What other type things did people do? Did the women or men have any clubs?
No, they had quilting bees. Women would meet at one another's house and help quilt out a quilt. Now I couldn't quilt. My stepmother could. I never did learn to do that. I went to a farm gathering. When they'd gather the crops, they had a. . . . I don't know just what the name of it is, but anyway, the farmers all gathered there when their crops was gathered, and they had these big, black wash pots, and they cooked chicken in there. A cornhusking is what it was. You'd go there to husk the corn. Every time you'd find a red ear, you'd get to kiss a girl.
Most of them was white ears or yellow ears, but when you found a red ear, you'd get to kiss a girl. So after we got most of the corn shucked and it got late as we was wanting to stay, we'd go in and eat and then we'd go on home. But I never did get to go to but two of the cornshuckings.
Was that when you were a child or after you had married?
That was when I was a child.
People in the mill village would go to somebody's farm for some of those things?
Yes.
Did people travel back and forth between the village and the farm pretty frequently?
Yes, and we had trolley cars then. It wasn't streetcars; it was trolley cars then. And you could ride for seven cents and go from town over to Louise and back over here. We've still got the track down here yet where we came back and forth here. People travelled. On Sunday evening is mostly when we did our visiting with people. When you'd go spend a day with people, they'd fix you up a nice meal. You don't hear of people spending a day with people any more like they used to then. I know when I moved from Louise over here, several of my neighbors from over there wanted me to come and spend a day with them, and sometime on Sundays the whole family would go and spend a day, and maybe two or three Sundays later they'd come and spend a day with us.
Was that relatives whose farm you would visit?
No, it wasn't relatives. It was just in the community where
they would invite us to come down to it, because they wanted to get
their corn shucked. And there'd be some dancing around then;
there'd
Did the mill ever have homemaking classes for you to teach you to cook or to can?
Yes, the Chadwick-Hoskins did. I never did find one of those at Highland Park, but Chadwick-Hoskins did at Calvine when I worked there. They had one of the little three-room houses left for our clubhouse, and they had a home economy woman come down and teach us how to do these things, and we really enjoyed that. She'd teach us how to cook and to make clothing and little crafts that she knew back then.
Did you go to many of those?
Yes, I went to those regular.
Did they have anybody doing any other type of. . . . I've read a lot of accounts of welfare workers in the mill village.
I never heard of a welfare worker when I worked in the mill.
Did they have people that did other things besides run the homemaking classes, people who would maybe visit your home and help you take care of the child?
No, I never heard of that.
Did they ever run any night schools?
Not that I recall then, they didn't.
Why do you think they held those homemaking classes? What were they trying to teach you, do you think?
They was trying to teach us women, I think, to be more self-sufficient,
because we had to work in the mill and then do our home work, too. And
we couldn't take courses to learn these different things, and
they came in there. And whenever a woman got pregnant, we'd
always
When you went to these homemaking classes, did they give you some instruction in nutrition and planning meals and things like that?
Yes. We'd get in the kitchen and try out a new recipe, and then they'd teach us how to re-do a little furniture or something like that.
Let's talk about your work a little bit. Tell me again how you got that first job and how you learned to weave.
They didn't pay you to learn how to weave then. They didn't pay a learner at all. You had to go in with your parents, so I went in with my daddy. He'd show me how to do it, and I learned how to weave and learned how to pick out and how to smash. Whenever I got good enough where I could do it and could be trusted on my own with a set of looms—at Highland Park they'd first give you eight looms for a set—they'd try me on that. And they put me on a set beside of my daddy, where if I got in a hole he could help me out a little bit. But I never did like weaving as much as I did smashing. I always loved to smash and pick out. And I got to be a real fast operator on it so they'd keep me on that job.
What was the difference in those jobs?
Pick out's where there was a bad place in the cloth, and you
picked out the thread in there up to where the bad place started, then
started up over. You had to know how to match your picks and all and
start the loom up there and perfect get your selvage and all up together
and have it perfect there. Then when we had a breakout, so many things
could cause a breakout. It could be a screw loose in the picker stick;
there could be a screw loose in the shuttle; there could be a harness
strap