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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-0241, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Ila Hartsell Dodson talks about working in a South Carolina textile mill. The interview contains insights into rural life and information about mill work.
Ila Hartsell Dodson talks about working in a South Carolina textile mill.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
When were you born?
January 23, 1907.
Whereabouts?
Buffalo, South Carolina.
What county is that in?
Union County.
Right down the road. Do you remember your grandparents on either side of your family?
I remember the Hartsells. He was a good Christian man, and she was, too. His name was D.J. Hartsell, and her name was Martha.
Did they belong to a particular church?
The Baptist church. He enjoyed singing. He was a hard-shell Baptist.
What did he mean by that in his community at that time?
He was real respected in our community. Everybody looked up to him, because they knew he was a good Christian man.
Was he in Buffalo?
He lived in Buffalo when I was born.
Did they work in a mill or work on a farm?
No, he was a carpenter. But all the children worked in the mill.
What about your grandparents on the other side of the family?
My granddaddy died when my mother was young. Just had a grandmother.
What was her name?
Her name was Urana Waldrop.
What do you remember about her?
She lived with us practically all my young life, because my mother's daddy had passed away when she was just a young girl.
What were your parents' names?
My mother's name was Bertha, and my daddy's name was Walter Jackson. Everybody called him "Jack."
Were they about the same age?
My mother was one year older than my daddy.
Do you know where they were born?
My daddy was born in North Carolina, but I don't know what part. And I wouldn't know where my mother was born.
Had they always worked in the mill?
My daddy did. That's the only work my mother ever did, too.
Do you know anything about his life in North Carolina?
No. That was before I was born.
Did they go to school at all?
Oh, yes, they went to school.
How long do you think they went?
I wouldn't know about that.
Do you think they might have finished what would be the seventh grade nowadays, or high school?
I wouldn't have no idea.
But they could both read and write?
Oh, yes, they wrote good. They sure could.
Tell me a little bit about your father's occupation. You say he worked in a mill?
Textile. He was a loom fixer.
Who did he work for?
He worked with the Draper people a long time . . .
The Draper Company.
Just going around from one to another, putting in new Draper
He installed the Draper looms.
Yes, that's right. But then he was a loom fixer.
So he worked for the Draper Company for a while, and then he got into loom fixing?
What did I say a while ago?
Hopedale.
Hopedale.
That's where the Draper people were from.
When I was growing up, he travelled around with them. But we didn't move around with him. He had bought us a home over there on West Avenue. We stayed there, and he travelled.
That was here in Greenville?
Yes.
Is that the earliest thing that you remember him working at?
Yes.
Whereabouts would he travel to?
I don't remember but two places: Pelzer, South Carolina, and Central, South Carolina.
You think he probably went some other places, though.
I'm pretty sure he did.
But they would probably be in South Carolina?
Might have been in other states.
Georgia, maybe, Alabama?
I wouldn't know.
You say your mother worked in the mill a little while. What did she do?
She was a weaver. That's all she ever did.
How many brothers and sisters did you have?
I had seven sisters, and I never did have but two brothers.
Where do you fit in among all these brothers and sisters?
I was the third one from the oldest.
Did your mother keep on working in the mill after she began to have children?
Yes, she sure did.
How did she look after the children?
My grandmother lived with us, and she raised us children, practically, because my mother worked.
Would your mother take off from work, say, a month or two before she was going to have a child?
You would bring that up, because she worked till two months before I was
born. And I told her that's the reason I always wanted to weave, because
I wove before I got here. [Laughter]
What about your brothers and sisters?
Those last ones, she didn't work at all. She had stopped.
Do you know why she stopped?
Because my daddy was making enough to keep us going.
After you were born, how long was it before she went back to working in the mill?
I wouldn't know about that.
Was that a common thing in the community, that the women would work up to a few months before . . .
She said back then they would let you, but I don't think they let you now.
And then she could get her job back; it was easy to do.
Yes. She just got so much time off. She told me that, I know.
So she might have actually gone back to work a month or two after she had had a child?
I can't remember.
Talk a little bit about growing up and what you did as a little girl, games you might have played or going to church or when you started work, going to school, things like that.
I went to church all my life. Me and my other three sisters used to. . . . We'd moved from Buffalo over to Ottaray Mill at Union. I don't know how old I was when we moved over there, but I remember living there at the Ottaray Mill. And I can remember we used to walk way. . . . I guess you was down there with us, and I showed you the church. We used to come down there below the mill and cross the railroad and go up there to that church. We went to the Monarch Mill Baptist Church.
You all would go every Sunday?
Oh, yes. Never missed a Sunday. I don't know how young I was when we left Buffalo, and it's four miles over to Union. That's where I remember going to church. I don't imagine I was old enough to go to church when we left Buffalo, but I can remember when we moved to Union. I didn't start to school till we moved to Newberry.
Why do you think it was that you all moved around two or three times right there?
I don't know. I was too young to understand.
Was your father working for the Hopedale people then, or was he still working in the mill?
He was still in the mill. He hadn't gone with the Hopedale people
So he might have been looking for a better job each time.
I don't remember my Granddaddy Hartsell living in Union. The first I remember about him, he was living in Newberry. And my daddy decided to move up there so we'd all stay together. And then when I started school in Newberry—went in the first grade—we must not have stayed there long, because I didn't even finish the first grade, and we moved over here to Mills Mill. He brought us to Greenville. My granddaddy in the meantime had moved to Greenville, and he followed him up here, and we've been here ever since.
And your grandfather was a carpenter.
Yes. A carpenter by trade always. He never did do nothing but carpentry. He was the best in town. He used to make cedar chests.
Hope chests.
Just like a hope chest.
Tell him about the little wagon he made.
Oh, yes, he made wagons, wheels and all.
Like a two-horse wagon.
that small.
With tires and the hubs. Looked just like them. With them steel rims on the wheels. With a seat up on it just like a big wagon.
Some of the children has pictures of them now, but I don't happen to have a picture of it now.
He would build houses?
Yes. He helped build this house.
He helped build this house when I was growing up.
Is this house part of the Dunean mill village?
Yes. This house was built way back about 1911.
This house wasn't built then, because we didn't move to Greenville until 1915.
It was built along 1915.
No, not right then. You've forgot things that I told you. Me and my sister used to bring his dinner. We lived over in the Judson Mill village, and we'd walk all the way over here. You know, these lunch boxes would have a handle? And Grandma would fix his lunch, and we would come across that. . . . It'd be dangerous for two girls to walk across there now, but we used to walk across that pasture and up here and bring my granddaddy's dinner. And while he was eating his lunch, we'd play all over this house.
Do you know how your father learned about fixing looms or weaving?
First I can remember about him, he was a weaver just like my mother.
Do you know what kind of looms they were able to weave on?
Back then, I imagine there wasn't nothing but Draper looms.
They had Draper looms and box looms. Crompton-Knowles box looms.
Were they weavers on the box looms or the Draper looms?
I wouldn't know.
Here at Dunean, this was seen in this particular village as sometimes a better village to be in, because the box weavers made more money, and it was a little higher-skilled kind of weaving.
When we come to Dunean, there wasn't nothing in that weave room but box looms.
When was that?
That was way back yonder.
Didn't we move to Dunean in '28? You're getting ahead of us.
You all came here to Mills Mill first.
Yes, I never will forget that. We moved here in March, and boy, we had our little white sweaters and little straw hats on. Me and my sister passed for twins till she married. Mama dressed us like twins till she married, and then she had to go to dressing like a married woman. She was just a little bit older than I was.
Do you remember moving here?
Oh, yes. I sure do. I don't remember how our furniture got here, but I remember how we got here. We got here on the Southern train. And my daddy met us down there, and we come to our new home on the old streetcar. And then the fare was five cents a ride. We come over here on, it's Mission Street now; it used to be Leland Street. And they had school in the bottom of the Methodist church; that was just how small the village was.
It was the mill's Methodist church.
Yes, down on the mill village. Right over yonder. I hadn't even finished the first grade when my daddy told me, "Ila, you're so smart in your books." And my sister was in the second grade. He said, "They won't never know the difference. You're so smart." (I was making good on my papers.) "You go up in the grade with Novell, and I won't never have to buy but one set of books." And we went through the sixth grade using the same set of books. Then you had two in a seat. And we'd sit together, and he didn't ever have to buy but one set of books. They didn't ever know the difference. We didn't have twin names because we wasn't twins, but Mama dressed us like twins until she married. And I went up with her, and I stayed right up with her; I never missed a grade.
How long did you go to school?
Through the seventh. That's when I decided I was big enough to
So you went into the mill the first time to go to work after that.
Yes. I thought I was grown then.
What do you remember about first going to work? How did you get your job? What was it like? What did you start out doing?
Filling batteries on Draper looms.
Tell him about you filled my batteries.
That's where I met him.
When we met I was weaving at Brandon, and she filled my batteries. I'd get them all running, and we'd lean up in the window and talk and look out.
When was that?
We married in '24, and we went together three years, so that would be maybe '22.
We was married three years before Doris was born.
So that would have made you about fourteen or fifteen years old.
When I went to work. Yes.
And you say you had to get a permit.
A worker's permit. And Mama wouldn't even take me to town to get it. My daddy wouldn't go with me. And I said, "Well, give me the Bible, and give me a dime, and I'll go get it." Because a nickel streetcar fare up there and a nickel back. I went up to the City Hall—they've tore that old building down now; it's got a big, nice building up there on Main Street—and I got the Bible because I had to prove my age. And I got that worker's permit, and boy, I caught that next streetcar home. But Mama did give me the dime to ride.
Did they not want you to start work then?
No, they done everything they could, but I like to worried them to death. I carried my money to school for three weeks to pay for my books. And the teacher said, "Ila, I want you to bring that book money tomorrow." I said, "Yes, ma'am, I'll bring it." I had it right then in my pocket, but I didn't want to give Mama's money away, because I had a feeling I was going to win out. And I just worried her, and every time Papa'd come in from work I'd start on him again. I never will forget, he said, "Bertha, she's going to run us crazy if we don't let her go to work. If you'll give her permission, I will." And Mama said, "Well, I've got to have a little peace around here. Well, we'll just let her go to work." So I won out.
Why was it that you wanted to work so bad?
I wanted to make my own money. I had done had two sisters go to work, and I seen how they was having money, and so I couldn't stand it no longer. But I've never regretted it.
Did your mother and father want you to go on to high school?
They wanted me to go on to school, yes, but I couldn't see that. Back then, there didn't too many children go on to high school. It was just a common thing that when they'd get old enough, let them go to work.
Did they have truant officers back then that would come around and check up on the children?
No. Didn't have nobody checking up on nothing.
There must have been a good number of small children in the mills whose parents let them go on in.
Young like me, yes.
Did they ask you any questions when you got up to the City Hall with your Bible?
No. All they wanted was just the proof that I was fourteen. I went to work in September, and I wasn't fifteen till January.
And you started at the Brandon Mill.
The Brandon Mill.
How many hours a day would you work?
They wouldn't allow you to work but eight hours. They were running ten hours a day, and you had to be off two hours.
When would you be off, during the middle of the day?
Yes. I chose that, from one till three, because I wanted to come out with the majority of the people every evening, and go in with the majority every morning. Go in at seven and work till twelve, and then come out at twelve and go back in at three and work till six.
What would you do between twelve and three?
I was at home, do as I please.
Did you care for some of the younger children that were coming up?
Oh, I helped Mama, yes. I was her gardener. Me and Mama done the garden work. I just love to work in a garden. And my sister that was my "twin," when we was growing up together she wanted the housework and I wanted the garden work. She'd work at the house, and I'd work in the garden with Mama.
Did you all can vegetables?
Oh, my mother was a good canner. Sure did. And kill hogs—Papa would kill a hog—and I can just see her now, cleaning them old hog heads. She didn't waste nothing.
Did the mill provide a place to kill the hog, or did you all do that in your own yard?
On our own yard, because we lived off the mill village. See,
So you all first moved to the Mills Mill.
Yes. But we didn't tarry there long till my daddy got this better job over at a better mill, over here at Judson.
As a weaver or. . . .
I imagine he was still weaving when he went over there, but it wasn't too long till he got to fixing.
And so you all moved to the Judson Mill. Did you live in the village?
Yes, we lived on the village a while. We were living on the village when World War I started. When they had this camp out here.
Camp Sevier.
Camp Sevier. You done learned about that. Yes, I remember that, because two of my uncles got volunteered. They wasn't never married. I think they volunteered, Uncle Belton and Uncle Ray, and then the War kept going on till they got my Uncle Oscar. And I never would forget, he had two children. But he didn't never have to leave Camp Sevier; they kept him out there. But Uncle Ray and Uncle Belton had to go overseas.
You had a number of aunts and uncles who came into Greenville with you all, or lived here.
Yes. One of these uncles married a girl from Newberry while we was living in Newberry, and then the other one went back and got her sister. Uncle Oscar and Uncle Belton married sisters. Uncle Ray married a girl over here at Poe Mill.
So you all were at Judson a while, and then . . .
Then my daddy bought our home out on West Avenue, off the village. And
that's where we lived when I first went to work in the mill, and where
we
And your father was working for the Hopedale people about that time.
Yes. He done a lot of work for them.
Did you all have any livestock besides pigs? Did you have a cow?
Mama kept a cow all the time.
On some of the mill villages you had a pasture you could put the cow on.
They did down here when we moved over here. Me and Geddes never did have a cow, but my mother kept a cow all the time. I believe she had a cow when she passed away, didn't she, Geddes? Or if she didn't, she hadn't been rid of it long.
You started out filling the batteries. How long did you keep on doing that?
When I left Brandon and I come to Judson. I went to work in the silk room over here.
What would you do?
Run skein winders. But I didn't like that. I wanted to weave. That's all I could talk about, weaving, weaving, so my daddy let me come out of the silk mill, [room?] and he got me a job in the weave room.
At Judson?
Yes. And I learned to weave there.
How old were you then?
I was still going with Geddes.
But you all hadn't married yet.
No. I was just seventeen when we married.
So this must have been in '22 or '23?
We
That's a long time.
It sure is.
How did you learn to weave?
She was a big old tall woman
How would you learn?
They just put me over there. You see, like I said, I just wanted to weave, and I just took right on to it. They didn't keep me with her but about two or three days till they put me on looms of my own.
How many did they start you out with?
Eight looms.
And those were the Draper looms?
They were . . .
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Just little old plain looms. Don't you know, Geddes, that stuff that Uncle George used to work on.
That was an old Crompton-Knowles one-shuttle loom that her uncle
Hand.
Had an oil(?) box up on the sides and . . .
Didn't have them Draper looms.
Before the one would run out, you'd just take it out and get that and throw it in and then fill that one back up and set it up in.
That was when we just run eight, you see, because it'd keep you busy.
That's at the Judson Mill.
Yes.
Were all of the looms like that, had to hand-fill them?
No, some of them was box looms. But, see, I was just learning, and I just went on plain looms first.
But they didn't have any of the automatic looms then, with the batteries on them, at the Judson Mill.
No.
Did they ever change over anywhere you were, from having the old hand-filled kind that you're talking about into the automatic looms, so that you would have weavers who had been used to working on one kind and then changed over to the other?
They had looms over there then, when I first went to work over there, that made handkerchiefs. They was box looms.
Four shuttles and this thing—you know, a wire(?)—that changed from one color to another.
Those were the box looms.
Yes. And it run this color a while, and after a while switched over into stripes in there.
I've seen those Crompton-Knowles looms. Why did you want to weave so bad?
[Laughter]
It was in her blood.
Mama was a good weaver, and that's all she talked about, and I just wanted to weave. You don't know nothing about this old mill down here at Camperdown, downtown?
Yes, I've seen pictures of it. They tore it down.
I wove there fifteen years. That's the last work I did in the mill. We
made plaid cloth. Boy, I had done really got up there where I was a good
weaver then. I run the box looms. But we still just run eight looms,
because we had to thread our own magazines and run the looms, too, you
see. I was down there when they went out of business. When I first went
to work down there, this lady working on the third shift wrote me a note
and said, "Dodson, I know you're a good weaver, and my bossman asked me
last night if I knew any good lady weavers that was out of work and
would love to come to work, and I immediately thought about you."
Because I had worked with her over at Judson. And she said, "If you'd
accept this job, let me know." And I told her daughter, "Go back and
tell Mama I don't know whether I can accept it or not, because Geddes
said I couldn't work no more." But he come in from work, and I started
a-begging him. And my daughter and son, Doris and Geddes, Jr., was in
high school. They said, "Daddy, please let Mother go to work. With us
both in high school, she could be such a help to you." So we just like
to worried him to death, and he said, "Well, send Mrs. Thackston work
that you'll be down there"—because I drove the car, and she rode the
streetcar—"and pick her up about fifteen to eleven." And I sent Doris
down there. I never will forget. And I helped put them two children
through high school and then helped them get married, and started the
other one through school, but she jumped off like me and got married.
And the other boy jumped off and went and joined the Air Force. See,
they was all grown up then. When she wrote me that note up here, she
said Mr. Foster, the bossman, said the work was just a tight place he
was in; it would just last about three months. So I told Geddes, "See,
I'll just be working about three months, and I can make good money in
that time." So he said, "Okay." So I worked fifteen years, and every few
weeks he would
And I was there when they put up the notice saying they was going to close the mill down on account of Japanese imports. And I'd see somebody go out towards the entrance, and they'd come back and they'd just be a-crying. And the lady next to me, Evelyn Goodwin, she come back and she was just crying. I said, "Evelyn, what in the world's happening out there? What's taking place? Everybody that goes out that way comes back with a handkerchief, crying." She said [imitates crying voice], "Well, I'm not telling you. You go out there and see for yourself." And I went out there, and I come back a-crying. The mill was closing down. So I come home and told my husband that night, "Well, I hope you're satisfied." I was a-crying. He said, "What's the matter?" I said [imitates crying voice], "They're going to close Camperdown Mill down." And there were lots of people working in there that was at retirement age, but they were just holding on. So that's the last mill work I done.
I stayed at home two years, and see, I was just used to working. And I
saw in the paper where the city needed some school guards, and I called
to put in my application. Sergeant Mitchell said, "Yeah, come up here
and get your application blank. I need you, and you can go to work
Monday." And I said, "Sergeant Mitchell, how about letting our daughter
bring me an application blank out here when she gets off from work
today?" He said, "Who is your daughter?" I said, "Doris Marshbanks." He
said, "Oh, she's my right-hand buddy. She does lots of work for me." She
was a secretary up there. He said, "Sure, I'll send the application
blank by Doris." And Doris brought it out here and
That sounds like a good job.
Oh, I loved every minute of it. And I've wished since then I'd kept it up, because I could still be on it.
Tell him about Doris. When she finished school, she went to work.
Our oldest daughter went to Washington and worked for the FBI.
In the FBI office up there.
Yes. Made good up there.
Where is she now?
Today she's gone to Raleigh, North Carolina, on a convention. She belongs to the Beta Sigma Phi Club uptown. She's the president, and her and her husband have gone up there to a conference this weekend. But she lives here in Greenville. But when she was in Washington working for the FBI, she found Brother's death certificate up there in the FBI files, and she said she cried the rest of the day. Our oldest brother got killed in the War. A jeep turned over with him.
One of the things that lots of people remember is the flu epidemic [1918].
Oh, I remember that. I just remember lots of soldiers passed away out
here at Camp Sevier. And I remember I had it. Oh, yes, I sure did.
Burning up with a temperature. I remember the doctor come in there, and
I was asleep. And him and Mama woke me up, and he was examining me, and
he
Did you know many people that died in that . . .
No. I was too young to. We were still living on the mill village then, when that happened.
There were a number of strikes and things like that that went on in the mills back in the late 1920's and in 1934, `35, around in that period of time. Do you remember anything about unions and strikes?
I just remember one that happened here at Dunean. It was while my husband was working down here.
That was after World War II?
Oh, yes, yes.
Much later.
Yes.
What about in this earlier time, in 1929, or `30, or `31 or anytime along there? Do you remember hearing about anything like that?
Along then was about when the Depression started, wasn't it, `29?
Yes.
Doris was just two years old. She was born in `27. And Junior was born in `29, and there was a bad depression started then.
Where were you working when Doris was born?
I wasn't working, period. I had done quit. We were married three years when Doris was born.
Did you stop working in the mill when you got married?
No. I worked over two years after I married, still weaving.
So you worked pretty much up to the time when your daughter was born?
No. Just as soon as we found out we was expecting a baby, that was it. Didn't work no more.
And then your son, Geddes, Jr., was born in '29.
Yes.
So you quit, say, in 1926 and didn't go back to work until you took this job at Camperdown?
No. When my youngest child was seven years old, I twisted my husband's
arm again, and he let me go back to work. I worked over at Judson again.
My sister-in-law was working over there, and they needed some help. And
she come to see me and told me that they wanted some weavers over there.
So I begged my husband again, and he let me go back to work, but on one
condition: that his mother come and live with us. His mother and his
sister come and lived with us a while till we got started off, because
he didn't want to leave the children. He worked on the first shift, and
they wanted me on the first shift, and he wanted his mother there with
them. But finally we got weaned off after they had stayed with us a
while, lived with us
What was her name?
Mary.
Where did she live?
She lived over in Colored Town, off of Green Avenue over here.
Would she come every day?
Every day.
Would she stay all day?
Yes, stay till I'd get home, and then after we'd eat our evening
Yes, I've heard several people say that.
And Mary was good.
She would cook some, too?
Oh, yes. Four dollars a week. Ain't that something? For six days a week.
Was she married with children of her own?
I don't remember about Mary.
What her husband might have been working at?
No, I don't know.
A car hit her and killed her over here in Colored Town.
Years later.
She started to cross the street.
I guess these strikes and things would have been going on during the time in which you weren't working.
No, I wasn't working then. I hadn't gone to work, no.
[Laughter]
The Flying Squadron?
The Flying Squadron was coming into the mill village down here, and boy,
I took them four children, and the woman next door said, "Come on,
Dodson, let's go down there." And we went down there and was sitting
across the street and saw them. They had sticks and everything, trying
to get in that mill down there. I can remember that. And my husband was
in there. But we stayed there till their daddy come out. And boy, he
brought us home, too,
Which mill was that?
Dunean Mill.
We'll get that story when we get your side of it. So you do remember seeing that Flying Squadron?
Oh, yes.
What did you all think about them and what they were doing?
My husband didn't join a union. They come and knocked on his door early one morning, wanted him to go down to the mill and picket down there or do something. But he didn't get up and go. He didn't have nothing to do with them; he just stayed home.
What was your opinion of the union back then?
Same as it is now. I'm not in favor of it.
Why not?
Because it's nothing but trouble. No good in it.
You didn't see any advantages that the workers would have had . . .
No.
Tell me something about your religious habits. You all started going to the Baptist Church when you were very small.
Yes, and we belonged to this Baptist Church down here for years.
Which one is that?
Dunean Baptist Church. And then after our children was growing up, we started going to the Pentecostal Holiness Church, Holmes Memorial.
Why did you decide to do that?
There was boys come over here from the Holmes Bible College. They come over here and was preaching Holiness, and we just liked it. So we pulled out of the Baptist Church and joined the Pentecostal Holiness.
Had you heard of Pentecostal Holiness people before then?
Not much, no. Because I know I used to go over here to the Church of God, and I didn't understand them, and them women would shout, you know, and their hair'd fall down, and I didn't know what was taking place.
What about things that you were taught when you were a little girl by your parents? Did they have particular things they would tell you about how to act, how to behave, what to believe?
Mama used to tell us not to talk to strangers, not to get in no car with no strange man, and know who you're getting acquainted with. I don't remember our daddy telling us nothing, only just give us orders. But Mama would talk to us.
Did they take you all to church every week back then?
No, I don't remember my parents ever taking me to church. Now ain't that awful? But now I went.
You went on your own.
Yes, us girls grew up together, and we went to church. But I don't remember ever, unless it was funerals or something like that. It's awful. I hate to say that, but that's the truth.
I guess there were a number of people like that. There were both people who went every Sunday, and then there were people who didn't go much.
But now in their late years, my mother and daddy was both living
Christian lives, and they went to church. After we had done grown and
married off, you see, after all of us children was married off. Well,
there might have been one or two of them still at home when they. . . .
But Mama, with them ten children, she didn't have much of a chance. We
had a big Sunday dinner every Sunday, and I remember what we had for
breakfast every Sunday morning, steak and gravy. I told my husband lots
of times, my daddy could cook the best steak, and he'd smother it with
onions, you know, and he'd make gravy. And we'd have a big old platter,
a big old dish like this, full of
That sounds mighty good.
You can't afford them big old dishes. We'd have two big old dishes of steak and gravy, because we had a big table. Not a little old round dining table like we have now. Just a big, long table. There'd be a steak and gravy sitting on each end of the table.
As long as it is from here to the wall over there.
He knows about them old big, long tables. That's right.
Looking back on your work in the mills when you started out and all the different jobs you did, did you like all of that over the years? Did you have any of those jobs that you didn't like?
Yes. That job in the silk mill, I hated it. My daddy said I was too short to weave. He said, "When you grow up and get big enough, I'll get you a job in the weave room." But I just didn't make good in the silk mill. I didn't want that at all, and I complained all the time, and so I got out of the silk mill.
What was the main reason that you didn't like that?
I wanted to weave. So finally I just worried him to death, and so him and the silk room boss was good friends. Ed Yardow(?) and my daddy was good friends. And so Ed told my daddy one day, "You just might as well let Ila go to the weave room. She ain't doing no good up there. She don't try to do her work." And I wasn't. I wanted him to tell my daddy that, and he told my daddy that. He said, "She's not doing any good. She's not interested in that work, and all she talks about is she'll be glad when she gets down in the weave room. You might as well let her go to the weave room." So my daddy did.
When you were starting out, filling the batteries, how were the children treated by the overseers?
Oh, they was good to us. We wasn't mistreated just because we was young like that.
Did you have some time even during your work hours to get caught up and rest or play or talk?
Oh, yes. My sister filled batteries upstairs, and we used to get our batteries caught up and go up to the company store. Bought our shoes and things up there. They'd take it out of our ticket, so much a week. Tell them up at the company store, "Take it out two dollars and a half a week," and they'd take it out two dollars and a half a week at the company store.
So you could get caught up on filling your batteries.
Caught up and do what we want to then. Even leave the mill and go up the hill to the store. Yes, we went up there many a day.
How much time do you reckon you'd have off, an hour?
No, you couldn't stay off an hour.
Could you play games or things like that?
No, didn't nothing like that go on. Just sit out there on the outside and talk and things like that and go up to the store. There was lots of going to the store done.
Would there be just you and your sister, or several more?
Oh, there'd be lots, because there was other people filling batteries.
How many looms did you fill batteries for?
I started off on forty-eight looms. Then when you got to fill them good, they'd put you on seventy-two.
So you don't remember any overseers being unkind to the children.
Not back then, no. We got along good.
Would some of the children ever go to sleep on the job?
No, I never did see nothing like that.
What about the noise in the mill?
It was awful.
But you would just get used to that?
Get used to it.
And I understand people could read each other's lips. You'd learn how to do that.
Yes.
What happened to your brothers and sisters?
I have three that's dead now, but they all grew up and married and had children.
What was your oldest sister's name?
Clara. She was the oldest.
And she went to work in the mill.
Oh, yes, she went to work young, too.
And she stayed on working in the mills a while and got married and quit?
Yes. She was working in the mill when she married. She worked on a while till she married a guy from New York, and they up and left and went to New York to live.
How did she meet him?
I forgot. See, I was young. She was the oldest, and there was one between me and her.
What was her name?
Novell. She was the one that we dressed like twins.
And she was the one that was filling the batteries, too.
Yes. All three of us filled batteries. The oldest one [too].
And did she go on and be a weaver?
No, Novell never did weave. She filled batteries, and then she filled magazines down here. That's in the weave room, too. But she never did make a weaver.
Who comes after her?
Ila [herself] and then Thelma.
And did she ever work in the mills?
Yes.
What did she start out as?
I believe she started out learning to pick out.
Did she become a weaver?
No, she went from the weave room, picking out, to the preparation
department. When Dunean left
Who comes after Thelma?
Juanita. She married and lives over here on Hampton Avenue now. She's the only one in Greenville.
Did she ever work in the mill?
Oh, yes. She worked in the mill down here.
How old is she?
Oh, now don't ask me all them ages, because I don't . . .
But she still lives here.
The next one is a boy, Charles Clennon.
Did he work in the mills?
No, he got burned to death when he was two years and thirteen
Was she here when that happened?
Yes, we was living over there on West Avenue, in our homeplace. My sister Novell gathered up our dried cornstalks in the garden, and Mama begged her not to set them afire, said, "The wind's blowing." She said, "Mama, I'll watch it." And she went ahead and set them afire anyway. And Little Brother had a cornstalk and went and caught it afire, and he caught his little apron. Then little boys wore aprons till about three or four years old. And he caught his clothes afire. It didn't kill him right then, but he died about one o'clock in the morning. Loetta would be next.
Did she work in the textile mills?
Oh, yes. She had to work in the cloth room, though. I don't think she worked any till they had moved to Avondale(?).
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Who was after her?
Walter Jackson, Jr.
Did he work in the mills?
I don't believe "Brother" ever worked in a mill. He left school and went and joined the Army.
And who comes after him?
Louise, and then I better put Doris, because her name is Doris Winona, but she goes by the name of Doris now. "Sister" (Louise) was a spinning room hand. She lives in Newberry. And Winona works in some plant down there, but she's a secretary. I don't believe she ever did work in a mill. She finished school and then took that course.
How many children do you all have?
Four.
I've got Doris and Geddes. Who else have I left out?
Bobbie Jean next, and Nigel's the baby.
Here they are.
Oh, I see.
We've got a fine bunch of children. We're proud of them.
Did you all ever give them any advice about whether you wanted them to work in textiles or not?
No. Doris had a parttime job when she was finishing high school.
Did she go to Parker High School?
No. Her and Geddes, Jr. finished out here at West Gantt High School. And then the next one, Bobbie Jean, married when she was just fourteen and five months old. And Nigel dropped out of West Gantt High School and joined the Air Force. He spent fourteen years in the Air Force.
Where did you all get the name Nigel?
Nigel League was running for the House of Representatives here in Greenville, and he was a very outstanding young man. He was a graduate from Parker High. And I loved that name, and he was a good-looking boy, and I said, "If this baby is a boy, he's going to be named Nigel." And I named him after Nigel League.And he was a good Christian boy, and the Lord didn't want him mixed up in this politics. And he was up making a speech one night and dropped dead, Nigel League did.
Did you know about him when he was still at Parker High School?
No, I just read about him. Geddes, Jr. knew him, but I had just read about him in the paper.
When he was running for office and after . . .
And when he was in school, at Parker.
So you did know about him when he was going to high school.
Oh, yes. Sure did. Read about him all the time, because he was into everything over there. He was a very outstanding student. He would have got it on the first go-around if he had lived to run.
Did you ever meet him?
Just around at the. . . . You know, they used to go around making speeches at the playground and the parks and places like that.
END OF INTERVIEW