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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-0254, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Mrs. Osteen talks about her work as a child on her father's farm and in Poe Mill. She spent most of her life living in rural South Carolina in a family of eleven children, her father, stepmother, husband, and six children. Most of the interview deals with the specific tasks involved in working at a textile mill, including responsibilities, and how workers were treated by employers. She also discusses how families handled working in the mill together, common illnesses, wages, and the death of parents. In her experience, families tended to be large and migratory, often working together in mills throughout the region. That changed with the Great Depression, when jobs became so scarce that people were more likely to stay in one town and maintain smaller families.
Mrs. Osteen discusses how farming and mill work affected the mobility, size, health, and activities of families from about 1900 to the 1930s.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
I can hold it like this and it'll pick it up real well. Start with, why don't you tell us your full name so I'll make sure that we have that.
Letha Ann Sloan Osteen.
And now, Mrs. Osteen, do you remember much at all about your grandparents on either side?
Well, not too awfully much. Just the information that I gave you is about all I remember about 'em.
And you say they were farmers.
Oh yeah, they farmed for a living.
What kind of farming would they do?
They growed cotton and corn, sweet potatoes, and cane—made molasses. And raised their own meat—their hogs and cattle they had to kill and hang up in their smoke house, salt down the meat or whatever. They didn't have ice boxes back then. There wasn't no ice mills I don't think, I never heard tell about 'em. Only when it got cold enough. (loud cars going by)
Took the milk down, 'cause they had an old box built by a well Mama, and it kept it.
We kept our milk—usually we had a spring, you know, have a milk house over the spring branch to keep our milk and butter.
Your father and mother—you don't remember your mother you say.
No, not—like somebody told me something, you know, that's all I remember.
You say she died when you were real young.
Yeah, I was real young, I think I was . . .
Now, how did she die?
With typhoid fever. My oldest sister died with typhoid fever. She died before my mother did.
And what was her name, your oldest sister?
Lucy.
How old was she when she died, do you reckon?
Seem like they told me she was about fourteen or fifteen years old. Now that's how much I remember, just something that I heard the family talk, from a four or five year old young 'un.
And your father, he left the farm.
Yeah, he left the farm. I believe it was in—I believe it was in '97. I'm not really sure whether we moved here in '97 or '98. But it could a been '98, and not later than that.
And all of these thirteen children were all born . . .
Oh yeah, when we moved here, now my oldest brother, he was married about the time we moved here. And the two next oldest boys, well they worked in the mill awhile but they decided they was going back to the farm, and they did.
Why did they decide to go back to the farm?
Well, in about three or four years after they moved here, I believe—now like I told you, I may not remember that just exactly. But the best I remember, well, is about three or four years they worked in the mill, they decided they was going back. But our brother John, he married a girl here, but the other boy, he had a girl in the country and he wanted to go back up there.
That was Berry.
Well Berry, he had done married.
I see.
That's the oldest. And Mamie, she was the oldest girl living then, and she was the housekeeper and took care of the house. There used to be a old fairground up here where people that had cows and hogs, they could keep 'em up there. Well we had a cow and we had a hog and we had a horse, you know, and a buggy—we could go places sometimes. They done the milking and when it come hog killing time, well, my brothers and my daddy, they'd butcher a hog. He always knowed how to take care of meat, he salted it down. When they killed a yearling, well, they always hung that up you know, and seasoned it out. I don't know how they did with that. But anyhow, we still need a four or five hundred pound calf up, because there was a big crowd of us. And my aunt done the cooking.
That's your father's sister?
Yeah.
Did she come to live with the family right after your mother died?
Well she lived with us eight or ten year before she died. She died . . .
What was her name?
We lived at Mills Mill. We moved from here. We had a first cousin that worked at Mills' and he begged my daddy to come over there. And besides, well he was what they call second hands over there that my cousin knowed good, he come over here to get. . . . The spinners said that the Sloan girls was the best spinners there was at Poe. Well my daddy let our cousin talk him into moving to Mills' but we all liked it. They was good to us.
When you all first left the farm, you were living in Laurens County, is that right, on the farm?
And the first place you moved to after you left there . . .
Laurens Knoll. My daddy farmed above Greer awhile.
After you left Laurens?
Yeah.
So you went from there to Greer.
Yeah. He married again before. No, it was after we moved from the mill back to the farm.
Okay, so you moved from Laurens to Greer, and then from Greer where did you go?
Well he stayed there for several year, eight or ten or more years, way after I married. And went to North Carolina.
I guess I'm trying to find out when it was you all lived here. When did you first come here to Poe Mill?
Well I'll tell you, it was in '97 or '98. And I can't just tell you the year my daddy married, but it was right about—I think Johnny was my youngest child, I'm not sure, but I think it was when my daddy married, I don't know the year. Johnny was born in '11, but I don't know whether Pappy married in 1910 or '11, or somewheres along there.
So you all came to the Poe Mill in about '97.
It was something like that, yeah.
And how long did you live here?
We lived here three year and then we moved to Mills Mill. Stayed there
two year and moved to Brandon and there's where I married, at Brandon.
Well I left out Poe in Greenville. 'Cause we went to Spartanburg and we
worked there awhile, we come back to Greer and we boarded and worked
there and the old Victor Mill at Greer. And then I
How many of you went to Hendersonville?
Me and George, that's all there was. That was before my first baby was born.
That was right after you got married?
Yeah.
Now why did your mother and father move around—I mean your father—move around so much?
I don't know. Well we had a first cousin, my daddy's brother's boy that worked in these mills and he could out talk my daddy. That was the root of it I know. He got Pa to move. First one place then another. Because he was a overseer in the mill. And he wanted them good spinners he said, so he'd follow him around. That was the main thing about it.
What kind of work did your father do in the mill?
He laid up roping in the spinning room. Just a hourly job I reckon.
And your mother (Tape stops)
I wasn't quite five years old when my mother left.
And as far as you know, all that she ever did was take care of the children.
Oh she just took care of the house and the babies. She was a housemother.
And now, what about the aunt that came to stay with the family. Did she ever work in the mill?
No, no. She lived around—she was a old maid—with her brothers and sisters and after my mother died, she just made our house her home.
Who was the first of your brothers and sisters to start to work in the mill, here at the Poe Mill. Or did all of you all start together?
Well, we all started at one time, because we had moved from the country here, out here on Fourth Street in a six room home.
What kind of jobs did you have?
Worked in the spinning room. If you know anything about it . . .
Two of the boys worked in the weave shop.
And two in the card room. And the rest, about four of us, in the spinning room—three or four of us.
Do you remember what it was like the first times you went into the mill at all, what you thought about, or what that seemed like?
Law, I didn't know what, I just looked and looked and looked 'till my eyes got tired seeing so many different things. Just out of the country, didn't know nothing but a one room schoolhouse where the whole school was in one big weather boarded. Grown boys with moustaches were going to school, and grown girls. There was big women. That was what it looked like there. And in the mill, well, there was some little bitty children to grown old people worked in the mill, doing different things. And I couldn't call over all the things. From the cards onto the spinning and then to the weave room. Well if you ever worked in a mill you understood about what it was.
And what was your job, what did you start out doing?
Spinning. And I wound up weaving. But they let me learn to spool after I worked in the spinning room awhile—I asked the overseer, Tripp, his name was Tripp—could I learn how to spool. He said, "Why yes, we need spoolers." And he give me a half a side of spooling there and so much yarn. Well I got good on it I reckon. Just that one day on that half a side and then he put me on the whole thing. And I don't remember just how long I spooled but then I wanted to go to the weave room. My brothers was making so much more money than I was, so I told 'em I wanted to learn to weave. He said, "Well we'll let you learn to weave. You're a cracking good spinner and you're a good spooler and now we're going to put you in the weave room." So I wove the rest of my time in the mill. I think I was fifty-one down here when I quit. Wasn't no why I quit. I ought to a worked on.
There wasn't a reason why you quit.
From weaving?
Yes'm.
No—yes there was a reason I reckon. More or less, Georgia was after me all the time to quit. I run the looms in daytime, she run 'em at night. And I had a little jack leg I worked for—we didn't agree too much, we never had a falling out. But I didn't like him. He was trying to get that set of looms I was on for another man. And they took me off of 'em and give 'em to somebody else. And then told me I could have a job picking out and I told 'em I wasn't no picker-out hand. So I just quit.
Why did he do that way?
Why did I do?
Why did he do that?
Well he wanted my looms for one of his friends . . .
Then when people got fifty years old, they figured that it was time they were retiring and getting out of the mill
Out of the weave room or just out of the mill?
Just out of the mill at fifty years old—you was considered old.
This would've been what, 1920 or '25.
No, it would've been on up in, let me see, Leonard died in '39, it must a been about '37 that you quit work. Thirty-six, about '36.
I see. And he was just trying to get some younger person.
Oh yeah, for young people. If you're about fifty years old in the mill, I mean fixing looms or doing anything, it was time for you to get out.
Would they sometimes move people who were older to another job, an easier job, instead of trying to get 'em out?
Yeah, they'd put 'em over to something easier and Mama could a had a pick-out job or a battery filling job but she didn't want either one. And as good as her health was she would a held on out to work maybe ten or twelve years longer.
Could you run the loom as well then as you . . .
I got production every week off of my pound. Weaving by the pound. No it wasn't nothing that I'd done . . .
She worked regular, I mean she wasn't out or anything.
I didn't do nothing to make 'em want to fire me.
No, you sure didn't. He just wanted that job, that set of looms, for one of his friends.
For a friend of his.
From Greer, he came here from Greer.
And this boy, he thought enought of me to tell me the evening before that they was giving my looms to him the next morning. I said, "Why no." He said, "Yes they are." So I went in on 'em, and he come in on 'em. And I worked over there 'till the boss weaver come and told me he was going to give me a pick-out job. I said, "Well you ain't going to do no such a thing because I'm no pick-out hand." But I did do a little spare work.
Very little.
Very little, because he just meant for me to get out of there. I was too smart for him I reckon, or lazy or something.
So you spent most of your working time as a weaver.
Yeah.
How many years do you think you spent weaving?
Well. . . .
How many years did you weave before you come here?
Law I couldn't tell you . . .
It's not too awful many, by you spending that many years in North Carolina not working. And you come back and went to work.
Well I worked there at Green River you know, I was a weaver there about .
Let's see, how many years did you weave down here?
Twenty. Wait a minute, you went to work in 1919 and you didn't quit 'till about '36, yeah, about how many years. Mama you worked about twenty or twenty, twenty and twenty-one years. And she worked one time, I think about three years, and didn't lose a day.
Yes, three year. I got off to go to my daddy when he died. I didn't know it'd been that long, and the boss weaver—Dan League, Lora Wright's daddy—he said, "Letha, you know when you been out?" I said, "No I don't." He said, "It's been three year since you been off of your job." Well you had to work, you didn't make nothing. People had to work.
To buy bread.
Well they did, I made eight or nine dollars a week after they'd take my rent out. To feed my family, feed the cow and feed a hog, I kept them there.
Did you first learn to weave here at the Poe Mill?
No, I learned at Mills'. I had to spin at the time I was here.
And when did you start spooling, where were you then?
I was at Mills Mill.
Did spooling pay a little more than spinning did?
Well, no but I thought it looked like it was so easy. (chuckle)
Make you happy.
Very pleasant for you.
He was the overseer?
Yes. Earl Tripp, and he just was so good to his help.
That was in Mills.
And I was very young too. He said I made good at everything and he was
just going to let me work my way up. Says, "You may be the
superintendent of this mill while I live." And I told him, "Well I'd be
glad." (chuckle)
And then after you left the Mills Mill, you all went to Henderson Mill. Is that right, or am I missing something in there?
No, we went to Spartanburg. That was after we left Brandon. We married at Brandon and then we went to Spartanburg. I don't remember how long we stayed there but George didn't like it there. We come back to Greer, the old Victor Mill.
So you all moved around a lot.
Oh yeah. My husband, he was one of these here scat-abouts.
A rambler.
Or a rambler. And he kept on . . .
Rambling road.
Did a lot of people move around that way?
Yeah, back then. All the new married people, there ain't never was no dependence to be put in 'em when they got a job, how long . . .
Be here today and gone tomorrow.
That's right. They'd go work that day and then go by the office and take up their day's work, and buy whatever they want. Well it was rough but people didn't know no better. They had to live and learn. People just as green as we was about mill work. But after we was here a year or two, we found out. That you had to take advantage of things.
What do you mean?
Well, if you got a good thing, hold to it as long as it lasted, that's what I mean by it.
Back then, they didn't know to tell people—you know a lot of people always thought the grass was a little greener . . .
Across the road.
Across the road or across the railroad. People just—they couldn't stay put, they couldn't hold a job.
So it'd be real common, to have people just moving.
Yeah, everybody done that. I mean, back when I was a kid . . .
While they was kids they . . .
There was just a few people that stayed here. The Leagues, Lora, and—I could almost call 'em over, the people that stayed here say, maybe twenty years. Why you'd look out the door any which a way and there's trucks that are backed up to the houses and people are moving and then in two or three hours or the next day, there's another family in there. It just went on constantly.
And that was pretty much the way it would be in most every village.
Yeah, it was that way everywhere I found.
It was at all the mills.
People didn't stay in one place. If they could make more money at another mill, they'd go for a year to Monegan or Judson or anywhere.
Did that change after awhile, and people begin to . . .
Oh yeah, when they begin to settle down, I guess, well when the Depression come on. People had to hold what they had because—let's see, that started when?
Twenty-nine, '30.
Yeah, yeah. People quit rambling after that. If they had a job, they held to it.
Did jobs get scarcer?
Oh yeah.
As you went along there.
See they laid off all the women. If there was one in the house working—me and my husband both worked—and they laid me off. And they was to call me to come if they needed a hand.
They done that to all of the men.
To everybody.
That was during the Depression.
Yeah.
They laid off the women first?
Well if they had husbands, yeah, to give other men work.
And what about when things got better after the Depression. Did people start moving around again?
No, not too much.
Not too much.
Not like they'd ever . . .
They began buying good nice furniture and . . .
And just staying put.
So all this moving around was taking place in the twenties, and teens.
On from the twenties—on from the thirties back. Say about . . .
Yeah, yeah.
Thirty they stopped that. 'Cause you had a job, you had to be on it and you had to stay on it, if you kept the job—you couldn't find jobs.
And if you couldn't go get a job that morning . . .
No I think that that stopped in the twenty-nine to thirty. From twenty-nine on, if you had a job you held to it.
Well, you wouldn't know how it was that your father decided to come to work in the mill at all, do you. I mean, did the farming get bad?
Oh my cousin talked him in. Said they could make more money, all them children working in that mill. I've heard my daddy say several times, said, "What I should a done is take my foot to Willie and a kicked him out when he was talking to me about breaking up in the country." But he found his mistake after too late.
Well I don't know, his children learned a trade.
Yeah.
And when they didn't want the mill, they went back to the farm.
That's right. Well they didn't want the mill.
You had one sister that was always—they moved back from the mill and always lived on a farm. But Mama and her oldest sister stuck to the mill.
Well there was just better money to be made. . . .
If you wanted to starve to death, go out in the country and walk miles to wash and iron for people or something like that. Or get out in the field and work for maybe a quarter a day or fifty cents a day.
How was it that your father's cousin came into it. Why did he get so interested in this?
Oh I don't know. He always visited my daddy.
Well he was somebody that I guess just went to the mills when they first began opening.
Yeah.
And maybe the first mill, he went to it, and he liked the mill work there. He trained himself on up.
Toward the end, he'd pick good help for the company. He was what they called a middle man or something. He could hire and he could fire.
Well the mills used to like to hire big families, and all of us work.
Yeah, I know it.
Now there was a good many people back when I was working in the mill. Well I went to work in '27, and there was some of 'em down there with six and eight children in the mill working.
I know it.
Five, four. Their daddy's or mother's never did work, not where they had them big families. The children who was old enough to work did.
And would the fathers in the family work most of the time?
Yeah.
loud car noises]
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Particularly about his work, about the kind of work he did and what he thought about it.
Well, my daddy, he never had ill will towards anybody or his work of no
description. No matter how tough, how rough. Even in the
Do you think he liked the farming better than he did the mill work?
Oh yes, he went back to the farm, after his flurry with the mills he went back to the farm.
That's right.
Yeah.
So can you tell me any more about what it was like when you first started work. Just describe how you felt every day.
Oh yeah, I had a dime the first pay day I had.
A dime.
A dime in a little envelope. And that was my week's work.
That's all anybody made. (chuckle)
Everybody that went in when we did, they had their dime. (chuckle)
You got a dime for working a week?
Uh-huh. (chuckle)
Is that right.
Well, that's one side, that's ten cents a side. Well when I got up to running four and five sides, you know, I'd make forty and fifty cents a day.
This was when you were like eleven or twelve years old when you first went to work.
Yeah, yeah.
And how many hours would you be working?
I would work twelve hours.
Twelve hours a day.
We'd go over to work at six and we'd quit at six.
Did you work on Saturdays too?
Yeah, 'till dinnertime.
Did you have to stay real busy when you were working?
Oh yeah.
Yes, you couldn't leave it, because you had to stay right there to keep that work a going.
Describe what you were doing exactly.
Spinning. If you know what spinning is.
Yes'm.
Putting up ends.
Well that was what I was a doing. And you know them bars, cross-bars, where they wind the traverse up and down, well I'd stand on that standing rope and I was short. And I couldn't set in rope in without getting up on that bar. And a lot of 'em had to do the same thing that I did because they was a little short. And some of 'em so poor and skinny, they looked pitiful. Everybody seemed to be happy, they wasn't depressed over what little they made or nothing.
Did you have any time to be outside in the sunshine?
Oh I guess so, days that we didn't work. But days we worked, we was in the mill long hours. And we ate supper and went to bed 'cause you get a long night's sleep because you had that long hours to work.
The other folks that were working on spinning, were they girls, all?
Yeah, I had my sister younger than me at work and two brothers, and they all would work. But you know they just give children then a half a side of spinning or like that.
And so now, what about Berry—he got married and left.
Well he stayed on up in the country.
He didn't come in when the family moved in?
No, he didn't work in the mill.
He was staying to farm.
Yeah. And he raised cattle and sold 'em.
Yeah, but now there was the time that he went to the Spanish American war, that oldest boy.
Yeah, I know he did. That's while we was living in the country. Before we got to move to the mill that he was in it.
But he never did come to the mill.
So he married and he was a farmer.
Oh yeah.
And did he stay on with that farming?
Yeah.
Oh yeah, as long as he lived.
And so now, Mamie, what about her?
Well she lived over here at Monegan. She . . .
She was a textile worker. Her and Mama stuck to it and Uncle John. I knew
John and Mama and I reckon was the
Yeah.
And did she start to work here in the Poe Mill, Mamie, when she started working?
Yes, she learned to weave. But after Aunt Hattie died, my aunt, she had to keep house. She was the oldest girl.
Well she went to work down here in the weave shop.
Yeah, yeah.
She followed weaving.
Yeah.
She started in a weave room.
Yeah, and she followed weaving all her life.
Well how was it that she could start in the weave room and you had to start in the spinning room, that's just the way it was?
Well I was so much younger, they said I was too little to go in the weaving room.
Just whatever department they needed 'em in, is where they put 'em.
Well, was it real dusty in the spinning room, hot?
I don't think, I don't think . . .
Mama it was. Spinning room was just . . .
I don't know—it was after I knowed. (laughter)
It always has been and it always will be.
But it wasn't to me then.
Hot, lord you talk about heat.
Yeah, and that cool wind was . . .
Them the conditions that people worked under.
Well they pulled the windows down.
Yeah we had windows all over the mill. It wasn't like working in the air, I'd rather take the old way of working in a mill anyway because you could get . . . (A man interrupts.)
It could've been real dusty and you just didn't realize it.
I didn't realize what dusty was. Take children nowadays, unless they're out where a car runs and fill you full of dust or dirt, they wouldn't realize just the dust that accumulated in the house or around.
Well do you think that that had any effects on your health. You know some people talk about different kind of breathing—the brown lung and the breathing problems that people had.
Well I don't know, there never was none of us sick, to my remembering. You know my little brother that died, that I told you about, he was nine years old. Well he had dropsy. That was all the disease I ever knowed any of us to ever have, was him having that dropsy. And outside of that I don't remember any sickness except the measles. We had the measles. And outside of that I can't remember any of us being sick.
Do you remember any of the children that worked in the . . .
Mill, they wasn't sick.
Did they ever have any accidents, anybody ever . . .
No, no, nobody. We never had any trouble at all.
Do you remember when you working there as a little girl in the spinning room, the bosses, how they treated you?
Yeah.
Anything they ever said.
There never was none of 'em mean to me, I could say that. But I always liked—you know when I went to school I loved my school-teacher. When I worked in the mill, even 'till the last day of work, I respected my overseer. But my daddy told us about that when we all—before we ever went to work in the mill. You must respect age. People that's older than you and telling you things to do, you must respect 'em and do that. Because they wouldn't be telling you if it wasn't for your good. And he taught us things like that when we was very young. Why lord, children nowadays don't respect age. You know that.
So you all were taught to respect the bosses and the overseers.
Yes sir. Our whole family was. There wasn't a one of us—our family, as
big a family as we was—to be fired, as they called it or out of work.
Always pleased our boss man. Was a record
Well now, where did John work. He worked in the weave room?
When he married he was living here at Poe. And then he went to Pelzer and got a job down there and he stayed there 'till he had his family of children. He had nine children, then his wife had pellagra and she died.
His wife had pellagra. Where were they living when she got pellagra?
Well, he moved back here, he thought her health would be better, you know away from Pelzer.
They were living in Pelzer when she had that disease.
Yeah. And she was sick a lot down there and to get a little closer to me and a little closer to his other sister Mamie, well he moved here to Poe, up there in thirty-one.
Well, were they working in the cotton mill at Pelzer with John?
Yeah. And he had two, two or maybe three children when he moved back here, up there in thirty-one. Well then his wife got so bad, 'till he had to put her in Columbia down there. But he wouldn't let her stay after he went down to visit her and found her in the shape she was in. They said, "Oh you can't get her under thirty days." He says, "I'll take her out of here dead or alive. She ain't staying here."
What kind of hospital was that?
Isn't that where they put the . . .
It was a state hospital, a mental hospital.
Crazy hospital.
Now what did you all hear, or what did you all think was the cause of the pellagra?
Oh I don't know. She had three or four children when she began complaining of different things a hurting her.
Everybody back then that got sick, they either had pellagra, or pneumonia or consumption—that's T.B.
Yeah, that was it.
Now that's what killed everybody, or fever, 'cause they really didn't know like they do today.
Well did she work in the mill?
Well she did 'till she had one, or maybe two children. But she didn't
work much in the mill. And back then, well, they didn't require a woman
to work like they did on for years. You know they could work a day or
two when they got ready and be out
You mean in the earlier days women could come in and out easier.
Yeah, that's right.
Would you, usually when you were about to have a child, you would leave off work and then come back and they would let you come in.
Yeah, come back when you got able to go back to work. Stay out and have your baby and then go back to work when you got able.
And it was pretty easy to get back.
Yeah, easy to go right back on your own job. Because they took care of their people.
But you say that changed.
Yeah.
And that changed about eight or ten years before you quit working.
Oh yeah. Yeah, you had to get a leave of absence.
No, you just had to quit and your job was give away.
Yeah.
That's how come me to get to go to work because that Mrs.
When—can we figure out when that policy started, the leave of absence, or when they changed.
Oh the leaves of absence didn't start down here until about in the fifties.
But, you're talking about . . .
It was after I quit when . . .
Oh lord yes, or maybe into the sixties.
I know it, it seems so long.
The last days of the fifties or in the sixties.
The time that you're talking about, when you got your job and the woman was pregnant, when was that, that you're talking about.
I went to work in '27.
So, in other words, it was already . . .
Yeah, if you had to leave the mill, to be off, you just had to quit. But they'd let you work up as long as you could and they'd put you back to work after you had the baby, but they gave your jobs away. They didn't hold jobs back then.
No.
They hired people for 'em.
But in the earlier days . . .
They was bound to give way.
But they would have held the job several years earlier than that, or not?
No. I had my last child in '50 and that started in, maybe about
I guess what I'm trying . . .
I guess what I'm trying . . .
It didn't either because I got a leave and Inez how come me to go down in
number from number three, she was
Let me ask to make sure I understand what this means. Back in the earlier times, say in the teens and the twenties, you're saying that you could leave your job and you could get it back. But then that changed so it got harder, if you left and wanted to come back.
Oh yeah, I mean these jobs was scarce from '29 on.
Yeah.
You had to take care of your job.
Did that affect whether women decided to have children or not. Did they take that into account at all, that they might not get their job back?
No, they could come back but they'd have to take what they had to give 'em.
Had to give 'em, maybe . . .
If they had an opening they'd take 'em back and if they didn't they'd have to wait.
Maybe another woman in there is going to have to be out for a baby and they give her the job.
Yeah, that's the way that worked. It's just it couldn't wait for 'em, you just didn't get to go back to work 'till later.
I just wonder if any of the women decided that they just wouldn't have any children for awhile if they felt they might lose their job.
Well, there's a lot of people didn't have over one or two children back
then. I don't know how they done back before I went to the
The families seemed to have been much larger. You had, oh, thirteen, nine boys and four girls, brothers and sisters, and yet you only had, what, six or seven . . .
Seven.
Seven children. Did people try to plan the size of their family?
I don't know, maybe they begin to wake up to the reality that they didn't need all them young 'uns.
Well then, the doctors, I think they got to having medicine women could take. I never knew nothing about that. . . .
Well now, them pills and things . . .
That wasn't back in my day.
You didn't have nearly as many children as your mother did.
No, no, no. And my grandmothers had big families.
Why did you not have so many?
Well I don't know, I just . . .
Is that too personal a question to ask.
Yeah.
No, because . . .
Well I don't know why I didn't.
Most of the people had large families back then. You had some brothers that had anywhere from ten to twelve children.
Yeah.
There's a slew of them.
My elder sister had eleven children.
Your younger sister didn't have but four—Aunt Mamie, she didn't have but four children.
And Mittie, my other sister, she had eleven children.
Do you think the families got smaller when people came in to work in the mills than they had been out in the country.
Yeah they did, because if they got 'em a job, they tried to hold their job, I reckon, I don't know. And all my cousins where they come out of them huge families up there in the country, well there's not any of 'em that's not got over one and two children, but not over three. Because they was raised in a big family and I reckon they seen how hard it was and they wasn't going to live like that.
And people knew more about how to control . . .
Oh yeah, to keep from having so many children.
(Interruption in tape)
The Depression come along and then everybody—there wouldn't be but maybe one or two in the family that was working.
That's right.
Did the mill's managers try to spread the work around during the Depression?
Yeah, they tried to level it off as well as they could to where there'd be one or two out of the family to working, or three—where there was big families.
Yeah, they spread it out but nobody wasn't making nothing.
But Mama, you moved here and then my older sisters when they got fourteen, they went to the mill, and the two boys went to the mill and then I went to the mill when I was fourteen and then the two youngest ones had to be sixteen to go.
I know what I can . . .
All of us worked in this mill, all seven of us.
Well, we'll talk about your experience real carefully. I remember what I was going to ask about, was this pellagra. Did you all know any other people that had that?
Yeah, a lot of people had that. They said at one time my sister had it, but she didn't do it, she must've had ulcers in her stomach or something. They had her on a big old can of yeast, about two cans of yeast a week. But they didn't know how to doctor people . . .
And she got so big, and she just put on weight eating that yeast.
And it's ulcers without a doubt. Nerves, a nervous stomach. They didn't know what ailed people. And they had about four things that—see they didn't know a thing about cancer unless it was a big old sore come on the outside. Now, then cancers killed people just the same as they do today, but they didn't know it.
So you think a lot of what they called pellagra might a been something else.
Well sure, it had to be gall bladder or anything. . . .
I don't know what pellagra was.
That's just an old saying, that old folks, if you was puny or sick, well you had pellagra. I don't know what that word meant.
When did you first hear about it, did people have it out in the country or in the mill area?
The first I ever knowed I guess I was four years old when we come here and Aunt Jessie said that she had pellagra. That it wasn't . . .
Aunt Jessie died with pellagra.
Turned into her mind—her mind went bad after she had her last child so . . .
That would be John's wife.
Yeah, his wife, his first. But now the only problem being old, any old person, anything that ailed 'em, they had pellagra or consumption or if they died real sudden with a high temperature, and some fever. Well the conditions, the living conditions was filth, it was just filthy.
They were.
You couldn't keep things like people does today because it was impossible. All the hot water you had you heated it. . . .
They had these outside johnnys and the water out in the street.
You done everything. Flies, no screens, no screen doors. And they died, I guess half of 'em died from ptomaine poisoning or something.
Well when you all came here what size of a house did you live in?
Same one she is sitting in now.
It was made just like that house. It was made just exactly like that house over there but it had banisters like this house here.
And how many of you were livin