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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-0258, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Naomi Sizemore Trammel grew up in the country but found it necessary to move to a nearby mill town at the age of ten when her parents died and she and her older sister had to support themselves. Trammel began a lifetime of textile mill labor in the spinning room of Victor Mill in Greer, South Carolina. She describes her experiences there and at two other mills before she left the working world at mid-century. Trammel began work as a child, but her job did not prevent her from having fun. In fact, for the duration of her employment in the mill industry, she recalls working at a comfortable pace and finding time for recreation. This interview offers a modicum of insights into mill work in early twentieth-century South Carolina and one mill worker's experience of some of the formative events of the era, including the Great Depression and the 1918 influenza epidemic.
Naomi Sizemore Trammel recalls her life as a textile mill worker in Greer, South Carolina.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
We can begin, Mrs. Trammel, by talking about what you remember as a little girl.
You remember living out on the farm?
Oh, yes, see, I'd ride horses, go and call the cows, and do all kind of
things. Climb trees and get a whipping for it.
Did you parents own the farm?
Yes, sir.
Do you know how big it was?
No, I really don't. Well, I knew the farm and all like that, but I had no idea, roughly, how big it was.
And was cotton your cash crop?
Yeah, raised cotton, corn, tobacco and peanut, anything, you know, they needed. Well, practically everything they had except, you know, some things that you can't raise on a farm.
And your parents died when you were ten years old.
Well, ten years old.
And how did that happen?
Well, him and my sister died. That fever went around that summer, and
they took a fever and died with the fever. Well, my mother—Pa died one
week before
Do you remember much about that time?
Yes, sir, I remember. I'll never forget that. They was a casket come to
our house for three Sundays straight. And they all looked just alike. I
can remember how, you know, how it worried me, and scared me. I was scared. 'Cause I was just a child, you know, and I'd
never knownmuch about anybody dying. That was when we's all
separated.
Now how old was the youngest child, Ola?
Ola. Well, she was a … let's see. She was just a baby when Ma died. Well, she's dead now, Ola's dead. She was about seventy-three when she died.
And that was some kind of a fever?
Uh-huh. Some kind of bad fever went around, and people—good many of 'em died 'round, you know. It took Pa and Ma. But Ma died with a heart attack, she had a bad heart. She just couldn't take trouble.
And now, what happened to the children after that?
Well, Uncle Bill Smith, that was Ma's brother, and Aunt Em Marn, Ma's
sister, and Aunt Georgia Ann, Ma's sister, well, they divided us
children up
Well, how was it that Alma could live off by herself, or did she live with somebody?
She boarded. Yeah, I boarded practically all my life, till I got married.
Well, see, we had no home. 'Course, I boarded with my sister a lot after
she got married. They'd move to the country, you know, and stay a while,
and I'd board. I know a lot about boarding.
Did Alma come in to work in the mill right after your parents died?
Yes, she stayed with Aunt Em a while, and then she come right on down, and got her a job, and got her a boarding place with Andy Ward, with her people. And then she come and got me.
How did she know where to come in Greenville? How did she know where to get a job, or where to stay?
Well, see, they lived over there. I told you Greer, you know, out in the
country. And they knew all about Greenville. Greer, I was at Greer's
where I went to work in the mill. I worked in the Victor Mill.
What kind of a job did your sister have?
She drawed-in, all the time.
Do you remember anything about how much she might have gotten paid, or how long she had to work?
Well, no, I really don't. I remember how I got paid.
You didn't make nothing. But you didn't have to pay nothing for your
board, and your clothes didn't cost anything. Used to get a yard of
cloth for five cents. That's the truth. As good a cloth now as you can
get for maybe a dollar or something.
You say you didn't have to pay anything for your board?
Yes, sir, I had to board. I paid about nine dollars a month for board.
That was room and board?
When they went to country they got me a boarding place, the next door neighbor. And they asked them if they'd take care of me, and they said they would. It good people, and I boarded there for years, and it paid nine dollars a month for board.
Well, what do you remember about first going into the mill?
Well, I didn't know, hardly, but I just went in and had to learn it.
Really, I had to crawl up on
There were lots of other children your age.
Oh, yeah, a lot of them. It's a lot of them. 'Specially in the spinning room, that's where they put the children. You could run a frame, you know, where you couldn't run—a child couldn't run nothing else.
Was there a mill village in Greer that most of the mill workers lived in?
Yes, sir, they all lived there. You know, it's a mill village, just like it is here.
And you and your sister lived in the same boarding house.
Oh, no, we didn't live in a boarding house, we just boarding with a family. Boarding with a real family. Just like one of the family.
And what was their name?
Ward, Andy Ward was the first one. And then I boarded with Henry and
Susie Spearman, after Alma
How old was your sister when she married?
She was about nineteen. She was sixteen when Pa and Ma died, she was the oldest one. See, Maude was between me and her.
Did she meet her husband in the mill?
Oh, yeah, she met him. They live right 'cross the street from where I boarded. The Wilsons, she married Jim Wilson.
And did she keep on working in the mill there after they married?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I did, too, till we got our furniture paid for. It
was wonderful, I thought.
What was your sister's husband's job?
Oh, he worked in the weave oom. I think he finally got to be a loom
fixer, but he was really a weaver a while. But I think he got to be a
loom fixer
And you say they married and they moved out to the country. But they kept on working in the mill?
No, they didn't work in the mill when they moved to the country. He couldn't hardly make it out there, because he just always wanted to go to the farm, but he didn't know too much about it. 'Cause his people really come from a farm. And so he moved back. When he moved back, I went back to boarding with them.
And did they stay in the mill this time?
Yeah, they stayed. They did move back one time, again, you know, after some of the children growed up, you know, pretty big. He didn't have no help, he needed help, and he just couldn't do it all by himself. He just loved the farm, that's where he come from.
Tell me a little bit about what it was like to work back then—what time would you get up, and what would you do …
Well, we worked longer then in the mill than they do now, and made less,
too. But we didn't work hard. I done all my playing in the mill. That's
right.
People have told us that it was little easier back then.
Well, I remember, after I was grown, now, in the cloth room, we played in
that cloth room. They had
What would you do when you played?
They had samples of cloth, little remnants, you know. Little things 'bout that wide, done up in bunles. We'd set on them, slide down that thing. Us grown! I enjoyed it to death. The only worry was that my parents was gone, I grieved—I just grieved all time about that. I've heard girls, you know, talking about "Mama done this" and "Mama done that", and it'd just break my heart. Because I didn't have none. They didn't know they doing that, you know.
What about the people that you moved in with there, the family that you lived with—did they try to be like parents to you?
Well, they just—if I wanted to go anywhere, I'd go and ask them if it's all right for me to go. And if it was all right, I'd go up. If it wadn't, I wouldn't. Wouldn't be a thing said about it. I just acted like they was my parents. And they acted like they were my parents. They didn't try to rule me or anything. If I wanted to know anything, I'd just ask 'em. They was good to me. That's all I know.
Well, what time of day would you get up to start
Well, we'd go early, I really don't know what time it was. But, anyway,
we'd have to go early, and we worked one hour longer than people do now,
in the mill. I don't know why, but they did. And it paid off in five
dollar gold pieces. I told them I wished I'd had sense enough to save
some of them.
How often would you get paid?
Well, we'd have to work two weeks 'fore we got our pay. And 'bout my highest bill was nine dollars. For two weeks! Worked in the cloth room sixty cents a day. It big money!
How long did you work in the spinning room there, when you first started?
I worked on up till I got grown, and then I went to the cloth room.
This was all at the Victor Mill?
Victor Mill, that's all at Victor Mill. That's where I went, you know, when Pa and Ma died.
Well, when you were on your job in the spinning room when you were just starting out, did someone teach you
Oh, yeah, they had to show us how, 'cause I'd never been in a mill. They had to learn us. But didn't take me long to learn.
Who taught you?
Just some of them would be a spinner, you know, they'd put us with one of the spinners and they'd show us how. That's all they had to do.
Was it mostly girls or women?
Yeah, they girls, mostly. No, it mostly children. I mean, big enough to spin. It was easy to learn, all we had to do just put that bobbin in there, and put it up.
And what would be your work routine, what would you have to do through the day? Would you have to do so many bobbins, and then did you rest a while, or—?
No. No, we just run the spinning frames. And of course they had to stop them and doff, you know, and take these full ones off, and put them on. All like that, but it wasn't nothing to me, really. They'd do it—the doffers would do that. All I had to do was just—no, they put up all the threads and started it again, they had to do that. Fix it just like it was. But we had to clean our rollers, but that wasn't hard.
So what was the main work that you had to do? What exactly?
Well, you see, some of these threads would break, and if you didn't catch
it before they bundled up, why you have a mess there. And all you had to
do just watch 'em. And it'd run and run sometime before they even
And if the thread broke you'd have to tie it up.
You'd have to put it back up, you know.
Would you have to tie a knot in it at all?
No, you just had to take it in—they was rollers. Cotton, you know. And all you had to do just put it off and stick it up there, around it'd go. It's easy.
And so most of the time you were kind of watching.
Oh, you had to watch it, you know, if you didn't it'd roll around there and make a mess. And you'd have to take your roller out and clean it. So it wasn't no … sometime I'd run six frames. And the other girls would, too.
How would they pay you, by the number of frames that you run, or by so much a week?
No, they just paid me so much. So much a week, I reckon, so much a day, or some whatever it was. But, anyway, I didn't make much. They none of them make anything. But you could buy things for nothing.
Now, what about the boss of the spinning room?
Well, we had a boss. I remember John Stewart was the head man with the
doffers. Doffers come doff—take a full bobbin, put it on others. Let's
see, who was our boss? I can't think of that now. It's
When you first came in there, how did the bosses treat you?
Well, they didn't bother us at all. We run on our sides, and that's all there was to it. I never had no trouble in my life with no boss.
Would they ever holler at the children, or try to push them around, anything?
Why, no. No. They sure didn't. The one time a man brought a little boy up there, and I don't know, I didn't know what "retarded" meant, but I always believed that child was 'tarded. Well, you know up there where the thing that runs the machine, it's got a cap over it where you can raise that cap up and look under there. Well that little boy a standing there, and he raised that cup up, and stuck his finger in there, and cut it off. And that little boy, he didn't know what he's doing or nothing. And since I didn't know what "retarded" meant at that time, but since I've got grown, I know that child was retarded. And they put him in the mill, his daddy did. That was awful. I thought about that little boy so much—just whacked his finger off.
What about going to school, did you get to go to school much?
No, sir, I didn't get to go to school. That's one thing that hurt me, I
always wanted to, but I
And your sister, did she get to go to school?
Oh, yes, Alma had a pretty good education. Because she was the oldest, you know.
She had already gone to school some?
Yeah, she had already got her education. And Maude had a good education, too, but she died. all I know.
So most of the time, during your work day, wh you were in the spinning room, would you be sitting down watching things, or walking around?
Oh, be walking around.
And what did you do when it came lunchtime?
Well, we didn't have no lunch time.
You'd just work right on through?
Just worked on. We'd go to store and get things, if we wanted it. They'd
let us go to store. We'd have like one spinner run my side then her
side, and me and another girl'd go to store. And when we come back,
How long could you take off for lunch like that?
Oh, it was pretty good little piece to the store. Just we'd go up there and get what we wanted, come on back, and eat it. Just so our side was going, they wouldn't say nothing.
Could you never go outside and play, and let somebody run your
Well, we didn't while we's spinning, but after I got to working in the
cloth room we did. When we used to work for Harold Moseley, he was the
first boss I worked for in the cloth room, and the cloth room was down
on the bottom floor. And come a big snow, we'd go out and snowball while
he'd gone to breakfast. And we'd hear that door in the weave room, it
makes a big noise, you know. And when we'd hear that door, we had a good
little piece to go down before we got into the cloth room. Boy, we'd run
back in there and go to our work just like there wasn't nothing ever
happen, and he'd never know it. He wouldn't cared if he had.
So you stayed in the spinning room until you went to work in the cloth room.
Till I got grown, yeah.
Now when was that? How old were you?
Well, I don't know how old I was. I was somewhere about twenty-one, or somewhere along there. How old was I when I got married? Twenty-one.
Guess twenty-two.
Twenty-two.
'Cause I married— you're
And then I worked after I married till we furnished our house.
So you worked in the spinning room from the time you were about eleven years old until you were twenty-two.
Un-huh. I went to the weave room one time. They let me go to the weave
room so I'd make a dollar a day. And I like to took galloping TB.
People's dying 'round with it, you know. And that doctor told me, said
"Now"—when he'd doctored me about two weeks—he said, "now, younglady"
said "you can go back to the cloth room, and live, or you can go back to
the weave room and die, whichever you want to do." So I went back to
cloth room.
In the weave room.
With what you call galloping TB. It'd come out, you know, and it be just
wet all over, so hot, you
But it was just happening in the weaving department?
In the weave room. Just the people that wove. And he said that's what'd happen to me if I went back, so I didn't go back.
And you knew some people who had died?
Oh, yes. M Black he's the finestlooking thing, and Hub Gaston. Young men worked in there, and they didn't live no time after they took that.
And it was some kind of TB?
Some kind of TB, galloping TB they called it. Now I know that to happen. Did happen. And you know Poe Mill's almost that hot. But it didn't bother me after I'd done—been out of there so long, it didn't bother me when I went back down there.
How long did you work in the weave room down at Greer? A few months, or a year or two?
Well, I didn't work so awfully long after I married. I didn't work long, did I, in Poe Mill?
No, he said after you married, Mama.
Yeah, down at Greer.
Oh. I worked after I married till we furnished our house, and then I quit. It didn't take too awful long to get everything we wanted.
And you were working in the cloth room, or the weave room?
I work in the cloth room. Making a dollar a day.
And what was your job in the cloth room?
I was a-grading cloth when I quit and got married.
Could you describe what you would do grading cloth
Oh, yeah. You had to grade it, you know, and fix it so they could sell it.
Well what exactly would you do? If you were trying to tell somebody who didn't
Well, you'd have to see if it was all right, look it over, and see if it's all right, and then have it baled, you know, and sent it off. And if you graded it well, it was all right.
You looked for the defects in it.
Yeah, get all the defects out of it. If it wasn't worth that, you know, we wouldn't put it in there grading part.
Now, in the spinning room, you said there were just women and girls, mostly girls.
Mostly young girls.
Now what about the cloth room?
Well, now, mostly grown girls worked in there. It wasn't no little girls worked in there. And so I decided, such a nice clean place, I'd go working in there. I didn't want to spin, and me grown, so I got to working in the cloth room, and I worked in the cloth longer than most anywhere. I liked it, too. I just didn't make nothing, you know. But I had anything I needed.
Tell me about how you met your husband, and courting.
Well, let's see. I met him—they'd moved from Mills' Mill to Victor Mill. And I met him at a box supper one night. We used to have box suppers, you know. I met him that way.
Did he bid on your—?
Yeah, he bought me a box, and asked me if I'd eat with him.
Did you make the box? I've heard it sometimes that the women would make the boxes, and the men would bid on the …
The families would have the thing. They'd fix the boxes, you know, and
sell 'em. And these boys would buy 'em, and then they'd go and get the
girl they wanted to eat with them, you know. And that's the way I
Had you known him, or seen him before then?
Well, I'd seen him one time, only one time. I'd seen him several times there at Greer, after they moved. They moved from Mills' Mill to Greer. Well, they were strangers to me then, you know. But I saw him one time when he was a boy. One time.
What was his name?
Percy Long.
And he worked there in the Greer Mill?
Oh, yeah, he worked in the weave room. He is a ball player.
A baseball player?
Yeah, he is a professional ball player. He played professional ball one year—two years. One year with the Spinners, and one year with Anderson. He was a good ball player. But he ruined his arm bowling. He could have made a big league baseball player, but he ruined his arm a-bowling. Doctor told him that.
He was pitcher.
And so he would pitch for the mill baseball team.
Yeah, he played the baseball team. At Garvin Seller's he was a manager. Get him and his brother, too—was a baseball player. But Percy was a pitcher, he was good.
Yeah, Daddy was pitcher for the Spinners
Is tat right. Do you remember seeing him play?
No, I never did, but I've heard
See, she was just a tiny baby.
So you-all were married, and you moved into a house by yourself, right after you married?
Oh, yeah. Superintendent Moody, he had give us a house right by my sister, where I boarded. And she looked out after things, you know. And we'd buy things off the road, feather beds, and anything we kept house with at that time, you know. And then we'd buy things from the store, and get what we wanted. Pay for it as we went along. And so we got it all paid for, I quit.
You quit working in the cloth room.
I still working in the cloth room, went right back to the cloth room.
Let's see. So you quit working in the cloth room when you got enough to get your house And then you went back to work later.
No, I never did go back to work till we moved to Poe Mill. I worked some over there. I never did work more at Victor Mill.
And your husband, he was a weaver?
Yeah, he was a weaver. And he was a good one, too.
And you-all lived there until you moved to Greenville.
Yes, sir. Now, Harry was about a year old when we moved to Greenville. He's born in 1912.
Is that your first child?
No, that's the second. One was
No, I'm the first one. Born in 1911.
And what's your first name?
Florence.
But I didn't go to work at Poe Mill till—wasn't James about seven years old?
When he started to school, when you went to work.
When he started to school. My youngest baby, James Trammel.
And when was he born?
He was born in 1915.
1915. Was there anybody in between Harry and James?
No. That's all.
Three children.
That's all.
So you waited until he was old enough to go to school before you went back to work. That was so you could stay at home, and look after the children, and take care of them.
Florence done that.
Yeah, after she went to work, them two mean brothers.
She had to look out after Harry and Jamie. And she done a good job of it! They wasn't mean like people are now.
We's all mean, they just didn't know it.
It's some now you can't—parents can't do nothing with 'em.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Let's talk a little bit about why you-all came to Poe Mill.
Why we came to Poe Mill. Well, I really don't know why we came—oh, his sister had been sick, and they had her in the hospital. And I was keeping one of the children. And they wanted us to come to Greenville, and stay with, and take care of his children. Till Elgie could get better, you know. His wife, that's Percy's sister. And I reckon that's how come Percy's come to Greenville. Like to broke my heart, I loved Greer. I was raised up there, you know. But we come anyway.
It was pretty easy for him to get a job?
Oh, yeah, it's easy him—he get a job anywhere because he's such a—he's a good hand, you know, that's all he'd ever done.
Well, when you-all were living down at Greer,
Yes, sir, we always had a garden, good garden. Garden over there, and he'd cut his own wood—we had a big old range, you know, and he'd even cut his own wood. That was hard, but he did.
Did you have livestock, cattle or hogs?
No. Now, when Grandpa and Grandma moved to Greenville—Grandpa and Grandma Trammel, they moved to Greenville after we got married. And Percy bought his hogs, he couldn't carry his hogs to Greenville, you know. And we bought two of 'em. And we didn't kill 'em, though, we sold 'em, 'cause we couldn't eat 'em up. So we sold 'em. When they got big and fat, you know, we sold 'em.
So you're saying your grandparents came to Greenville, too?
—moved to Greenville, moved to Mill Mill, after we got married.
Did they work there?
The boys, some of the boys did that wasn't married, you know.
And what about sending your children to school? Maybe you could talk a little bit about this.
Well, my children all—they only went to one grammar school, and that was
Poe Mill. And then they went to Parker High School, and finished at
Parker High
And everybody went to Parker High School, and finished?
Yeah, they all finished at Parker High.
(to Florence Griffith) And you would have finished first, I guess.
Yes, twenty-eight.
And all the grammar school went to Poe Mill.
Were those pretty good schools to go to, back then? What did you-all think about it?
I thought they were.
Parker was a good school. It's a good school.
I've heard about this Mr. Hollis, Pete Hollis.
Oh, yeah, Mr. Pete Hollis. He was a good man.
Oh, yeah, Pete Hollis. He was fine man.
Did you-all know him personally?
Oh, yeah.
Yes. Yes. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him.
And he is part of the Mill people.
He'd always say—you know, they'd teach vocations there, and he'd say,
"You learn by doing." And they had a place there where you could learn
textiles.
Did you take any of that—?
No, I didn't take any of that. 'Course we had Home Ec. and all that, you know, in school then.
What then did you do after you graduated from high school?
I worked in the dime store during my last year. On weekends, I'd work in the dime store, Kress, downtown. And then, after I married, I worked—well, I was working in cloth room when I married down here, but that wasn't long. I didn't work long. And then I worked a little while after I married, and that was it. And then, after my husband died—I lived here, too, you see—I went to work at Belk's, downtown. And I retired there. Thirteen and a half years.
Do you remember your mother telling stories about life in Greer, or working in the mill down there?
Oh, yeah, she used to have a few. Well, I've heard all that. Yes.
Can you think of any other little anecdotes that she might have told?
Well, she was just—even today, I mean, we're sitting here. Frank and I
had been working in the
It sounds like you had a lot of time, more time maybe when you were working in the cloth room …
Oh, yeah, we could play a lot when we worked in there. And you couldn't play, you had to work when you's in weave room. But we played a lot when we worked in the cloth room—when we catch up, you see. He didn't care us going out there and sitting down. All we had to do was just run back up steps and go in, go to work.
Well, when you-all came here, and you finally did go back to work in the Poe Mill, what did you do there?
Well, I worked in the weave room. Percy—I didn't know too much about weaving, so he run my looms and his looms, too, till I learned. He would. He'd run the whole thing.
So he was teaching you.
Yeah, he was teaching me how to weave.
What kind of looms were those, do you remember?
Well, that was just a plain old loom Poe Mill, but now, at Judson, they got fancy looms up there.
The Poe Mill ones were like a Draper looms running plain goods, plain cloth, or sheets—?
Yeah, Draper. They're Drapers, yeah. Just plain cloth. Was easy, wasn't but two harness. Well, now, at Judson, they got lots of harness, you know.
And how many looms were you and your husband running?
He'd have about ten, I'd have about eight. But he'd run 'em, till I learned. Wasn't hard.
How were you being paid back then, by the—?
Well, you'd get pretty good pay then. They'd just get you a check. We'd get 'em in a week there.
Did they put what they called the "pick clocks" on the looms?
Yeah, they didn't have 'em over there. Not at Poe, but they had got 'em up here at Judson.
So at Poe they were still paying by the cuts, so many cuts.
Yeah. Well, it was. I don't know how they paid, but anyway I got my money.
Do you remember if those looms had the automatic bobbin-changers on them, or did you have to change—
Not at Poe.
You had to change each bobbin by hand.
Yeah. Well, now, Judson, you just fill it up, you know, and it goes 'round, goes 'round, and you had to just keep filling it up. Filling it up.
But at the Poe Mill, when one would run out, you'd have to take one and put it in the shuttle, and take it out.
No, you just fill your batteries, that's all you had to do.
At the Poe Mill?
Un-huh. So we filled our own battery. See, they were just two harness, and there wasn't nothing to it. But Judson was different. You had to have a battery filler, what I'm trying to say.
Now, how long did you-all work there at the Poe Mill?
I think we lived there about fourteen year.
Why can't you believe it?
Well, I don't know. I don't know why we'd want to stay at Poe Mill that
long, but we did.
And then what did you do, after Poe Mill?
Oh, we moved to Judson. We've been here ever since.
Did your husband go to work in the weave room at Judson?
Yeah, he did. Well, you know, he's dead. You see, the boss man up here was our boss at Poe Mill, and he'd come to Judson. Well, all we had to do just come ask him, 'cause he was ready to get us, you know. 'Cause he knew Percy was a real good hand. He'd get a job anywhere.
What was his name?
Marlow Hughes.
Was he the overseer in the weave room, or the superintendent of the mill?
He was the overseer in the weave room.
Both at Poe Mill, and then he came over here.
And they all dead now. I mean, most of 'em. Him and her's dead. Everybody's dead that I used to know. That's the reason it ain't much point living.
Did you work as a weaver at Judson?
Yeah, I worked over here in weave room.
When did your husband die?
He died twentieth of September—how long's it been, Florence?
It was in 'seventy-seven or 'seventy-eight.
'seventy-eight, I guess.
'Seventy-eight. He was ninety when he died.
How old was he when he retired from the Mill?
Oh, he was seventy years old. He wouldn't quit. And they put him out, looking at the gate out there. All he had to do was sit down. Well, Mr. Chumley wanted him to come back down there and work for him, and line shuttles. And he went back after he's seventy years old, and worked some more. He loved to work in the mill.
What about you, when did you stop working in the mill?
I guess I stopped way before that, I don't know just how long. I don't know how old I was, but anyway I kind of got—
Well, you were not retirement age.
No, I was having bad health along with this, and I just quit. And then my
baby boy was going in Service, and he begged me to quit. Said he didn't
want to go out there if he was fighting for his country, and me down
here working myself to death, so I quit. Said I'd
So that would have been World War II?
Un-huh, World War II. In 'forty-five.
Do you remember the Depression years very much? Were they hard on you?
Oh, yes. I remember we had a hard time. We's living right here in Judson at that time.
Right up there in the house, number ten. We lived there nineteen years.
Next street up there.
Were both of you working?
Oh, yeah, we all three—Harry hadn't never got married, my oldest son—and
we all three, neither one of us didn't have a job and we couldn't get a
job anywhere. And we wasn't the only people, there's
others having time like that. But we finally pulled out of it when it
got to where we could go to work.
Did the Judson Mill curtail back then, or cut back on the hours or work?
I don't know what happened that, but I just know there a Depression, and couldn't get a job.
Everybody was laid off.
Yeah, they couldn't—somehow or another couldn't make it. I don't
remember. Anyway, I know we couldn't find anything. We couldn't even
find a job no-where, everybody else was laid off around. That was bad
How long do you think you were out of work?
Well, we was out of work pretty good while. And there was a man, Frank Howard, we's trading with him, out there at the crossing, getting groceries and things from him, before that happened. And we always paid our debts. And we's getting milk from another man. And so we got in debt with that, and they wouldn't cut us off. So when we went to work, we'd pay our bills. We can pay a little bit, you know, add on to our bills. First thing you know, we come out on top. It wasn't near hard's it seem. But we didn't know what in world we's gon' do.
Do you remember any time that there were anything like unions trying to come into the mill back then, or strikes going on, anything like that during the Depression?
Yeah, they had trouble with that.
What do you remember about that?
Oh, yeah. I was working at that time. That's right after we had married.
And you were working in the Judson Mill?
Yeah.
Yeah, they was come from Spartanburg or somewhere. They come from
somewhere over here, a whole gang of the—you know. And Judson didn't
believe in that, or something. And Spot come there to go to work, he
just paid no attention. He just crawled through that crowd—got down, and
crawled through, and went on to work.
Did the mill shut down because of that?
No, Judson never did shut down. They didn't—they'd like to have done it, but they didn't.
Let's go back a little bit further. Do you remember the flu epidemic in 1918, when everybody got the influenza, so many of them?
Well, now, we was living at Poe Mill then. I like to died with it. I sure did. But Harry had it pretty badly, but none of the rest of the family didn't have it much. Not enough to hurt. But hit like kill me.
Did you know some people who died from the flu?
I didn't know then, I didn't know anything much. I like to died with a
headache. And my doctor was in service. And an old Doctor Walker came
out there to see me. And they'd been giving me medicine, been giving
medicine, and they wasn't nothing he could
Some people have told us that in the 'Twenties and 'Thirties, the work pace got faster. Things speeded up in the different parts of the mill. Did you notice that at all?
Oh, well, they call that "stretching out." They're bad that Judson, 'bout stretching out. You just have to carry all they can put on you. But they never did do that at Poe Mill.
Not at Poe Mill.
No, they never did.
But it happened when you-all came over to Judson.
Judson. They really would stretch you out. I remember Cal Cordell, he was
my second hand, he said, "Now, Mrs. Trammel," said "They want me to
stretch out." And he said, "You're the best battery hand I've got." (I
How long did that go on?
It didn't go on too long. But they did stretch out. 'Cause seed I wouldn't keep it up. They thought I couldn't, but I could have. Just a-running myself to death, no, I wouldn't do it. And Cal really didn't want me to.
What about the others that were in there?
Well, they didn't do nothing to them. They just want to try me out, you know, see if I could run 'em. But I wasn't about to stand there and run 'em, cause I didn't have to work anyway. So just me and Percy—no, I didn't have to. All my children's all married and gone.
Did they try to give him more looms to run?
Well, I don't know about that, but they trying to stretch out their
battery hands at that time. They knew he could run 'em. I doubt if he
would have if they'd have tried, but they didn't try about the loom. I
When you-all were back at the Victor Mill in Greer, what kind of things would you do for entertainment or recreation? They had baseball—
They had just had ball games, you know, and box suppers, and things like that. It's about all they had.
Do you remember any musicians in the community? Any people that played guitars or fiddles, or had dances in people's houses?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I used to go to dances at Henry Greer's, he was a real dancer. Henry Greer. We'd get up a gang, you know. Garvin Sellers, he was the manager of the ball team, and he'd get up crowd of girls, and we'd go to that dance. Well, if Mr. Gwin said I could go, I'd go. And if he felt that I shouldn't go, he'd find out who was going. Well, he'd tell 'em, and that'd be the last of it. And if he said I'd go, I'd go.
What would happen at a dance?
Well, they'd just dance, you know.
At somebody's house.
At somebody's house. That the only place they had, you know, then. They didn't never go to the halls for dances.
And people would move the furniture out of the
Yeah.
Would there be a fiddle player, a guitar player, banjo?
Yeah. Yeah, fiddle player. Yeah, just ordinary music, you know, like country people have.
Do you remember the names of any of those songs?
No, I really don't.
They were what they call hillbilly music, sometimes, or dance music? Hillbilly music, or string band music?
Fast music, yeah. Yeah, string band, or string music, like guitars, and fiddler, and like that. They had good music.
Did you ever sing, or play a musical instrument?
No. I sing. I always sang in the choir all the time, but I never did play any music or anything.
You sang in the church, church choir?
Yeah. I used to sing in the choir at Victor, all along.
What church did you go to?
Well, they only had one church. Methodists
Did they have a musical instrument in the church?
Oh, yeah, they had a organ. And the Superintendent Moody's—Florence Moody—played the organ.
Superintendent of the mill?
Daughter. Superintendent of the mill, old man Moody.
His daughter played the organ.
Yeah, his daughter, Florence Moody, played the organ. She had a piano in her house, and we'd go to her house and practice. And I was crazy about that piano.
What about when you moved up Greenville, what church did you go to at the Poe Mill?
Well, I didn't go 'most nowhere after we moved. But there's a Baptist church at Poe Mill.
Well, we always went—the children—Baptist church.
Yeah, the children.
Was she pretty strict on you-all?
Yeah. Un-huh. Yeah, they knew where we were, and what we did, and all that.
My sister had came from the country, you know, where my Aunt Kate and uncle raised her. Well, and we was a-getting dinner one day, and Florence and Harry both were just little things, you know. And Florence and Harry went to church with the other children. Now we was getting dinner. And I had a great big old white apron on, I remember. And some of 'em run in there and said, "Aunt 'Omi!" said, "the church is on fire." And like scared me to death. So I forgot I had on that big old apron, you know, I lit out after the church. Wasn't but a little piece to the church, we lived right up there at it. And that smoke was coming right out, up top you know, and my children was in there. And I never was scared so bad in all my life. Well, and then Percy, he scared bad as I was. And they had to hold him, almost, to keep him from going in. They wouldn't let nobody go in, you know. And they almost had to hold him, keep him from going in.
Well, and we kept a-waiting there, and he'd try to go in, and wouldn't
let him. 'Rectly here come Harry, and they'd just turned him loose, and
let him roll down steps. They's in a hurry, you know, getting 'em out.
And Florence, I hadn't seen her nowhere. Hadn't seen her. She was still
in there, I thought. But there was a girl by the name of Cora Ward, she
knew me, and she had got Florence, and went off the ground. They had to
come way 'round, you know. And it's a long time before we could
I forgot who that other girl was. Pearl Wilson. And they had fellers, you know. And at dinnertime, we got a hour off for dinnertime. So they'd want their hair fixed up good, you know, because talk to their feller at dinnertime, while the mill was stopped, you know. And I wasn't big enough to go with no boys, I was just a kid. And they'd run my spinning frames, and I'd go fix their hair. And I don't know the girls, I wouldn't fix their hair. I especially remember Annie Wilson. She was going with Claude Hemphill, there at Greer. And he got to be a big boss man up there, you know, at the Greer Mill, up at Greer. And I'd always comb her hair, and comb a girl's hair, while they's running my spinning frame. Let me comb their hair, and fix their hair.
Did the girls wear these long dresses back then?
Oh, yeah, wore 'em. I wore long dresses, too, after I got grown. We wore long dresses.
Was there ever any danger of them getting caught in the machinery?
No, you see, the spinning room, the things that run the things is up on
the spinning frame.
We enjoyed it. They wouldn't say nothing to us, just so our frame was going, and there wasn't nothing wrong. Well, they wouldn't say nothing to us. They was really good to us.
Did you ever get tired during the day and feel like you just didn't want to do it?
No.
Did people ever fall asleep, sometime, on the job?
Oh, no. You didn't fall asleep. Wasn't nowhere to fall asleep.
Now, when they paid you, did you give a part of your money to your sister, or did all of your pay go to the people who were taking care of you? How did that get divided up?
No, I always gave it to Alma when I stayed with her, and she'd give me my share, you know. She'd take some of it and give me the rest of it. She'd always give me a grand portion. But when I was a-boarding, you see, I just give 'em to Mr Ward, and I had the rest of it myself. I done what I wanted to with my money then.
That was a pretty good bit of money for a little
Yeah, small. But then, you know, we didn't have to pay much for what you bought.
Did you buy your own clothes?
Oh, yeah, I'd buy my own clothes. And have 'em made too, 'course I couldn't sew and Mary Sue couldn't sew. But I always had plenty, seem like. I never did want for anything. The only thing, I just didn't have no mama and daddy. And couldn't be with my brothers and sisters. I missed that 'bout as bad as anything.
Did you get to see them very much at all?
Well, yeah, we got to see 'em sometime, but not much. I didn't get to see Toy much, he was the youngest one. Youngest boy over with Uncle Bill. 'Cause they lived way off out in the country, and, you know, people didn't have no way of going. Just hiring a buggy and horse, you know. And we didn't have no way to go much.
Did any of them ever go to work in the mills?
My uncle
Brothers and sisters.
Oh, just Angus. Me and Alma and Angus, we's the only one that, you know,
were big enough. Now Angus wasn't but nine when he went in there. He run
away, though, and come to Alma. (My older brother.) He run
What did he do?
Well, he doff, learned to doff. They put the boys, you know, to doffing. Them young boys could doff like everything, you wouldn't—
Well, Uncle Toy ran off and joined the army, didn't he?
Yeah, Toy run away. You know, he didn't run away, but he left when he's sixteen years old, and went right up and joined the army. Stayed in there seven year… But he's dead now… Kate's dead, too. Well, they're all dead.
END OF INTERVIEW