Fighting to defend his honor and that of his family
Offering a look at some of the rhythms of mill town life, Elmore remembers squabbling with a boy who insulted his shabby clothes, and his willingness to fight those who insulted his family.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with George R. Elmore, March 11, 1976. Interview H-0266. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- BRENT GLASS:
-
Do you ever recall going into town, into Gastonia to buy anything and
having people sort of look down on the mill people? Of course you said
that people on the farm…
- GEORGE R. ELMORE:
-
No, they didn't dare on Saturday afternoons. That was all that
was on the street nearly was the mill people there, and they were doing
the buying. They were out there trying to get all the money they could
out of us. Saturday afternoons we took Main Street.
- BRENT GLASS:
-
You don't recall anybody saying, "Well, there goes a
linthead," or anything like that?
- GEORGE R. ELMORE:
-
No. The only thing that I ever had was once with the Ragan
family. They had a Maxwell automobile, and they came down
in the community when I was a kid eight or nine years old. I was going
around feeling it and the Ragan boy said … well, I was a farm
kid. I forget what remark he made, "Keep your hands off of my
car," and made some detrimental remark. Of course then it was
just too bad. I went and told my brothers and cousins, and that boy
didn't dare get out of that automobile all day. Somebody
stayed there watching it for if we ever got him out we'd beat
the lard out of him. But later on he built the Ragan Mill, his family.
When I worked at Parkdale I got to know him quite well, and played
handball with him. But there was always that remark.
- BRENT GLASS:
-
Which one was this now?
- GEORGE R. ELMORE:
-
Caldwell Ragan; he was the head man of those. But I don't
think he ever realized how I felt toward him. I couldn't, I
couldn't ever… He had made fun of me. The clothes
I had on were neat and clean; my mother had made them. I
don't know, I had a big collar around me and it had lace
around it. She dressed me up like nobody's business. Just a
little old country boy and all, and making fun of my clothes.
- BRENT GLASS:
-
He said something about your clothes?
- GEORGE R. ELMORE:
-
Oh yes: cheap homemade stuff and all that. Of course I invited him out.
He was two or three years older than I. And I told my brothers and
cousins. They told him a few facts of life: if he ever got out of his
automobile he wouldn't be able to get back.
So that's the way of life and growing up.
- BRENT GLASS:
-
So you say when you were growing up you were a poor family,
income-wise.
- GEORGE R. ELMORE:
-
Yes.
- BRENT GLASS:
-
Were you a close family? It sounds like you had some…
- GEORGE R. ELMORE:
-
You touch one of them, why you'd have…
I've had the most fights I ever had was boys jumping on my
brother. And I've had my troubles getting at it on my own,
but I'd fight you quicker if you touched one of my brothers
or sisters any time. I was kind of halfway coward until you'd
pick on some of my family. I'd use whatever I could get ahold
of, the first thing. I liked to killed a man one night who jumped on my
brother. I don't know how I did it. But I was on the corner
of the street there, and I threw a rock and took him right in the back
of the head—a man about twenty-five years old, and my brother
was about fifteen and I was about twelve. That ended that fight.
[laughter]