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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 C-0122, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Thomas Ellington worked in the Sellers Manufacturing Company in Saxapahaw, North Carolina, for over thirty years. In this interview, he discusses the interaction between employees at the mill and Everett Jordan, the mill owner. Jordan treated the workers at his mill well and was loved and respected within his community. Ellington recounts two instances in which Jordan solved conflicts between the superintendent and the employees by firing the superintendent. He also describes how the mill employees used their own form of currency to trade for goods at the mill village store.
Thomas Ellington, a longtime employee of the Sellers Manufacturing Company, describes employee interactions in the mill and how the owner, Everett Jordan, treated his employees.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Doc, let's talk about Everett Jordan for a while.
You asked me if I had ever seen him in overalls? I've seen him with overalls on twice. When he was working on the dam up there he had on overalls, and when they were pouring the foundation for that old diesel engine he had overalls on. And just as soon as he got the foundation poured he took all the colored people up to the store and they all sat down and ate. I worked for him for 35 years, and he was a fine fellow to work for.
What did you do all that time Doc?
I went in there as a doffer and doffed spinning; me and Grief Smith. I went from that to fixing and I continued as fixer in the spinning room the rest of the time—then when they put the spooler in I went out on the spooler—Barber -Coleman Spooler—and I learned to spool, and I kept it in my head what I had learned. It broke down one day with Cephas and they came after me. I told him to start it up and he said, "it ain't no need, it's out of time." I started it up and I seen what was wrong with it and I fixed it. Joe Neel said I'd have it fixed in 5 minutes time, and I did."
One time Mr. Jordan called me in the office and was talking to me about
when I was going to buy that old house over there, and he asked me about
the spooler, and I told him that the spooler wasn't getting the proper
attention that it should, and so he wanted to know why and I told him,
"Mr. Jordan, there ain't no one man that can look after 48 spinning
frames, look after the help and keep the laps on and work on the
spooler." I said, "all he can do is run out there and put a drop or two
of oil here and yonder on it and switch it off a little bit."
Is that what you were doing?
Yeah. So I told Altman I wouldn't do no split shift; four hours in the
morning and four hours in the evening. I went down to the mill and told
Cephas about the split shift and he said, "Well if you don't take it, I
won't." Next morning I went in at 11:00 o'clock and met Cephas coming
out. I asked him, "Where you going?" He said, "I'm going home and come
back in at 3:00 o'clock and work four more hours." So he took the split
shift. The Spooler broke down with him and he didn't know how to fix
it—it's out of time. He told me it was out of time, and I told him to
start it up. He started it up and it went about 10 feet down the side
and I seen what the trouble was. I went over there to the work bench,
got the other knotter out and fixed it. Helen Thomas walked up and said,
"He'll have it going in 5 minutes." So I changed the knotters—Cephas was
walking along holding it, about half way down he turned loose and came
back up there and told Ralph Richie and Lynch that it was out of time. I
said, "Well time it—it ain't out of time." So I set the other knotter
where it would tie
What did Walt do?
He come there as a fixer in the spinning then they put him as overseer of the spinning.
Where did you come from Doc?
I come from Carrboro. I doffed in a spinning mill.
How old were you when you came to Saxapahaw?
About 21 or 22 years old.
How come you to come up here?
Well that mill down there was closing down. Mattie came up here and got a
job, then Ada, my sister came up here to work, and my daddy
What year was this?
I don't know, now you can count back, I was 22 years old when I come up here.
How old are you now?
39—77. That's how old I am, 77.
You sure don't look it. You were here before the depression then.
Yeah I was up here during the depression. I come here working for $9.60 a week; twelve hours a night, six days a week.
That would be 72 hours a week wouldn't it?
In fact I have worked three and four double shifts during the week.
How many sides did you doff at a time?
Me and Grief Smith were doffing 48 frames—96 sides. We'd doff em then go down on the river and fish.
You'd get them doffed and you'd have time to do that?
Yeah. We'd go down on the river and fish or go play ball, or get out on the back side of the mill and cup-up and frolic and go on.
What yarn counts were you running then, about 30's and 36's?
We'us running 60's and 30's and 40's. One time—Joe Neel would buy
Coca-Colas and set them in the windows up stairs— and one day John Smith
came out there with a ball of warp rolled up, and he said, "You see that
Coke up yonder, I'm going to hit it and knock it out and you catch it."
I was standing there and he throwed that ball and busted the window
light out and hit Joe Neel right back of the head with that ball of
waste. Here come Joe down there and I was sitting there on the platform
and Joe said, "Did you ever see this?" I said, "Let me see what number
yarn it is—that's 60's 2 ply." He said, "That ain't what I said. You
seen it when it went through that window up
We used to doff frames and tote the yarn up the steps instead of going to the elevator. Mr. Jordan came in there one time when I had started up the steps with a box of yarn on my shoulder. He says, "What're you doin'" I said, "Carrying this yarn upstairs." He said, "set it down and put it on a box and roll it down to the elevator and take it up with the elevator." I took that box to the elevator, but the next one I took it up the steps.
When they brought those last frames from up north and put them in,
Tisdale went to Apple's Tin Shop and had twelve small pans made and
twelve big pans made to put up under the head to catch the oil. Tisdale
had me putting them down when Mr. Jordan came by. He says, "What you
doin'" I said, "puttin' these pans down here to catch this oil." He told
me to not put another one down and to go get Tisdale. I went down to the
office and I told him, "Tisdale, Mr. Jordan wants to see you out yonder
in the spinning room right now!" He come out there and Mr. JOrdan told
him, "Tisdale, where is your oiler at?" Tisdale said to me, "Doc,
where's the oiler at?" I said, "There he is over yonder." Tisdale said,
"Go get him." So I went and brought him over there and Mr. Jordan took
the oil can and says, "Now look, you see this hole right there, one drop
of oil in that one hole there would do a whole lot more good than all
that oil that's running downstairs on them warps. From now on, you put
one or two drops in them holes. Doc,
Another time Tisdale went up to his house and got a turkey tail and put it on a long reed pole and gave it to Rob Collins. Rob was fanning it down—fanning lint every which a way. Jordan came in and seen Rob and ask him, "Rob, what're you doing." He said, "M-M-Mr. Tisdale told me to brush down with this turkey tail." Mr. Jordan said, "You take that turkey tail off that pole and take it down to Tisdale and tell him to take it back home. We don't need no turkey tail down here. There's enough slubs running in this yarn without fanning lint off the top the building down on it." Tisdale took the turkey tail and lit out to the house. At times I would go down there and try to explain things to Tisdale—he'd be sitting there writing and didn't look like he'd be paying a bit more attention to me—sitting there writing.
He was having me to put two ounces and two tenths of yarn to the bobbin of 60's. I took ten empty bobbins and laid them on the scales, then take full bobbins and lay them on the scales. One day I asked him, "Tisdale, let's make this a little interesting, will you allow me one-half of three ounces each way on building these bobbins? If it's over 3 ounces I'll buy you a Coca-Cola, and if it's just 2 ounces you buy me a Coca-Cola." He says, "That's a deal." I went up to building bobbins—putting yarn on the bobbins and would bring them down for him to weigh them. He said, "Here, go get you a Coca-Cola." I drank so many Coca-Colas off of Tisdale I didn't know what to do.
Mr. Jordan came down one day, walking along picking up bolts, and taps and things off the floor. He said, "There ain't no telling how much money's been throwed away—bolts, etc just swept out the door into the trash can." I said, "You're right Mr. Jordan."
He'd call me into the office every once in a while and talk to me about the mill down there.
When Lingerfelt died he gave me the keys to his car and told me to take Mrs. Lingerfelt and them to Gastonia. He gave me $5 to buy oil. That old Dodge really drank the oil. I carried them up there and came back.
Then one time, when Ida Williams died, it had started snowing and Mrs. Jordan wanted me to take the pall bearers up to the funeral. I had the pall bearers in her car and a woman from Albany, N. Y. ran into me—or skidded into me. Later I was telling Mr. Jordan what happened and Mrs. Jordan came running in saying, "What did you say?" I told her that a woman had skidded into me and tore up the left front fender. "How bad?" she said. Mr. Jordan said, "That's all right we got insurance on it." So that was the last I heard of it . . . the old oil burning Dodge—he got rid of it.
He was a good fellow. I had an awful habit of borrowing money—I could walk up to him anytime—I was setting in front of the barber shop when he came out of the house. I told him I wanted to talk to him. He said, "All right, Plumber, come on." I said, "I want to borrow $50." "Alice, come in here and give the Plumber $50. How do you want to pay it back." I told him I would give it back to him payday. He said, "Oh no, a dollar a week will be all right."
You say he called you "Plumber?" Did you do plumbing?
Oh yeah I used to do plumbing work down there in the mill and the village too.
One time the valve stuck on the old straight eight diesel engine and I went down there with Mr. Jordan. Alse Davis was up on top of it. Mr. Jordan said, "Davis, how long before you going to have it working?" "Just a minute," Alse said. He threw that crowbar down without looking to see if anybody was standing there, it bounced up and hit Mr. Jordan on the shin and skinned it a little bit—he come by me hopping and said, "Come on Plumber, this ain't no place for me," and out the door he went with me following.
He was awful good to me, Mr. Jordan was. I could borrow money from him
anytime, anywhere. First time, me and five of the boys went to Virginia
Beach. Sunday morning we got up, I had all the pocketbooks, and I had
all their watches on my wrist. Walked up the beach and there stood Mr.
Jordan, Dr. Carrington and Shannonhouse, the yarn salesman. I walked up
over there and I says, "GOOD MORNING!" He turned around and he says,
"Huh! I thought I left Saxapahaw at Saxapahaw." I said, "No, there's
five more of them out there somewhere or another. Mr. Jordan, how about
loaning me $50." "You don't need no $50," he said, "you're getting ready
to be back to that mill Monday morning to go to work." I said, "O. K.,
if you'll let me have $50, I'll guarantee I'll have all five of them
others there at 7:00 o'clock to work." So he let me have the $50. We got
back in Saxapahaw at 20 minutes to seven the next morning. I jerked the
keys out of the car and went to work. Mr. Jordan came down there and
asked what we were doing there dressed up. I told him we had just got
back about 15 minutes 'til seven and didn't have time to go home and
change. He told us to all get out
Who were the other four—five?
Marion Glosson,
Dorsett Johnson, Wayne Woody, myself and—
Why were you carring all their watches—were they in the water?
Yes. I would take the cramp every time I went in so I just kept up with their pocketbooks and watches.
When they bought the new diesel did you help install it?
No, I guarded it one night though. They were bringing it in and had pulled it off on the side of the road and they wanted somebody to watch it. Alson Davis come and got me to go over there that night. I had a piece of pitchfork handle about 4 feet long, and somebody came by in a car and stopped, "I wonder what that thing is?" they said, an pulled out a knife to cut a hole—I popped that board with that old stick I had and when I did they threw the knife down and flew—got in their car and took off. Mr. Jordan came over the next morning and they hooked up to it and started pulling it in. They had the old "Big Bess" caterpillar pulling it. The back end of that thing was down in the road just like that—down in the hard road.
How many days did it take to pull it down there?
They unloaded it at Graham depot and it took them two days to pull it
down there. Armon Davis was flagging traffic. They pulled off of 54 at
the worm ranch. It set there two nights and then they went to Chapel
Hill and got that old "B Bess" to come up and pull it. Harvey Foust come
over there and told the fellow driving it, "Drop it down into sawmill
gear and you won't mire down." Jordan said, "Do you know how to drive
that thing? Harvey said, "Yes sir!" "Well get up there then." Harvey got
up there and thowed that thing in sawmill
One time Sid Lloyd was driving a company truck and I was going across the bridge. He was heading for Tennessee taking a double decker load of yarn up and was going to move a fellow back. I said, "Where you going?" He said he was going to town and for me to come on.
He slowed down and I stepped up on the running board on the drivers side
and he held me—Mr. Jordan was standing up there on the walkway
hollering— we got on around the curve and he stopped and I got in and we
went on toward town. Just about the time we got into the edge of Graham
here come Mr. Jordan and he said, "Hey, where you going to, a fire?"
Lloyd said, "No I ain't going to no fire, what's wrong?" He was that
close to the post office and he handed him a package about 12 inches
square
They'd send me out to ride the telephone line . . .
Dock, tell me this, did you ever see Mr. Jordan get really mad?
No, I never did.
Loose his temper?
No, I never did see him lose his temper.
One time when Mr. Jordan was in New York, Tisdale and Lynch were
overseers—no Lynch and Ralph Ritchie. They had gotten an old grease-gun
from Richard Stanford. One person would have to stand down and pump it
and another person up greasing the motors. So one day I was pumping and
Alse Davis was up there greasing the motors and Ralph Ritchie and Lynch
came in there and wanted to know what I was doing. Davis stuck his head
out of a hole up there and said, "I don't know that it's any of your
business, but he's pumping grease up here to me." So we got through and
started on back in the mill and Lynch and Ralph Ritchie came up. Old Mrs
Cole was sitting out there eating and they said, "That's got to be
stopped and stopped right now!" They said I was to go over and tell her.
I said, "No, you go tell her if you want it stopped, they have been
eating there ever since I've been in Saxapahaw." So I went on in the
mill and Lynch sent for me to come on down to the office. He was sitting
there all reared back with his thumbs stuck in his vest, and I said,
"What do you want?" He said, "SIT DOWN!!" I said, "Listen, I can hear
what you got to say standing
Were you a section hand then?
Yeah. I told him I would start that mill for him or Mr. Jordan
I didn't know it at that time but Jake Miller was up there in the office
talking to Mr. Jordan in New York over the telephone. Joe told me about
it. The next evening, Lynch came walking in there and asked me, "What
the hell was wrong with you yesterday?" I didn't say
Another time I was doffing and I carried a box of yarn up to the winder
room. Grady Foster was there and he told me to clean up this row and
that row of frames and that three old Mason frames. I cleaned them up,
and mopped under them—after I got them mopped, Hoagie Steel came up
laughing and said, "Thank you for cleaning up my frames." I said, "No, I
didn't clean your frames up, I cleaned Sellers Manufacturing Company's
frames." Grady came by there and called me a damned liar about it, I
made a dive after him and he grabbed me by the overall galluses and was
going to drag me up the steps. He had his knife up in his shirt pocket,
and I jerked his knife out and I said, "Grady, I have never cut a man in
my life—I've been cut, I know it hurts—but if you don't take your hands
off me I'm going to empty your entrals right here on top of me." "Oh,
you won't" he said. I made a swish across there and just cut his shirt,
and I said, "Now the next one is going to go deeper." He took his hands
off me, and I walked on up where Mr. Bailey was sitting at the desk at
the door. Grady says, "I fired him." I says, "Mr. Bailey, I quit at 5
minutes 'til eleven o'clock." He says, "do you want your time now?" I
says, "No, I'll
As I said earlier, they had me to ride the telephone line from Saxapahaw to Sweps. One day I was riding it and I went up a pole where the line crossed the road and Mr. Frank Love came by in his car. I had my belt hooked to the wire trying to pull it back. He stopped and I asked him for his belt. He gave it to me and I got to pulling on it and pulled it half in two. Finally I went and borrowed a rope and pulled the wire up there and fastened it. Frank went back to Saxapahaw without a belt.
I would ride over to Sweps then call back to Miss Alice to see if it was all right.
One day I came in with the truck—Joe Neel—the reason I call him Joe is
that one day I called him Mr. Neel and he said, "Don't you never call me
Mr. Neel no more, call me plain old Joe. But that day he sent Dace
Thompson down to tell me to ride the telephone line.
What would break the lines?
Somebody would shoot the insulators off them.
Just to be mischevious?
Yeah. I rode the telephone line until Southern Bell went to work on it.
Homer didn't have much use for me after that. One day he was reaching to
pull some cotton off the rollers and his thumb went clean back up
through the rolls and he was a hollering, I was on the other side of the
machine, but I thought he was just hollering and cutting-up. He finally
jerked his hand out and when he did he jerked all the hide off his
thumb. He says, "How come you didn't stop that spinning frame off?" I
said, "You ought not to have been hollering, I don't holler." He went in
and had it fixed and was walking around there with it wrapped up. Mr.
Jordan came in there a day or two later and said, "Duncan don't you know
them rollers will grab your thumb?"
Do you remember when the water got up over that bridge down there? Well, Joe Neel would come out on the end of the bridge and holler over at us standing on the other side. He'd say, "What about coming over here and helping us sweep some of this mud out of here. Grady Quakenbush was standing there and he said, "All right, I'll be right over." He jumped in that water, thought he could swim across, but when he came out he was down at the first creek. Joe sent John Smith over for a load of us. We swept that water and cleaned up there. Old Alson Davis—he was always whining through his nose—he said, " 'I God, durned if somebody ain't turned some water loose up the river."
Do you remember that?
Yes the water was up over the railings on the bridge.
We lived right across from the Methodist Chruch and they went in that
church and put one bench on top of another and another one on top of
that and put the piano on top to keep it from getting wet. I thought
several times it was going to come up into the house, but we kept dry.
But I had said one time that I would love to see hank clocks on them
spinning frames—then whenever Mr. Taylor came there
What was the trouble: Did they just need oiling up?
No—what they'd do, they'd take them out—see they got nine
Doc, let me ask you this. Did the employees in the mill criticize Mr. Jordan?
No, people in that mill really loved Mr. Jordan. I never heard anybody at all criticize him.
When you bought your house, did he help you finance it in any way?
When I bought the house from him, he told Miss Alice to let me pay for it any way I wanted to—$5 a week. And that's the way I paid for it.
Which house was that Doc?
It was the house that Harley Anderson build over there across from Mot
Lindleys. They sold it to J. B. Kemp, and he left and went to Siler
City. Mr. Jordan seen me out there one morning and said, "I heard you
wanted to buy that house over yonder." I said, "Yeah, I'd like to have
it, but I ain't got no money to pay you down on it." He said, "I didn't
say anything about paying anything down on it." He took me in the office
and told Miss Alice, "The Plumber is buying that
How come you to leave Sellers?
Well I was offered more money. I worked over 35 years for Mr. Jordan and me and Mr. Tisdale didn't get along any too good. I would go in there and try to explain something to him—that's always been my motto; if I'm working on something or other and it's important then I'd explain it to either the overseer or the superintendent what I'm doing, and he wouldn't listen to me so I had a chance to take a job up in Thomasville with two spoolers and I took it.
What year did you leave?
I don't know. And Tisdale kept writing for me to come back down here and
I come back and stayed one year. I lived in the old Methodist parsonage
one year. Doyle Deaton was over the first shift on the spoolers up there
and I went up there and Sherman Laws was general manager of the mill and
he wanted me to come up there. They had 92 spinning frames in one
section. Mr. Laws told Mr. Edwards, "Take Ellington across the spinning
room, the spoolers, the twisters and winders. He's good on any one you
put him on . . .
Jackson asked you to build a wedge shaped bobbin?
Yeah, big at the bottom and little at the top, and I told him I had never
seen one built before in my life. I was tearing down a frame and putting
new studs in; new bearings, so I built a bobbin—made the prettiest
bobbin he said he had ever seen. When I got it done he told me to stay
right there with that frame and when it
I told Mr.
. . . he was just as plain talking as he could be. I never heard him tell a dirty joke . . . he said he went into the mill there as a sweeper and worked his way up.
Did he tell you how long he was a sweeper?
No he didn't say how long.
He didn't sweep very long.
You take John. He was down in the shop one day and I was talking to him
and he said that his daddy wanted him to work through the mill, but he
said he had rather be out on the farm. I told him that he was doing him
a favor—letting him work his way through. I told I had been in one ever
since 1918 and I had learned a lot. When John was
Could John sew a straight tape?
Yeah, John could sew one—he'd take his time sewing it. It's like I told John, "You can't sit down there and just fly with it—got to sew it"—then they went to bonding them then.
What did the folks in the mill think about John?
Well John was all right. I've heard a few of them say that they thought he was lazy and didn't want to work in the mill, but John was different from that. John was all right.
I never thought John was lazy.
I always got along all right with John. My wife cooked an applenut cake
one time, and John would come up there where we were all eating. He'd
come up there with a pack of crackers and a glass of water or a drink
and sit down and eat. I had this piece of cake over there and John took
his knife out and cut it half in two and ate it, he says, "You know
that's good. I'll tell you; I'm going to eat this other piece 'cause you
got some at home." And he ate it. He was
Did John learn the mill business pretty well down there?
Yeah he did.
One Sunday when he was just a young 'un he had on some knee pants—I lived across the river there and I was coming across and John was down there on the island in a mudhole knee deep, catching tadpoles. Mrs. JOrdan had done dressed him to go to church. I had done gone on over to the end of the bridge and here comes Mrs. Jordan. She says, "Doc, have you seen John?" I started not to tell on him, but I told her where he was. She went over there and John was catching them tadpoles to carry up to the fishpond they had up there behind their house. Well when she got over there she tadpoled him! She gave him a whuppin' and here he come across that bridge and her right after him. When she got him home she changed his clothes and back to that church he went. John never did know that I told on him.
What did you think of Mr. Jordan as a Senator?
He was all right, he was a good one. I figure he made good at it.
Did you ever work on the dam with him any?
Yeah. Me and Bill Bynum was sitting up there on Sunday morning at that
old head gate. We had been to the beach and Alson Davis . . .
. . . Doc, you were saying about Mr. Jordan?
I asked him if he was going to put flood gates in that dam and he said,
"Hunh! flood gates ain't no good in a dam." Mrs. Jordan spoke up and
says, "Everett if you don't put flood gates in there
And they were going to take the old wooden dam out—tear it out. They put dynamite under it and it just riz up and came right back down in the same place. The old dam is still in there right in front of the other one. The pond is full of mud now. They could have had a lot of water there if they had put flood gates in it, because when that river gets up and they'd a raised them flood gates it would have cut a channel. He had oh ten or twelve holes left in there and I thought he was going to put flood gates in them, but he had them filled up with concrete. If he had just put them gates in there and when that flood came, opened them up it would have washed that mud out of there all the way up to no telling how far it would have cut it and pulled it out of there.
Yes, that was a mistake.
You were talking about me doing plumbing work down there? Yeah I used to do a lot of plumbing down there.
Did Mr. Jordan want you to do a good job, or just patch it up?
Oh I'd do a good job. He didn't want no patch ups.
Dad Baber's wife came out there to the store and said, "Dad, the oil's
out of my stove, ain't no oil going in it." I was standing there and he
asked me to go check it for him. I went out there to check it. I opened
the door and stuck my hand down in there and oil was about that deep in
the thing. Mrs. Baber said, "You're going to dip that out aren't you?"
And I said, "Yes mam." I looked around and I seen a kleenex and I took a
match, lit it and throwed it down
That was Dad Baber's house?
Yes. I did go out there and sure enough the blaze was two feet out of the
chimney. At that time I lived in one of them six room houses, the second
house were you turn to go to Woody's. I was living in one side and
Ben, in all the time I worked down at that mill, I've never known it to stand because of lack of orders but three days. He went on three days for about a week or two weeks and then he went out and came back and started up on full blast.
Was that dur ing the depression?
Yeah, during the depression.
How long did you stay on three days?
Two days one week and three days the next then the next week
Right in the middle of the depression?
Yeah.
He would have these suppers. Adrian Jobe was over there, and Mrs. Jordan—a bunch of old timers—and he got up and made his talk and asked Mr. Jobe if he had something he wanted to say. Well they had just been discussing how so many people came and went so much. Move in and then move on. In and out; in and out—and so when Adrian got up there Mrs. Jordan asked him—she said, "why are the people going and coming so, then they'd stop all at once—not leaving." So Jobe said, "Well they got so poor thay can't leave." Mrs. Jordan made him get back up there and apologize to the whole bunch.
Did he apologize?
Yeah he apologized.
During that depression he paid off with ducats—pasteboard money. We'd go to town and go to the show on it, buy gas on it—Old man Williams over here in the country sold liquor. Hugh Allen and a bunch of them was down there—Harley and his daddy and a bunch drinking all the time. They would come to the store and get some ducats and go over there. He had a #2 tin tub sitting in the floor and he told them to just throw their pasteboard money in that tub and he would get the liquor for them. He brought that whole tub of ducats over here and wanted Mrs. Williams to cash them in. She told him he would have to trade them out. He told her it would take him his lifetime to trade them out. I had one of them ducats and I gave it to Hal Dean.
When I'd borrow money they'd take it out of my time there in the office.
One time Wallace Bowman saw me and he said, "Doc, do you know
How come you to have money in the office?
I guess I had signed enough ducats to take care of it. Money left over at the store.
Ben, I'll tell you—a bunch of us—Raymond Hall, J. W. Petty and Lee Petty, Wayne Woody—we'd come down there on Saturdays, I'd fill up my gas tank and we'd start out. I was furnishing it all. I'd go in there and borrown money from Miss Connie or Dad one or I'd sign ducats and they'd give me cash for them; and so I just blowed it in.
Was that before you were married?
Yes. I just blowed it in—I just had a habit—a bad habit—every time I'd
see Mr. Jordan I would ask him to loan me some money, and he'd pull it
out and hand it to me, or if he was down there he'd go and say, "Miss
Alice, let the plumber have some money." I was fixing to go to
Washington, D. C. with my wife and her sister. I was sitting out there
on the steps and Mr. Jordan came out of the house and I asked him to
loan me $50. "Hunh! what do you want with $50." I told him I wanted to
go to Washington. He said I didn't have any business in Washington. I
said, "I want to go up there and see the President." "Or I may get
married while I'm up there." He said I didn't need no $50 then. I stood
there a few minutes and he went into his office then he stuck his head
out and said, "Come here Plumber." He told Alice to let me have $50.
Said I could pay it back a dollar a week. I could borrow
But he was a hard worker himself, as you know.
Yeah he was good to the help. He had good help down there. One time, Harley Anderson and his daddy, Rack Robinson and two or three others would always get drunk over the weekend and wouldn't be able to work on Monday. Sherman Laws was the overseer and he talked to Mr. Jordan about it, and Mr. Jordan told him to clean it up. Well when next Monday morning came there was about five of them out—wouldn't work. When they came in, Mr. Laws fired them. They went up there and sat down in front of the store. Mr. Jordan came out of his house, came by there and saw them all sitting there. Then, just like he told me, "Hunh! what you all doing sitting up here?" They told him that Mr. Laws had fired them. He told them to get back down there on the job and go to work.
Did he ask why they had been fired?
He knew why they had been fired because Laws had told him about them being out on weekend drunks and he had told him to clean it up, but Mr. Jordan just decided he was getting rid of some of his good help you know. Part of them had come here right after he did. He wasn't going to stand for it.
I never knew Harley drank; he must have quit before I came around.
Oh good night alive! Harley used to get drunk—he was drinking one time
and my brother-in law and my sister Ada came to see us and they had a
Ford Roadster and my brother-in-law was riding around in it and Harley
seen him and didn't know who he was and Harley came up
Doc you mentioned that people came and went so much in Saxapahaw; why did they come and go so much?
Well, I'll tell you; they wouldn't work nowhere else, there's a grade of people that just won't work. They'd come down there and think they ought to be making a way yonder more than what they were making—wouldn't work half the time, and they got to going on about not making enough money to live off of—make more elsewhere, and they'd pick up and go somehwere else.
Just like me—Now I started to working down there for $9.60 a week and when I went to running a section I got up to $2.90 something an hour. When I left Saxapahaw and went to Thomasville I went on second shift on two spoolers. All I had to do was just small things because Doyle Deaton was over the whole works and he was supposed to do all the fixing and everything. I was making anywhere from nine, ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year; but I was running two jobs. I'd run the spooler 8 hours the first shift then go over in the spinning room and plumb spindles—two jobs, and that's the reason I made so much—then I'd pull double shifts and so forth. The reason I came back down here for one year was that Tisdale just kept a writing and writing wanting me to come back.
Well my wife was in bad health and Dave Nolf was boss man in the winding.
He came up there to me and wanted to send my wife home to rest on
account of her health. I says, "Dave, she's working for
turns off recorder.
END OF INTERVIEW