CARL SPANGLER, JR.

TRANSCRIPT %u2013 CARL SPANGLER
[Compiled September 2nd, 2010]

Interviewee: CARL SPANGLER

Interviewer: Rob Stephens

Interview Date: August 9th, 2010

Location: Shelby, North Carolina

Length: Approximately 68 minutes

ROB STEPHENS: If you could start out by saying your full name, your birth date, and where we are right now.
CARL SPANGLER: My name is Carl Spangler, Jr. and my birth date is May the 17th, 1933. We are in my home and I%u2019m talking to Rob Stevens.
RS: Great. This is still Shelby or is this the county?
CS: It%u2019s Cleveland County, but a Shelby address.
RS: Okay, great. [Begins to fill out life history form] Well, I might have to ask that again. So, it%u2019s Spangler. I%u2019m going to start out by filling out this life history form. And you say Carl, with a C, right?
CS: C-A-R-L, yeah.
RS: And middle name?
CS: Maynard.
RS: [Filling in personal information on life history form] Were you born in Shelby?
CS: Cleveland County.
RS: Okay. And are you married?
CS: Yes.
RS: And what%u2019s your wife%u2019s name?
CS: My wife%u2019s name is Faye.
RS: And do you have children?
CS: Yes, I have four children.
RS: Okay, and could I get their name and if you know their year of birth?
CS: Yes, okay. The first one is a daughter, Susan, and her date of birth is August the 28th, 1958.
RS: And is she a Spangler?
CS: She%u2019s a Duncan now, Susan Spangler Duncan. [Pause] And my second child was Carl Maynard Spangler III, or Chuck, and his birthday was--.
RS: The year is fine.
CS: 1963.
RS: Okay.
CS: My third child was Angela Spangler Anthis. She was born in 1966. My fourth child is Michael Mark Spangler, and he was born in 1967.
RS: And did you go to high school here in Cleveland County?
CS: Yes, I graduated from Piedmont High School in 1951.
RS: Piedmont High School.
CS: It was a mammoth high school; twenty-three was in my graduating class.
RS: Twenty-three?
CS: Yeah.
RS: Oh, wow.
CS: Yes, it was a small school. At that time we probably had, counting black schools together, it was probably twenty high schools in Cleveland County. I know there was one at just about at every crossroad.
RS: Did you do any more education or school after that?
CS: Yes, I went on to college and got a degree in chemistry.
RS: Where did you go?
CS: I went one year to Gardner-Webb Junior College and followed that with UNC-Chapel Hill.
RS: And what was your degree?
CS: A bachelor%u2019s in chemistry.
RS: That%u2019s a BS?
CS: BA, actually, a BA in chemistry.
RS: And what year did you graduate?
CS: 1959 was after service.
RS: Okay. Did you go on to anything else after that?
CS: No, no formal schooling except what the plant would send me to in terms of seminars or so forth, but I didn%u2019t get a higher degree.
RS: Okay. And your occupational history?
CS: Most of my occupation was with Fiber Industries, [pause] a polyester manufacturer--made polyester fiber.
RS: And did you start working there after graduating from UNC?
CS: No, one year I worked with my dad in the roofing business for one year after graduation. Then I went with what they call Fiber Industries after a year and then worked for thirty years.
RS: So you moved back here to Cleveland County?
CS: Well, after I retired. Yeah, I spent most of my time in Cleveland County, to give you the complete history. In 1986, I got transferred to Fayetteville, the plant at Fayetteville, and that was in November of %u201986; then I retired in May of 1990, so I%u2019ve been retired twenty-plus years.
RS: Well, I often start off these interviews, and if you ever want to pause it, or if you ever need to take a phone call or anything like that, no problem at all.
CS: Okay, all right.
RS: So I often start these interviews by asking about people%u2019s grandparents, so maybe you could tell me about your grandparents. You can start on your mother%u2019s or your father%u2019s side.
CS: Well, I knew my grandpa on my dad%u2019s side a little more because he lived, I guess, less than a mile the way the crow flies, and I%u2019d see him quite often. He was a fellow that started out very humbly, but had twelve children, and by the time I was a child and became aware of things, he had two or three tractors, fourteen mules--. He was a big farmer and he liked to farm. He really didn%u2019t have much education, but that didn%u2019t stop him from being pretty much the center of attention at meetings and so forth. Grandpa just had people wanting to be around him; he just had that kind of touch. Max Gardner, former governor, was riding up the river one time and saw my granddad. He pointed to a friend and said, %u201CIf Dick Spangler,%u201D and that was my granddaddy%u2019s name, %u201Chad a college education, he%u2019d be governor of North Carolina.%u201D I mean, that%u2019s the kind of ability he had. Grandpa--we%u2019d go visit him--Gene Spangler, a cousin of mine about my age, would visit. In fact, we%u2019d sleep with Grandpa; it would be in the bedroom where they had a roaring fireplace. Grandpa would use his old walking cane to punch the fire and keep it going, but I visited him a lot and thought a lot of him. He was a fine, fine person, and people really respected him in the community. My other grandpa was (08:58) Kistler, my mother%u2019s dad, of course. He was a fine person too, and he was probably a little more formal. He farmed initially, then the latter part when he moved to Shelby--I don%u2019t know, %u201928 or %u201929, whenever, somewhere around there, he worked in the sheriff%u2019s office. They called him Squire Kistler; apparently, in his early days he could marry people and stuff like that.
RS: Oh, okay.
CS: He was an interesting person as well--very proper, and when he was eighty years of age, he was as straight as an arrow, a very dignified man. You could look at him and he would be impeccably dressed--shoelaces would always be just perfect and never crossed a wrinkle or anything like that. He was also interesting; I just was closer to my Grandpa Spangler and got to know him more.
RS: And what about your grandmothers?
CS: My Grandmother Spangler--I never knew her. She died around 1925, and there was a fairly interesting and touching story that goes along with that. Back in those days, my dad was seriously ill with the flu, and the doctors didn%u2019t expect him to live through the night. The story goes that she goes behind the barn and prays that the Lord will take her rather than her son. Just in a matter of a day or so, my dad got to getting better, and she died within a few days of that.
RS: Wow.
CS: Like I say, always a touching story. I never knew her. Now, my Grandma Kistler, she died in %u201947, and she was a neat lady, she really was. I spoke of Grandpa being neat; she was the only person I%u2019ve ever seen, I think, that could dip snuff and be neat about it. [Laughter] In fact, when she%u2019d come to visit, she%u2019d want to go down to the creek. We have a (11:16) that would go to a big rock there and a spring. There was a birch tree there and she%u2019d want birch twigs so she could make snuff sticks out of them. You know, chew the end of them--that%u2019s the way the old-timers did back in those days--and dipping the snuff. But Grandma Kistler could be neat dipping snuff. There%u2019s not many people that can do that. [Laughter] RS: That%u2019s great. You say your grandfather was a farmer, on the Spangler%u2026
CS: %u2026Grandpa--well, both of them in the early days, but my Grandpa Spangler was a farmer his entire life. In fact, like I say, his house was less than a mile from here, and he had twelve children: six boys and six girls. Five of his sons were probably within a two mile radius, so he made it a point; he got them going in farming. The other son, C.D. Spangler went on to Charlotte and did quite well, frankly. I guess in the forties, early fifties, he was a millionaire. Of course, he%u2019s passed on, and his son, Dick, well frankly, is a billionaire. Here%u2019s the irony of it. After Dick, because of becoming president of the university system--Chapel Hill, State and all of them--.
RS: Okay.
CS: The president, you see, of the sixteen campuses, he and I were talking and he says, %u201CCould Grandpa read and write?%u201D and the children had held my grandpa in such high esteem, you just never would question anything about that, but with him having a question about it, I asked one of my uncles living at that time. I said, %u201CCould Grandpa read and write?%u201D Just asked him a direct question. He said, %u201CWell, Papa could sign his name and the girls kept the books,%u201D and that%u2019s all he would say. So if you look at it, here%u2019s a grandfather that could hardly read and write, and his grandson being president of the university system; that%u2019s really an accomplishment in that short period of time. That was interesting, I thought.
RS: Oh, yeah. And were they church-goers?
CS: Very much so, yes. In fact, the early church, they went to Zion, but in 1899, my great-grandmother was instrumental in forming Double Shoals Church, the church that virtually us Spanglers go to. At the time, there were sixteen charter members, and fifteen of them were either Spanglers or married--fifteen of the sixteen were either a Spangler or married to a Spangler.
RS: Okay.
CS: That shows you the Spanglers, even to this day, would be the majority family. There was naturally other families, but yeah, very strong church-goers. That was the thing about it; it was just something that was expected to never question.
RS: Do you know anything about your great-grandparents on the other side?
CS: No. I just know of the history. I know my grandfather on my dad%u2019s side, Jonathan Spangler, he went to the civil war and he lost an arm. He came back from the war though, but he only lived a year or two after he came back from the war, so he died in the 1860s.
RS: And did your grandfather--cause I guess you were born right--well, probably%u2026
CS: %u20261933%u2026
RS: %u2026in the midst of the Depression.
CS: Yes.
RS: Did your father or your grandfather ever talk about what the Depression was like in Cleveland County?
CS: Oh, yeah. Yes, they would talk about that. They would say it was a pitiful time. They said people would be walking the roads hunting work. They%u2019d say they%u2019d work for fifty cents a day but said no one had fifty cents. He said it was a trying time. Oh, and you could tell in Mother and Daddy; it stayed with them all their lives. They would never throw anything away, and you could understand when they were imprinted by that depression and it have a lasting effect on one%u2019s life.
RS: And how did your family do during the Depression? I guess they were still farming?
CS: They still farmed and held on to their farms. They was able to hold on to their property and scratched a living out of it somehow, but even when I was a child there was virtually no money.
RS: Okay.
CS: We had it as good or better than most people--better than average, I guess you%u2019d say. My dad and mother were good providers, so we never wanted, but they just, in terms of wasting and so forth, that%u2019s just something you didn%u2019t do--and in particular, money. They managed well, and I think that had an influence on us.
RS: And I guess you were still a pretty young boy during World War II, but do you remember hearing about the war?
CS: Yes.
RS: Did any of your family go fight or--?
CS: Yes, but the story on that: I went to an uncle%u2019s birthday party; this was 1941, December the 7th--he lived on beyond my grandpa, about a mile-and-a-half from here, and he was Dad%u2019s youngest brother. We went to the birthday party, big get-together, and that afternoon we heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. We went on to church that night, and I believe somebody brought a radio or something, and I heard what news we could get, so I remember the start of war. [Recorder is turned off to change battery and then back on] RS: Sorry about that. I think you were talking about--you had just talked about the Pearl Harbor and then--.
CS: Yeah, I remember us going over to a church that night, and I remember them gathering around the radio when President Roosevelt made the speech. I don%u2019t remember the exact words, but I remember the phrase %u201Cgoing down as a day of infamy.%u201D I guess I was probably eight years old, I guess, at the time. Yeah, that was a really serious time. The personal thing about it, I was in the cotton field, and of course it%u2019s war and you didn%u2019t have a complete comprehension of what was going on. I saw this plane going over and it had it had a black (00:54) for some reason or another. I thought it was going to bomb us, and I ran; I couldn%u2019t get out from under that plane [Laughter]. Fortunately, it went on though. To me, it was a scary moment at the time. The other thing being, World War II is how the country came together and how we did everything in support of the war effort. Of course, things like sugar were in short supply. In the school, as a project we%u2019d collect tin cans, cut the lids out of them and mash them so they would be flat so they could be recycling the metal and so forth. But, unlike the situation today, where people seem to have all kinds of varied opinions, if you had an opinion like that, you wouldn%u2019t have dared express it. I mean, it was just a total war effort. None of my brothers and sisters--my dad didn%u2019t serve in World War II and I was the oldest son, so none of us served in World War II. I had some cousins that served and one that got killed. But just all the men were in the war effort; the young men were. It was a trying time.
RS: What do you think the war had--what impact do you think on the local economy? Was that when you saw some more plants coming in?
CS: Yeah, I think the Depression was still on up until the start of World War II, and I think the building of tanks and guns and ships and so forth probably helped end the Depression, so there was a lot of money spread around, yeah.
RS: And you were working in the cotton fields?
CS: Yes.
RS: Okay. And what age did you start working there?
CS: I%u2019m sure I probably hoed cotton when I was ten or eleven. I was plowing, following a mule, when I was thirteen or so. I guess about %u201948--well, I guess I was fifteen or sixteen, we got a tractor, but I was actually plowing--doing simple plowing, now, behind a mule when I was thirteen. It was our life, actually. People were happier than they are now; they weren%u2019t as self-centered and there wasn%u2019t this %u201Cwoe is me.%u201D The other thing about that era, though; you were a lot more self-reliant. Like when I finished school in 1951, initially, I didn%u2019t know what I%u2019d do, but I knew I%u2019d make a living. I knew I had to work, and work hard; that wasn%u2019t a question. But I knew I%u2019d make a living, unlike the people today. Of course, they%u2019re a little more choosy, and there may or may not be opportunities, I don%u2019t know, but you just was confident: %u201CI%u2019ll do something to make a living.%u201D We were much more self-reliant. It didn%u2019t take as much to live on; you didn%u2019t have extravagant tastes. I look back, and here I am seventy-seven years of age, and as I reflect back--and this is a part of history that%u2019s hard to grasp and it%u2019s hard for people to understand, but all through high school, and I guess until I graduated high school, I never saw a black woman driving a car. Now, primarily in the country, now--it may have been different in the city. I%u2019ve seen them pushing cars, pushing the husband%u2019s old clunker, trying to get it cranked, but I never remember, up through high school, seeing a black woman drive a car. That shows you how much change there%u2019s been. Maybe they were, but I just don%u2019t remember.
RS: Were there black tenants on the farms that you worked?
CS: Yes, yes.
RS: So you worked with them or%u2026?
CS: %u2026Oh, yes%u2026
RS: %u2026grew up with them?
CS: Yeah, it was an era that people wouldn%u2019t understand--and friends with them, but the one thing, you did not go to church with them, didn%u2019t spend the night, normally, but you ate with them [Laughter], you played with them. In fact, my best friend was Robert Gill. He was about my age, and I look back on the history now, and I see that poor Robert didn%u2019t have opportunities. Not many of us had the opportunities. All of us had it hard, and the blacks had it harder. I mean, it was just more difficult for them; virtually all of them were tenant farmers. I remember my friend, Robert Lee, he didn%u2019t have the opportunity to go on to school, and I felt that was a tragedy; it truly was. But then I see today%u2019s society after integration is a way of life, that people don%u2019t take advantage of the situation and I don%u2019t know which is the greater tragedy. I really don%u2019t. But back then, people find it hard to believe that there was a lot more harmony back then there is now. I think both races just accepted that we didn%u2019t hold each other personally responsible, but then you just judged each other as a individual. That, to me, was an interesting part because we got along together and quite frankly, tenant farmers seemed to be happy. I remember a lot about--didn%u2019t have cars, but there was, up the creek, a family lived up there and they come down the creek; there was a path down the creek, and they%u2019d sing. It%u2019d be nine o%u2019clock at night and several would be singing, and it was a beautiful way they sing in harmony and they just--it was a different era. People can%u2019t fully understand it, but an interesting point: some of the fellows my age that grew up with the tenant farmers, on two different occasions--well, both of them went to Baltimore, but different places--and Darwin Ross, he came back several years ago. Came in here; sat in here. His dad was a minister, a fine fellow. He had a number of children, and he came in here. He said, %u201CThe happiest days of my life were spent on this farm,%u201D and I knew how hard we had it, and I%u2019d just shake this head and I%u2019d say, %u201CHow could this be?%u201D But the one thing I%u2019d point out about my mother is that if they came around, they were always offered food. I mean, that was just her trait, I guess, saying that she cared for them or whatever. They%u2019d say--this family that lived there--my mother would say, %u201CShould always give her some food.%u201D If she didn%u2019t have any ham or beef for the biscuits, she%u2019d give her some butter and jelly in it. So I remember that. To show you another (08:46), and that was Darwin Ross and Austin Sweezy, another fellow my age. Now I guess about three to four years ago, they was over there bush-hogging, and my brother said, %u201CThat looks like Austin (08:59). Austin had been up to Baltimore as well, and he stopped; we chatted, and unsolicited, he said, %u201CThe best years of my life were spent on this farm,%u201D and I would still shake my head and say, %u201CHow can this be?%u201D He went on, so it%u2019s been a real change and people find it hard to believe that you%u2019re trying to maybe just--I don%u2019t talk it much--I%u2019m talking more openly about it, I guess now, because I think you may be trying to justify segregation or something that way, and that%u2019s not the point at all. But, I just think there was more true feeling and support for each other than there is now. In fact, and I thought it was sin in the early days of my life, I thought well, that%u2019s just somebody trying to justify segregation--that a Northerner loves the race but hates the individual, and says a Southerner hates the race but loves the individual. Initially, I thought that%u2019s just them trying to--. But quite frankly, the older I get, I see an element of truth in that. So I mean, for what it%u2019s worth. [Pause] Yeah, black ladies a lot of the time worked domestically, and they lived in the house and we cared for them like a mother, and they took care of us like a child--their children, but it was just a different era.
RS: Was this on this land where we are right now?
CS: Yes, that%u2019s one of the pleasures that I have here; this is part of our family farm. I grew up and I%u2019ve literally plowed these fields, picked cotton in these fields, and now I can get back in that house down there. We didn%u2019t have any overnight heat, so you have to get up and build a fire in the morning, it was so cold. I can get up, and on a carpet floor, put down--the heat%u2019s on now--this place means more to me than it does to anybody.
RS: That%u2019s great. [Pause] Well, you graduated from high school in %u201951, so were you still here when the boll weevil hit?
CS: Yes.
RS: Could you describe some of the impacts of that?
CS: Yeah, it changed farming entirely. Back in the late forties, Cleveland County competed with Robeson County to be the top cotton-producing county in North Carolina. Every red hill had cotton on it; it was just cotton everywhere, unless there was grain or corn for the livestock. But just virtually available plot of land had cotton on it, and that%u2019s just how prevalent it was. It was probably easily twenty to thirty gins in this county, cotton gins. Now, there%u2019s two, so it was truly a different era. And some of the gins that paid a cent or two or somewhat more for cotton, you%u2019d sometimes go and spend the night, there would be so much cotton stacked up that they%u2019d have to wait. There was a gin up at Casar that was run by the Elmores; you just automatically said, %u201CWell, if I go up there near dark, I%u2019ll be spending the night.%u201D It wasn%u2019t bad; you slept on the cotton. If there was a little store open there, you got you a can of sardines, and pork and beans and crackers, and an RC or a Coke, and that was a way of life. If you got cold, you just buried down in the cotton [Laughter].
RS: That sounds soft.
CS: Yeah, but it did change the economy. So that would have been in the late forties, I guess, or the very early fifties. They attempted to spray the boll weevil, but it wasn%u2019t all that successful. Then I left the farm in the fall of %u201951 and went up to Gardner-Webb. Cotton sort of played out, didn%u2019t--later on, labor got scarce and more expensive, and it just wasn%u2019t practical to hand-pick it unless you had a large family or something like that. So cotton played out pretty much.
RS: Could you describe the process of picking cotton--you know, growing cotton and then picking cotton as you remember it?
CS: Well, first of all, it was hard work, but you would have a fertilizer sack--usually the fertilizer came in two-hundred-pound sacks, and you%u2019d use that. We%u2019d call it a pick-sack. You%u2019d take and put a rock underneath one side of it and tie a string or a strap just to hold it--maybe a strap of some kind, usually made out of cloth out of one of the sacks. You just tore it up and made you a strap and strapped it to your side, and you just go along. In picking the cotton, I was always too herky-jerky and try to speed myself and I%u2019d burn out and wouldn%u2019t do very good. I never was a good cotton picker, but you could see some people, particularly the black women, they could just have a certain rhythm to them, a motion, and they could pick, but it was hard work. Plus, those cotton burrs, the end of the burrs were sharp, and if you didn%u2019t watch yourself, you%u2019d stick your fingers under the fingernails, the burrs would, so it%u2019s hard work. It%u2019s something I never care to do again.
RS: Not me. And so from there, you went on to UNC after--well, you went to the service first?
CS: No, I went from Gardner-Webb, one year at Gardner-Webb, then I went on to UNC-Chapel Hill. That would have been in the fall of %u201952, and quite frankly, I had so many deficiencies I had to make up. For instance, I didn%u2019t take foreign language in high school, and when I went to Chapel Hill, I had to make them up as a deficiency. Anyhow, it came to January of %u201955, and I wasn%u2019t going to graduate that June, and the Korean GI Bill was going to run out. I thought is would be drafted soon anyway, so I said, %u201CProbably the best thing I need to do is just at the end of the semester, January %u201955, is to join the Army and get the Korean GI Bill, then come back and finish up school.%u201D That way, I%u2019d get off--my dad had, frankly, been paying my way--didn%u2019t have the Pell stuff and all that stuff back in those days, so that got an obligation, an obligation for a certain kind of responsibility from him, so since I joined, I had to spend three years in the service. If they draft you back then it was two years, but joining, it took three years. So I joined, and it was a good thing I did because I got the military obligation behind me; then I came back and got the GI Bill. I married, and when I found out I wasn%u2019t going overseas, we went back to Chapel Hill and I finished up. It was real interesting though. In Chapel Hill, I flunked chemistry--64 (grade), I believe. We had a professor there that gave an open-book quiz I remember, and the class average was 16, to show you how ridiculous the quiz was, and those that were taking it the first time, the class average was 8, so, frankly, I didn%u2019t pass. But then a friend of mine, of course he flunked too, and the first person I saw when I got back from the service was Joe. I forget his last name. %u201CJoe, how you doing?%u201D and all that stuff. %u201CFine.%u201D %u201CWell, what%u2019re you majoring in?%u201D %u201CBiochemistry,%u201D [Laughter] so Joe and I had flunked chemistry earlier and he had turned out, he was getting his PhD in biochemistry.
RS: Oh, wow!
CS: Did you major in chemistry too?
RS: Yeah, I majored in chemistry. Well, another irony there to show you how deficient I was: I majored in chemistry and didn%u2019t even take it in high school. But really, this is a tribute to Gardner-Webb, but the time I%u2019ve said it recently that I hadn%u2019t said much about it ever until recently, but the very best chemistry professor I ever had--and I had some good ones at Chapel Hill--was over at Gardner-Webb, in terms of the basics and making it clear to you. Now, Professor Moseley, and I had some good professors [Phone ringing] at Chapel Hill [Interruption]. Yeah, Gardner-Webb, and then I went on to Chapel Hill, and I did major in chemistry. I was thinking about becoming pre-dental, and I was in pre-dental curriculum, but I then went to service and I said, %u201CI don%u2019t think I want to go to dental school,%u201D and the nearest degree was in chemistry, so that%u2019s where I got my bachelor%u2019s--chemistry.
RS: Do you remember much about Chapel Hill the town in those days and what it was like? Did y%u2019all get out?
CS: Yeah, of course, it was a, if you will, a quaint town, if you will, at that time in the fifties. You interacted with the people there at the various places. I liked it; I didn%u2019t have much money at the time to spend much. Going to the Rathskeller or something like that was a special event, but it was different than it is today. Now, the real interesting part after service and came back, I%u2019d initially rented one side of a duplex, and I believe it cost me seventy dollars a month, but the university had housing in what they call Victory Village. Well, I got in that, the single apartment--fifteen dollars a month. Then I rented a dresser and a chair or something; I think I paid seventeen dollars a month. You had your little couch you slept on that folded up. But yeah, we got by, and it was part of those old World War II barracks that they made in Victory Village. So, we were on the other side of the campus. As I remember, Chapel Hill was a nice, friendly town, seemingly--less metropolitan than it is now.
RS: Do you remember the sit-ins starting around that time or student activism?
CS: I was out, I was out.
RS: Okay.
CS: I%u2019d hear about them and so forth, but--. And, you know, I guess (22:21) was a value system, and I wasn%u2019t very sympathetic toward them, frankly, but I knew they went on.
RS: So after that you started to work for Fiber Industries, or a year after that?
CS: Yeah, I started in 1960. I finished up and got a degree in January 1959, worked with Dad the remainder of the year and the first part of the year, then May of 1960 went to work with Fiber Industries, a polyester manufacturer that%u2019s about seven miles south of Shelby. It was the beginning of a boom, it really was. That plant grew to about thirty-three-hundred employees, so it was a remarkable time. It was constant growth, constant growth. Daniel Construction Company was the one that built the plant, and I remember one period of time, I guess in a seventeen-year period, Daniel was active for except maybe a period of twenty days down there, so it grew phenomenally, polyester did. That was an irony, too, me coming out of the cotton field and then here%u2019s polyester, in some ways a competitor, but there%u2019s also polyester and cotton that%u2019s blended, and that makes a good product too.
RS: What type of job did you start out with there?
CS: Well, in the lab, to show you how fast things was moving, as a raw material tester, but I didn%u2019t stay there but about ninety days. Then they pulled me over as a supervisor in the yarn laboratory, testing yarn products. I stayed there a year or so; then they put me in as a development engineer, developing products; then a production engineer; then got in manufacturing as a unit superintendent. That%u2019s where you was in charge of a group that manufactured various products. It was a continuous operation too; you went around the clock, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, of course, including Sundays and all, so it was that kind of operation. I got in manufacturing and then I went up to what they call superintendent level; then I changed over to the personnel function, and just the latter part--I%u2019m not sure of the exact year, but I was over the personnel function for--. It was a good experience, a good plant, and a very well-managed plant initially.
RS: Was there the equivalent of a mill town for that, or was there housing around it?
CS: No, this was--I guess they made a distinction that it wasn%u2019t a mill town. Fiber Industries identified itself more as a chemical operation, and although the product we made went to mills, we just made the fiber. It was in two forms: either it wound on a bobbin, called filament year, or chopped up, cut, that would usually be blended with cotton or rayon or something, and we called it staple. But quite frankly, wages were quite good and it had more of a chemical industry identity, I guess you would say, although a lot of our employees formerly worked at textile plants.
RS: Okay.
CS: Yeah, but in terms of mill housing and so forth, they didn%u2019t have, but the earlier textile plants did have mill houses, and that%u2019s an interesting story too. I know the little village of Double Shoals, about a mile across here, and it had the first textile plant in the county, I think about 1854. The village over there--of course, the mill went out in maybe the 1960s, but for the longest time--this would have been true up %u2018til about two years ago, every house in that village except one was over a hundred years of age. Most of them were built in 1880 or 1890. It served the purpose. A Duke student that came in, and for a %u201CDukie,%u201D he did an excellent piece of work, too, but did just a review of a textile operation. It was a (27:39) project, and he did a fine job. When you talk about the textile plants, it usually polarizes people. They%u2019re either %u201Cmill owners are tyrants and exploiting wages,%u201D or another view, but he gave a balanced view of it, and it was an interesting piece of work he did.
RS: I know there wasn%u2019t much union activity in Cleveland County. Did y%u2019all have some union efforts?
CS: Very little, and we was open about it. We had a commitment that our employees would not meet a union. If you were a member of management, if you want to give him problems, I assume you just treat an employee badly; you%u2019ll get in serious trouble. I mean, we was dedicated to that cause and employees knew it. Occasionally, textile workers would come by and pass out handbills and something like that, but the interesting part--they passed it out one time before I went to personnel-- Harold Weaver just did a comparison of wages of Fiber Industries non-union versus Celanese, who owned us, owned part of us that was unionized--our paying benefits were better. I said, %u201CDon%u2019t do that again. You%u2019ll put too much pressure on us.%u201D [Laughter] But no, we had a good work environment. We didn%u2019t exploit and we made it a point for our employees not to need a union, and they knew it. And they were smart about it; they wanted to keep the union outside so it would be a potential threat, and us on our toes. But it truly was a commitment for our employees not to need a union. It made a good work environment.
RS: Was most of the management folks that had grown into it, or was it a lot of Northerners?
CS: First-line supervision was, but a lot of the senior management, initially, at least, came from Celanese.
RS: Came from--?
CS: Celanese, that was one of our parent companies.
RS: Okay.
CS: There was, actually, to go back to the real beginning, Fiber Industries was established by two owners. ICI Chemical of England, they provided the technology; and Celanese, which was an American company that provided the marketing, that aspect of it, so it was fifty-fifty ownership. But most of the senior management initially came from Celanese, but after about a year, first-line supervision would be from an hourly promotion from basically local people. And in fact, to be quite honest, we had a lot of engineers from England. They were very careful initially and not put them in managerial roles because they felt like they didn%u2019t know how to manage people. I mean, that%u2019s how committed we were. There could be, perhaps, maybe abrupt talk and not understand the situation, so quite frankly, not in our plant. There may be some of the others did, but in our plant, they didn%u2019t get in management roles until later on, when they got a little more acclimated. I know that%u2019s how we respected and protected our employees. Does that give you a different view of things?
RS: This is what I%u2019ve been hearing, actually, in some of the interviews I%u2019ve been doing, that Cleveland County is kind of different from a place like Gastonia or Winston-Salem, where there%u2019s a lot of union activity.
CS: Yeah, but we worked together, and it wasn%u2019t at the expense of the employees. (31:45). There was one plant that only had one personnel person, and of all things was busy on the newspaper and all that stuff and wasn%u2019t processing the claims. Quite frankly, other personnel people said, %u201CLook, you%u2019re having problems in your plant. You really need to address them.%u201D Someone got the word; I don%u2019t know if it was the plant manager, but it did. But that was helping the people because they were having problems, and at some point in time if they couldn%u2019t get relief, they would have been justified going to the union. Again, that was the point I%u2019m trying to get it so that they didn%u2019t need a union, see, so we worked that kind of thing. Yeah, there was not a local union in Cleveland County at the time. You know, like, Southern Bell, they were unionized, and I guess, Carolina Freight over in Cherryville--another county, but there was not a local union in Cleveland County. But now I%u2019ve heard, in going back to the thirties when there was a union drive that there were attempts to unionize plants. Man, they say Hal Schenck, who was one of the Schencks, owners of the Cleveland Mills up here in Lawndale, came over here with his shotgun. I mean, it was a rough time, I guess. But, during my era at Fiber Industries, this would have been from the sixties on, and the thing that probably helped it too was labor got a little scarce too. That makes a difference too if you%u2019re competing for good labor, so they had the best of both worlds there.
RS: So you were around for some of the integration of the schools or desegregation of the schools?
CS: Yes, well, in the plant too.
RS: And the plant?
CS: Yeah.
RS: Okay.
CS: Yeah, initially, we were a segregated plant, frankly. I mean most, if not all the janitors were black. We did desegregate, I guess sometime in the sixties--which, the plant wasn%u2019t very old, and it went smooth, went very smooth. We had a commitment. Real interesting, [Laughter] I take two views of that. We had people coming in from all the foreign plants overseas and all that stuff. It%u2019s sort of their view; I%u2019d take the opposite view on it if they%u2019d look at someone, because we got along amazingly well. We handled it right, I think, for we cared about employees. Oh, depending on the person%u2019s view, how they%u2019d look at it, you know. %u201CYou got black people doing this job?%u201D I said, %u201CWell, it doesn%u2019t rub off on the yarn!%u201D you know. [Laughter] RS: Uh-huh.
CS: Or if there would be another opposing view: %u201CAre you a racist?%u201D You know, so I would sort of do that if I knew them well enough, but it did go smooth and eventually got in, certainly in supervision and management, and it worked out quite well. Schools--but here was the interesting part about the integration, both in the plants, and I sense some in the schools. My daughter and my oldest son, I don%u2019t know if it was high school at that point or not, (35:46), but I%u2019d say, %u201CWell, it will take a generation, but hopefully, then everything will be all right. When the schools first integrated, they were seeming and working together in more harmony, because I remember my oldest children, they thought they were very free and they worked together. But quite frankly, my two younger children, you could tell--and they weren%u2019t brought up any differently--you could tell just in the talk with their peers and so forth, it was a little bit more polarized. I noticed pretty much the same thing in the plant; they could eat anywhere they wanted to. I think in the early days of integration, they made the point that--eat together, you know, whites and blacks. But later on, a lot of times there would be just a table in the canteens and the break areas where the tables were exclusively blacks--or whites. I mean, it could go either way, but it got a little bit more polarized at the end. There wasn%u2019t any %u201Canti%u201D stuff; I guess they just got more comfortable with it. That was a contrast from the early days of integration. Go figure. [Chuckles] RS: Well, it fits with some of the other interviews I%u2019ve done, especially in Chapel Hill. But as far as the actual--were your children in elementary school when the schools integrated, or were they not even there yet?
CS: Let%u2019s see, we%u2019d have been talking, what, %u201964 or %u201965? Let%u2019s see, Susan was born in--. No, they would have been approaching high school--middle school or early high school, I guess.
RS: Okay.
CS: My oldest one--. But they got along. My son played three sports, and they got along together and just--. But it seemed like it was less polarized than later on--I mean, initially, than they were later on. I guess I re-polarized it. [Laughter] RS: Was there some tension, maybe at the church or among parents about whether it was a good idea or how to do it?
CS: There probably was, but it wasn%u2019t discussed too openly, not in church--still had their views--but didn%u2019t discuss it too much. Unless, I mean, not official church work. They had their own private beliefs. And churches are probably still one of the most segregated institutions I guess we have. We have a few and it%u2019s not an issue either way.
RS: If you were to say--this is kind of changing the subject unless you want to stay there. Anything else to say about it?
CS: On what, integration?
RS: Um-hmm.
CS: [Pause] I%u2019m concerned. And in fact, [pause] I think virtually everyone has strong racial views one way or the other, and if they don%u2019t, I think they%u2019re lying. I think there%u2019s a lot of dishonesty about race, and to me, there%u2019s people exploiting on both sides. For instance, one of the most threatening things for Jesse Jackson would be for racial harmony to break out. There%u2019s people exploiting it. I know back in the days of the plant, a lot of days we%u2019d get these calls: %u201CDo you support %u2018so and so%u2019%u201D? %u201CWell, yes we do.%u201D %u201CWell, give us some money.%u201D %u201CWell, I don%u2019t know anything about your organization. Send me some literature.%u201D Oh, that would get them hostile. %u201CNow, well, now we don%u2019t know anything about your organization.%u201D %u201CAre you for integration or not?%u201D %u201CWell, yeah, under certain conditions,%u201D but we normally wouldn%u2019t send it to them. But you%u2019d get badgered like that, so there%u2019s that element going on, and quite frankly, the way the country is going, I don%u2019t see us healing very well. It%u2019s a sad commentary, but I don%u2019t. [Pause] Back in those days you knew who your black and white friends were and you could depend on each other, and there%u2019s still an element of that obviously going on. But there%u2019s been an interesting thing, too, for us pure Southerners: In the early days, we thought the blacks would just try to be equal; now our concern is they more try to be equal.
RS: What do you mean by that?
CS: In terms of getting an education, in terms of doing the things--. So, that%u2019s my greatest concern now, is here%u2019s the opportunity and here%u2019s the single parent--the birth rate to single parents is what, seventy percent? And, like I said, dropping out of school and a high crime rate, and I don%u2019t see progress there. I think the black community could do more to help itself by its bootstraps than they%u2019re doing. Of course, I guess that side is you can always say that, but in the old days some of the black leadership would have called some people to task. You know--straighten up. I don%u2019t see it now. Oh, it happens on an individual basis, but as a movement I don%u2019t see it. Do you follow me?
RS: I do. I%u2019ve seen much more--I%u2019ve worked and attended a black church, so I%u2019ve seen a lot more of the good work on the good side of it%u2026
CS: %u2026Yeah, I%u2019m sure%u2026
RS: %u2026that you don%u2019t see on the TV.
CS: Yeah, I%u2019m sure of that, yeah.
RS: The TV kind of--. I seem to hear in Cleveland County--I went to Mt. Calvary yesterday--they just had about a couple hundred young parents in for a program on Saturday.
CS: Oh, yeah, that doesn%u2019t mean every black.
RS: Yeah.
CS: (43:02-43:06). Could see it there, and maybe it%u2019s not even a valid observation either, you see.
RS: I don%u2019t think anything is so black-and-white, probably.
CS: No.
RS: Let me just take you back; I%u2019d like to always have a good--well, not always, so I don%u2019t want to set up expectations, but if you could pick one person outside of your family, growing up, that had the biggest impact on you. Or maybe not the biggest, but maybe a person or two who had positive or important influences on you?
CS: Well, certainly Gene LeGrand, my plant manager down at Fiber. He was a very strong leader and a very honest person, and highly respected by the membership; he had a lot of influence on me.
RS: Was he someone that was there when you first got there?
CS: He was there, yes.
RS: Okay.
CS: Or established, yeah. I had a lot of family members too.
RS: You can tell about maybe someone like an uncle or cousin that had a big influence.
CS: Well, my grandpa. Grandpa just--I just like the way Grandpa operated. Like I say, he was a marvelous achiever, a good conversationalist, and people just gathered around him. Grandpa had a special touch. [Phone rings] [Recorder is turned off and then back on] RS: Two-hundred-and-fifty?
CS: Yeah.
RS: Wow, that%u2019s awesome.
CS: Yeah, it is nice. (44:59), but the reunions don%u2019t stop there. This coming Sunday, I guess I head this one up. I%u2019m president of the Spangler-Green reunion. That%u2019s our family reunion, and we hold it the third Sunday in August. I mean, I%u2019ve been thirty-something years as president, but on it now, we%u2019ll have probably, as a family, two-hundred-and-twenty-five. We ran across a letter that was dated 1907 and a family was visiting in the area, and it said they went to the Spangler reunion. We didn%u2019t know exactly how early it started, so we knew it was going in 1907. So in 2007, we had us a hundredth anniversary, and we had over four hundred to attend.
RS: Wow!
CS: But we did a special thing just to sort of set the tone: At the very beginning, not a word was said, not a welcome, but the reunion initially started as a celebration of the birthday of Great-Grandma Spangler. Anyhow, we had a setting there depicting the era, and then the children coming in bringing the birthday gifts. Like I say, didn%u2019t say a word of welcome or anything, just let that skit play out until they went on into some of the other things about the reunion. Had a nice brochure on it, had tents so we could eat outside like they did back in those days, then of course the meal, homemade ice cream and all. We had a good time.
RS: Oh, great.
CS: But over four hundred there.
RS: That%u2019s incredible.
CS: [Laughter] But on a routine year, it will be over two hundred.
RS: That%u2019s wild.
CS: Then I%u2019m president also of another reunion I do, a school reunion--Piedmont School. It%u2019s the last--it ceased being a high school in 1960, so it%u2019s held in the third August, so it will be Saturday week. This will be the fiftieth year of the last class.
RS: Of the last class? Okay. That%u2019s something.
CS: I%u2019m retiring from that one though, but--.
RS: I%u2019ve got two more questions. Twenty years from now, for Shelby, what will Shelby look like, best-case scenario? What will Shelby look like, worst-case scenario?
CS: I don%u2019t know. Shelby is at the crossroads, and maybe the worst is behind us. I%u2019m hopeful, and certainly some of the things that Brownie is doing in Destination Cleveland County, to me, is a ray of hope in what it stands for. Here I am a part of Carolina Thread Trail too, that%u2019s a proposed fifteen-county trail system, and hopefully that can be established so that it will give us a better quality of life. I hope we%u2019re in better shape on our drugs and crime, and I think we will be. I see signs of that, and I do see signs of the black community taking on more responsibility here. But they don%u2019t have the franchise on crime. I mean, ours are pretty bad too, so I potentially see a better one. But the other part being, it won%u2019t happen by itself unless we have some leadership, and this could lead to the worst of Shelby. If it could be more of the same, quite frankly, on the more sinister side, I guess if they don%u2019t correct some of our behavior and our attitudes in our behavior systems, it could be a hellhole. I think leadership will probably help determine which way it goes.
RS: And my last question is: Is there anything you wish I had asked or that I left out, or that you think someone going through the Scruggs Center might want to hear?
CS: No, the only thing I wonder: Why would you interview me? I am so bland; I have nothing that%u2019s newsworthy, and I just don%u2019t see why I%u2019d be asked to give an interview. I appreciate it; I don%u2019t mind sharing it, but I don%u2019t see any%u2026
RS: %u2026We%u2019ll put that in the comedy section because we just have a lot of information, a lot of history that we went through today, so that%u2019s a little joke. [Laughter]

END OF INTERVIEW
Mike Hamrick, September 2nd, 2010