JIM AND MARY BLANTON

TRANSCRIPT %u2013 JIM AND MARY BLANTON
[Compiled September 18th, 2009]

Interviewees: JIM AND MARY BLANTON

Interviewers: Buzz Biggerstaff and Jeff Currie

Interview Date: August 18, 2008

Location: The Blantons%u2019 home in Lawndale

Length: Approximately one hour and thirty-eight minutes

JEFF CURRIE: So, did y%u2019all both grow up on the mill village here or in Lawndale?
JIM BLANTON: Yeah, we growed up here. I was born February the 1st, 1920--been here ever since, outside of a little time in the service in World War II. I worked over here at the mill all the time.
JC: Yeah.
JB: About fifty years I worked over there.
MRS. BLANTON: I was born here. I was born February the 15th, 1922.
JC: Y%u2019all both born in February.
JB: Yeah.
JC: Right close together.
JB: Just two years apart.
BUZZ BIGGERSTAFF: I%u2019ve got a grandson born on the first. Eighty-nine, so you were here not all that many years after the plant started, then you were born?
JB: I went to work in %u201936.
BB: %u201936?
JB: Yeah, I believe that was the first year the eight-hour law come out, or maybe it was the year before, but they was running eight-hour shifts when I went to work.
BB: Okay, now the typical shift before then was ten hours? Is that what they did?
JB: Twelve hours, I believe.
BB: Twelve hours?
JB: Or eleven. You got an hour off for lunch.
BB: An hour for lunch, so they worked eleven hours.
JB: Yeah, they just had two shifts. Didn%u2019t have but one for a while when they run all day and stood at night. Then they put the three shifts in when the eight-hour law come in.
JC: Did you work on the first?
JB: I worked on all of them at some time or another. I went to work on the first. My dad, he was boss man in twister and spinning. They looked over them; they had a little boss man under them. We called them bosses back then [laughed] section hands, or whatever you might want to call them today. It was a good place to work if you was going to follow textiles. My dad told me, %u201CIf you%u2019re going to stay in the textile business, just stay where you%u2019re at. At Lawndale--if you go to Shelby, you may get a nickel more on the hour, but it will cost you ten cents more to live.%u201D
JC: That%u2019s about right [laughed].
BB: Yeah.
JB: Stay in Lawndale.
JC: Yeah, the city--the big cities, they cost a little bit more.
JB: Yeah, I went to work for five cent an hour--forty cent a day.
BB: Is that what you went to work for?
JB: Yeah, doffing spinning. I was going to get smart; I quit school in the tenth grade. I didn%u2019t mean to, though. My dad told me to go to work, to get me a job. %u201CGo on down there; they%u2019ll put you to work.%u201D I said, %u201CWell, I%u2019ll just go to work and work the evening shift now, and go to school of a morning. That way I can keep going to school.%u201D He said, %u201CThat%u2019ll be fine.%u201D He was running a little store over there on Main Street at that time, a little grocery store. But, that going to school and working--it wasn%u2019t long until I just let the school go [others laughed].
BB: You%u2019s making a fortune working, wasn%u2019t you?
JB: Yeah, I was getting rich.
JC: You figured you were going into the mill anyway, right?
JB: Yeah. Well, education at that time didn%u2019t mean that much to a mill hand. I could run anything they had down there before I quit. In fact, if they needed somebody in another department, they would come to my boss man and say, %u201CIf you ain%u2019t using Blanton, let him come with me.%u201D I%u2019d go in there; they%u2019d put me on a job and I%u2019d run it most of the time. I learned to run about everything in the mill.
BB: Now y%u2019all were--you were just yarn producers; you didn%u2019t do any weaving?
JB: No, we didn%u2019t do any weaving--finally went into knitting way later on, but I didn%u2019t have much%u2026
BB: %u2026Was that after Spartan Mills bought it or was--?
JB: Well, Cleveland Mills, didn%u2019t they have some knitting machines first, before they bought it?
MB: I think they%u2026
JB: %u2026I doubt it. I doubt it. I believe they put the knitting in.
BB: Spartan Mills?
JB: Spartan Mills. I believe they put in the knitting machines. But it was a--us boys doffing, spinning, about four of us doffing, spinning--well, we%u2019d doff as fast as we could and get around. We%u2019d go out the end of the mill and walk down in behind the old man Schenck house and--swimming hole down there on the river [others laughed]. We%u2019d go down there and go swimming.
BB: Yeah.
JB: Just strip off--nothing around.
JC: [Laughed].
BB: So that was your leisure while you%u2019s working then?
JB: Yeah, when we got around, we could go out of the mill and do what we wanted to, just so we was back when they needed us. Old man Jake Blackburn--he%u2019d take them two fingers and stick in his mouth and walk out on the porch, upstair porch, and whistle down the river. If you hear him whistle, you%u2019d get--he%u2019d whistle a little bit before he needed us.
BB: Yeah.
JB: Here we come!
JC: [Laughed]. Throwed them clothes on real quick.
BB: So you did swimming between doffs, then?
JB: Yeah [laughed]. We had a good time. But the Schencks cared for their people. They had the company store; if you worked over there you had something to eat; you had clothes. They cared for their help. They took care of it. They had everything in there, even had an old-timey casket or two, made out of wood. They sold shoes, clothes, cotton--I mean cloth and everything, you know, groceries--.
BB: So would you just go in and have them set it down if you needed it?
JB: We could charge it.
BB: And they%u2019d take it out on payday.
JB: And some of the time they%u2019d take it out of the check. They didn%u2019t do it as long as you went in and paid on Friday, whenever you got your check; they didn%u2019t bother your check. But if you got behind about two weeks, they%u2019d start taking some out sometime to get it caught up.
BB: Take it out of your check.
JB: They figured we%u2019re going to drink ours away some other way [laughed].
BB: Well, now did you get paid with a check early on, or cash?
JB: No, it was cash to start with.
BB: Cash in a little%u2026
JB: %u2026In an envelope.
BB: Yeah.
JB: Cash money in an envelope.
BB: Did they ever have scrips like you%u2019d have in a store?
JB: No, huh-uh. The dope wagon man, he%u2019d come through and he had some things he%u2019d sell you so many of them you could use to buy off of his wagon%u2026
BB: %u2026And not have to fool with money%u2026
JB: %u2026and not have to have money. Tal Wallace run the dope wagon; he looked after that. Well, he wasn%u2019t on it; he had somebody hired to. I even run that a while [laughed] for him on extra pay. My wife, she worked too. She was a winder hand. She worked over there a good while. It%u2019s kindly funny--I%u2019ve been fired--one of the boss men would fire me and say, %u201CI just can%u2019t put up with you no longer. I%u2019m going to fire you.%u201D Well, his boys worked in there, and he was a boss. My daddy was a boss, and we worked--his children worked in the mill. [ ], he was a boss and [ ] and his boys worked too. The boss men all lives here and had to [ ]. I%u2019d get fired in the spinning room, and poor ole Craig Blackburn would beat me to the front door and say, %u201CGo on back in there and go to work.%u201D
JC: [Laughed].
BB: Didn%u2019t get a free minute, then?
JB: No, they didn%u2019t believe in that. They wanted you to work. I know we aggravated them, but they was good people.
JC: Did y%u2019all have a slowdown when you didn%u2019t want to work so much that day?
JB: Yeah, we didn%u2019t work by the piece; we worked by the hour. We didn%u2019t go to working for piece work until Montgomery come there. They did a lot of it by piece work, especially the winders and all. Still had hour paid hands--hourly paid hands, but it was a good place to work. We all enjoyed it.
BB: So you had--are you speaking of Montgomery Mills owned it at one time?
JB: Yeah.
BB: So you had Mr. Schenck and then--when did the Forneys--one of them married a Forney, right? Tommy%u2019s--.
JB: Yeah, there was one of them married a Schenck--married one of the Forneys.
BB: I mean a Schenck, yeah.
JB: That%u2019s before my time. The Schencks and Ramsaurs built up on the creek up yonder, the first mill.
BB: Uh-huh.
JB: Up on the creek.
JC: Is that on Knob Creek?
JB: On Knob Creek.
JC: How far back off the road is it?
JB: From off the road, it wasn%u2019t but about a quarter of a mile off the Casar and Lawndale Road where the bridge is up there.
JC: To the right or to the left?
JB: To the right.
JC: To the right?
JB: Yeah. There%u2019s an old dam, I think, still stands where they run the water wheel with it up there, but it was so--the creek was so small that it didn%u2019t have enough force. They wanted the mill bigger, so they pulled it all down here on this river here, the First Broad, and built the mill down there and established the town. They brought these old houses, some of them, from up there at Number One, they called it. They brought these old houses down here and took them apart some way and put them back together.
BB: So they actually had houses up there?
JB: Yeah, they had some houses up there, but they owned all the houses on this side of the river that I live on here--we live on. Across the creek, them people owned their own homes over there, mostly all of them. The Company owned everything in the city limits over here. Twenty five cent a room--. Your power bill--they had the power down on the river and we used their power and it would run about two dollars a month or a dollar-and-a-half. You couldn%u2019t beat it.
BB: That price came a little bit later? Like, when you started out at a nickel an hour, did you rent a house at that time?
JB: No, I was living with my dad at that time. But after I got married--we come here in %u201940, close to %u201940. It was a three-room house, but I%u2019ve underpinned the whole--dug it out--me and my boys dug it out and got a complete basement under it. We%u2019ve been here since the first of %u201940.
BB: So you%u2019ve lived here sixty-eight years then.
JB: Yeah. Raised our family here and they%u2019ve all married and got families and got brick homes and living off from me. I run %u2018em out of Lawndale just as fast as I could [others laughed].
It%u2019s a-goin%u2019 down, boys, keep a-goin%u2019.
JC: Did any of them work in the mill before it closed?
JB: Just a short time. Just as quick as I could get Fiber Industries%u2019 stuff started, and Pittsburgh over here, I had them on the way. I%u2019d go down and get the old man I knowed in Shelby that done the hiring for them (and I said), %u201CPut my boys to work at one of these places.%u201D
BB: Yeah.
JB: He%u2019d call them in--next day or two they%u2019d be working.
BB: Yeah. Yeah, they had to depend on folks like you to inform them who was a good candidate.
JB: Yeah. They%u2019d say, %u201CYou%u2019re from Lawndale.%u201D %u201COh, he knows me.%u201D Bynum Weathers, you might have heard of him.
BB: I%u2019ve heard the name.
JB: Bynum Weathers--%u201CCricket,%u201D they used to call him in school, playing basketball and jumping around. Cricket Weathers, but Bynum was his name. When I seen him I told him, %u201CBynum, my boys are wanting work.%u201D %u201CLet%u2019s go to the office,%u201D and he took his name down and birthday and everything. He said, %u201CWe%u2019ll call him if we%u2019re down there, so they will be calling them in the next two days. Sure enough, he called them and they had them going.
BB: How many boys did you have?
JB: Three.
BB: Three boys?
JB: Three--three boys.
BB: Well now, did they finish up their careers there, or did they move?
JB: Yeah, they left--one of them went to Pittsburgh. Well, they both, I think, got over there maybe for three or four weeks. Then I had them transferred down to Fiber.
BB: Fiber?
JB: Got them out of that glass. My oldest boy built about twenty-five or thirty years down there, but my youngest boy--he went in as a supervisor--not a supervisor, but something--he was over the spinning room. He was a foreman. The overhead got so costly they started laying off, and had to lay off the overhead. His name come up and they had to let him go. They told him, %u201CYou go to Rock Hill, now, when you get off. Just go to Rock Hill. Go down there and you tell them who you are and they%u2019ll know you. They%u2019ll put you to work.%u201D So he wasn%u2019t out of work a day if he didn%u2019t want to be, maybe a day or two. He went down there and they put him to work, and he finished his time in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
BB: Really? Well now, he had been at the Fiber plant at Shelby?
JB: Yeah.
BB: So, they are retired now?
JB: Yeah, they%u2019re both retired. My oldest daughter is a nurse; she%u2019s retired.
JC: How many daughters did y%u2019all have?
MB: Two.
JC: Two daughters?
JB: My other daughter, she%u2019s running a caf?, her and her husband over on Boiling Springs Road called %u201CThe Flying Pig.%u201D
BB: Really? There at the Sharon Church?
JB: Yeah, there at Sharon Church. My other boy, he lives in the edge of Lawndale over here, but he works at Kings Mountain at the%u2026
MB: %u2026Eaton.
JB: Eaton at Kings Mountain.
BB: Okay.
JB: He looks after the steam plant and the water works for them. He said he had about two or three more--two years yet to go before he could retire. They%u2019ll all be on the retired list.
JC: That%u2019s a good day, isn%u2019t it?
BB: Well, you%u2019ll have some help then, won%u2019t you, cutting the grass and all that?
JB: He come up this morning, that one that retired from South Carolina. He come and cut these banks. I told him I just couldn%u2019t get on them banks.
BB: Yeah.
JC: Yeah, yeah.
JB: Get swimmy-headed and I%u2019d fall off that weed-eater.
BB: Yeah. So he got the banks cut for you then?
JB: Yes, he gets the bank and I ride the field below the house and push a mower in the front.
MB: I don%u2019t know when the daughter that runs a restaurant--I don%u2019t know when her and her husband will get to retire.
JB: They%u2019ll retire when [ ].
BB: Seems like when I passing there, they%u2019re doing good with the restaurant.
JC: That%u2019s a rough business.
MB: It%u2019s a hard job.
JB: It comes in swarms, they say.
BB: Yeah, yeah.
JB: Continuous--they%u2019ll be sitting around doing nothing only cleaning up.
BB: And then the crowd will come in.
JB: And then they%u2019ll just flood them to death.
JC: Right.
JB: We%u2019ll go over there on Friday evenings and eat supper with them, and be nobody in there. Directly, the phone starts ringing--call-in orders, just one right after another. They start getting behind the counter working and I can%u2019t talk to them. They work just as hard as they can work.
BB: Yeah, fill the orders.
JB: Fill the orders. They come in and pick them up and they%u2019re gone.
BB: Yeah.
JC: That%u2019s some busy work. I used to work in a restaurant and it is rough work sometimes.
JB: One of the things I miss, but we%u2019re all just--this is it%u2014Lawndale--it%u2019s dead as a doornail. You can%u2019t buy a pack of cigarettes in Lawndale. The supermarket right out of the city limits up here on Polkville Road you can, but there ain%u2019t a thing you can buy in Lawndale but over here at this women%u2019s clothing store, Ivester%u2019s. The rest of it is just--one filling station--two, one up here and one over across the river. There just ain%u2019t nothing in it.
JC: So did y%u2019all--did you enjoy growing up here? Was it a fun place to grow up?
JB: Why, it was the best place you could have been raised.
JC: Why is that?
JB: Well, we could play ball on every little street around here when we was growing up. We had a ball team on the hill and under the hill and everywhere else. N*****s and whites played together; we enjoyed it--shoot marbles under the streetlights %u2018til bedtime, then we%u2019d have to go in and go to bed. That%u2019s growing up, now, laying out of school every time we got a chance [laughed]. We done a lot of that in our young age.
JC: Did y%u2019all play the other mill teams in baseball?
JB: Well, Lawndale had a team, but they done that. We just played street ball around here.
JC: You just played street ball?
BB: Taped up your ball--got you some yarn and taped it up.
JB: Yeah, get the thread out of the mill and wind one and get our mamas to sew stitches around on it to hold ends in. Get an old poplar limb for a bat or when the ball team played, if they%u2019d break a bat we%u2019d get the broke bat.
BB: Tape it up [laughed]. Put a nail or two in it.
JB: Yeah.
BB: When you were talking about your doffing and you--when you worked and got that doff where you had thirty, forty-five minutes maybe, between when you had to doff again, did you have what they called a %u201Chome%u201D doff? Did you get to go home early on--doff certain days?
JB: No, huh-uh.
BB: Never did have--in other words, if you got done thirty minutes before shift change you still had to stay in there?
JB: Stay there.
BB: Okay.
JB: You couldn%u2019t leave.
BB: The home doff came later.
JB: You couldn%u2019t leave the premises. You could maybe walk outside the mill.
JC: Or you%u2019d go swimming.
JB: Yeah.
JC: [Laughed].
JB: But, trying to think about Lawndale--when I growed up it was dirt road over here; there wasn%u2019t no highway. Trees just lapped over in the streets on both sides and that was a beautiful sight down Main Street. Trees all lapped over and houses on each side of it, and people sitting on the porch laughing and talking with one another across the street.
BB: Probably cooler, wasn%u2019t it?
JB: Yeah, but one church, Union Church, and it belonged to the mill company. The Methodists and Baptists used the same church at the same time, the Methodist preacher at ten in the morning, and the Baptist preacher at night at seven. The next Sunday they%u2019d swap back; you reversed, but the Methodists and Baptists sat together and listened to each preacher a lot of times. People walked down the street going to church. They walked; there wasn%u2019t no cars running down there hardly. We%u2019d walk to church. People was friendly; you didn%u2019t meet strangers in Lawndale. When Casar come down they%u2019d have a fighting match [others laughed].
JC: Y%u2019all didn%u2019t care for them Casar boys?
JB: Them ole boys--bigger boys than us--. Now they fought every Saturday night nearly. When they come around there had to be a fight [others laughed]. A Casar boy said--in Shelby going home, said, %u201CI%u2019ll swim the river %u2018fore I%u2019ll go through Lawndale.%u201D [All laughed].
JC: So y%u2019all had a reputation of being pretty tough around here.
JB: They%u2019d get back up in there at dark and have to come through Casar; they dreaded it too. It was rough on them. I never will forget a Richard--Richard boy--he was older. He was a good bit older than me, but he%u2019d drink and come down here and get drunk nearly every Saturday. He wanted to fight all the time. He%u2019d just cuss and snort. Uncle Jake Ward, he was kindly a quiet fellow, but he%u2019d take his nip now and then. He come down there and was standing in front of the store and Richard just %u2018a cussing and started cussing him. He hadn%u2019t done nothing. He had a--looked like a broom stick. He didn%u2019t say a word; he just walked over and whopped him right across the head with it [laughed]--knocked him cold as a cucumber [all laughed]. He went on home. Richard come to--he looked around and said, %u201CWhat was it hit me?%u201D [All laughed]. They told him; he said, %u201CWell, where%u2019s he at?%u201D %u201CHe%u2019s gone home.%u201D %u201CWell, I%u2019m going too. Don%u2019t go get him %u2018cause I%u2019m going home.%u201D [All laughed].
JC: He didn%u2019t want to tangle no more.
JB: Oh, we had a good time growing up.
BB: Did you have pretty much everything you needed here except maybe a hospital? Did you have a doctor%u2019s office?
JB: We had a doctor in Lawndale about all the time in my time. Yeah, Dr. Grigg was the first one, the oldest doctor we had. He had a little office and we had other doctors come in here and live a good while and some of them set up business. Dr. Maybin was a fine doctor; Dr. Fred Falls was a good doctor. He went to Shelby, but I could call him and he%u2019d be up here to wait on my children when they was sick; he%u2019d come up here. The hospital at Shelby, you could go down there any time you got sick and get in. We all had a little insurance.
MB: The last one was Dr. [ ].
JB: [ ] was the last one. They birthed all of our children then. Come here to the house, some of them.
JC: How would you get back and forth to Shelby? What was the best way if you didn%u2019t have a car?
JB: Oh, there would be somebody to take you. Somebody would have a car to take you.
The doctor took her one night.
MB: Oh, they had a bus line. Hunt%u2019s run a bus line.
JB: The bus line you could ride to Shelby--twenty-five cents, the old Hunt Bus Line. We%u2019d ride to Shelby. How he kept up with it, I don%u2019t know. Sometime they%u2019d--every hour or two he%u2019d make his trip. Get ready to come home, just get on the bus and come home.
JC: Did y%u2019all ever hop on the Lawndale Dummy and go up to Shelby?
JB: No, I never rode the Dummy. I knowed them that had worked on the Dummy and rode it too but I never did.
BB: Do you remember when you got your first car?
JB: Well, I%u2019d done had a family when I got my first car.
BB: Already had a family?
JB: And it was one--I went on a note with one of my boys that worked down in South Carolina. I went on his note to get it when he first got it--thirty-seven, forty, fifty-seven Chevrolet, that fin-tailed Chevrolet.
BB: Yeah, yeah.
JB: Blue and white. It was a pretty thing. He kept it and him and his wife drove it, and they busted a piston in it and he told one day--said, %u201CI ain%u2019t going to finish paying for that car. I%u2019m going to let it go back.%u201D I said, %u201CWell, I%u2019ll take it.%u201D I drove it home with that busted piston. Went down to Shelby over there, and I put it in the garage and they rebuilt the motor for me. I finished paying for it. That was the first car I had.
BB: A fifty-seven Chevy. So you had seven cylinders working, didn%u2019t you?
JB: Yeah [all laughed].
JC: That%u2019s good enough, I guess.
JB: I was talking about our pay--five cent an hour; every week it went up two or three cent. Top wage wasn%u2019t but about thirty-five or forty cent back then. That was two or three weeks to get up to full pay.
BB: Oh, okay.
JB: But you couldn%u2019t beat the people for this town. They was in a little town. I miss %u2018em a whole lot. I miss %u2018em. I mean, I miss %u2018em.
JC: Yeah.
JB: The older ones. In my school class--see, we had school over here. The Company had to build a schoolhouse. First, second, and third grade was called on this side of the river here in Lawndale. Over on the other side they went to Piedmont--walked up the hill to Piedmont, children did. But we went to school over here %u2018til the fourth grade and then I went to Piedmont. We had to walk from here to Piedmont. In the winter--go across the bridge--we wore our shoes out skating when ice was on them iron flats that had cars roll on it.
BB: From here up to the top of the hill is nearly a mile, isn%u2019t it?
JB: It%u2019s a good mile, the way we had to walk. We went through the woods and up the hill.
BB: Did you? Was there a place you could cross the--was the bridge there to cross?
JB: We went across the bridge and [laughed] N******s, they walked from Belwood and Casar back in there all the way to Douglas over on this side. We would find a place somewhere and we%u2019d rock %u2018em; we%u2019d have some rocks in our book satchel. We%u2019d get after them and sometimes they%u2019d get us down here and almost kill us.
BB: Yeah.
JB: Mothers would run out of the house and holler, %u201CQuit, quit, quit.%u201D [Laughed].
BB: You was talking about the blacks. When it first started up, were there many blacks that worked early on or--back then, you didn%u2019t have a requirement of having so many minorities.
JB: No, huh-uh. No, blacks generally worked in the dye house or outside work.
BB: Oh, okay.
JB: Outside work and driving any of the trucks, and they had to haul everything around on old trucks anyway. We got our coal to heat with from the Company. We had a woodstove to cook on; we got our wood from the Company. You had to have somebody to haul it down there, colored people mostly.
JC: Did y%u2019all%u2026
JB: %u2026A lot of the colored women come into this town--over there in colored town, they%u2019d come over here and do the washing for the white women. We%u2019d have a--mama would have her a bench out in the back yard. We lived across the hill here. She%u2019d have her a bench out there and two or three tin tubs on it and an old wash pot sitting there. That lady--the colored woman and one of her girls would come a certain day; we%u2019d draw water, fill up the tubs and the pot and get the fire going and get it hot to boil them in. They%u2019d do the washing for us and hang them on the line.
BB: Now was that drawing with a windlass or drawing it with a spigot?
JB: A spigot. They had a spigot.
BB: Oh, they had a spigot? So they had running water, yeah.
JB: Yeah, every house had a spigot.
BB: I know when I grew up, we had a well and didn%u2019t have a pump in the house to start with, and Mama would tell me to go out to the well and draw her a bucket of water, so that was the reason I was asking.
JB: Well, now we had wells. There was a well on the second house out here. People drawed water out of there to drink, but they still had their spigot. They had good well water there to drink. Then they had these pump type big wheels. There%u2019s some of them scattered around over town. The Company had them put in. But the Company had a well over yonder close to colored town. There wasn%u2019t no bottom in it, they said. They pumped water and put it in tanks and furnished whole Lawndale with water.
BB: Uh-huh. You don%u2019t remember how deep they said it was, do you?
JB: They didn%u2019t say.
BB: Just deep?
JB: They said there was no bottom in it. You know there had to be a bottom in it.
BB: Oh yeah, yeah.
JB: It was swift and it carried anything you put in it; it would just carry it down.
BB: When did you remember--I guess early on, you didn%u2019t have inside plumbing?
JB: No, they had it here--a commode on the back porch, but my water was--I had to run it up on the back porch. I didn%u2019t have it in the house, but that commode sat on the back porch and quick as it stopped up on us and they couldn%u2019t come and fix it, I took it out. I told them I was going to do my business on the floor or somewhere; they better get a backhouse over here [all laughed].
BB: So you had privies, then?
JB: They come and built--brought a backhouse and dug a hole and set it over that hole out there.
BB: Yeah.
JB: That was rough in the wintertime.
BB: About when did you begin to get water in the house, and showers and all of that?
JB: Let%u2019s see--after I bought my house. Well, see, the Company knew they was going to sell out, so a year or two or three years before that they sold every house they had to whoever lived in it. (They) give him a good deal on it, and he just paid a little along %u2018til he got it paid, or either borrow the money and pay it off all at one time.
JC: Was this back in maybe the fifties or sixties?
JB: It must have been the fifties or late forties anyway. I bought the cheapest house they had in Lawndale. This one was a thousand and forty dollars%u2026
BB: %u2026Really?...
JB: %u2026for the house and lot. Then there was an extra lot between me and the fellow that lived out here. He owned his house. He told me, %u201CYou better get that lot, Jim. Somebody will get it and set an old mobile home in out there and you%u2019ll have trouble.%u201D I went over there and told Forney--he was looking after it--I said, %u201CWhat do you want for that extra lot out there between me?%u201D %u201CA hundred dollars.%u201D I said, %u201CPut it on my bill.%u201D
BB: [Laughed]. You got that too, did you?
JB: I got that too.
BB: Well now, you was talking about after you heard they was going to sell it--the Schencks had it first and then they sold it to the Montgomery Mills?
JB: Yeah, they had done sold the houses, though, when he bought it. All he bought was the mill and what land the Company had. This land here with them trees on it goes all the way back out yonder and it belongs to--Montgomery sold it to somebody else, and he just run through what they had over there, and then he closed her down for good, and left [ ].
BB: So it was Spartan Mills, but Mr. Montgomery that owned it, right?
JB: Yeah.
BB: Okay.
JB: They owned mills--about six or seven different mills all over--some may be overseas, I don%u2019t know.
BB: Yeah.
JB: They owned a lot of mills. But old man Montgomery was a fine fellow. I never met him, but I heard of him. When he died, the boys or his sister, they wasn%u2019t in the mill business; they wanted money, so they got their heads together and sold the thing out.
JC: Do you ever hear of--back when you were young and first started out--unions trying to come into the mills?
JB: The union tried to come in one time.
JC: How did that go over?
JB: They didn%u2019t vote it in over here. John, Jr. Schenck--he was the guy looking after it at that time and old man John was getting up in years; it may be that--he may have been dead. They had a meeting up here at the Baptist Church, and John Jr. was telling all the employees to come, and he talked to them. I didn%u2019t go. He told them, %u201CY%u2019uns stick with us and we%u2019ll stick with y%u2019uns, now.%u201D After it was over with and they didn%u2019t win it, they brought the section hands in and minute hands and started stretching out on us, making us really work hard. Somebody said, %u201CI know now what that fool said up there.%u201D I said, %u201CWhat?%u201D He said, %u201CYou stick with us and we%u2019ll stick it to you.%u201D [All laughed]. That%u2019s what they done.
BB: And that was the Schencks did that?
JB: Yeah. They brought the minute hands in. That%u2019s what they called them. They%u2019d come in and they%u2019d watch a woman run a winder and check every second it takes her to reach and get a bobbin and stick it on or whatever and tie a knot, or take one off that was full. They had it all timed out what they could do in an hour%u2019s time and in eight hours time, and they started paying their pay according to what they could make. A lot of them couldn%u2019t make wages. That%u2019s why they stuck it to us.
JC: So, by that count, did the unions have something that they were saying that was right or not?
JB: The union, I don%u2019t know, they sent some people in here that didn%u2019t make good headway for that union, for some reason. What turned me against it--every time they talked, they%u2019d talk about how much more money you could make and how much better off you%u2019d be. He done just what you%u2019re doing--turned his foot up and there was a hole that big in the bottom of his slipper. I said, %u201CUh-huh. If it%u2019s paying so good, why is he wearing shoes like that?%u201D [Others laughed]. I didn%u2019t go for it. I think it helped the South, now. I think the union helped the South, but it finally run everything in the ground.
JC: How do you think it helped?
JB: It brought the pay up.
JC: Just the thought of having the union, scaring them?
JB: Yeah, it brought the pay up. It showed people what people could do. They didn%u2019t think people would go for it, but they seen there was a lot of people going to go for it, and it brought the pay up. Naturally, the man that owns it is going to get you as cheap as he can, and that%u2019s what they was doing. Of course, we was living. We wasn%u2019t grumbling--doing pretty good.
BB: After this time that we were talking about when you voted it down, did--you got pay raises after that because of them coming in?
JB: Yeah.
BB: Oh, okay.
JB: Yeah, we got some increase in pay, sure did. But you never made nothing much in a cotton mill unless you was a section man or something like that. You made a living and that was just about it.
JC: Yeah. Did some people keep farming as well as working in the mills to make extra money?
JB: Me and my boys picked cotton every year. They%u2019d come and get us. As quick as I got off from work, they%u2019d get me and the boys and put us in the field, picking cotton. We wanted to. Yeah, them boys didn%u2019t need to be laying around here doing nothing.
JC: They would just get in trouble that way, right?
BB: They knew where they could get some spending money?
JB: We%u2019d pick %u2018til dark or just about dark, and weigh up, and they%u2019d bring us home.
MB: And everybody had a little garden.
JB: Yeah.
MB: They used to raise their vegetables.
JC: Did y%u2019all do a lot of canning?
MB: Yeah.
JC: Did y%u2019all have a canning house?
MB: No.
JB: No, she canned it herself here at the house.
MB: I had a big old canner pot that I--I cooked mine--put my cans in it and cooked it on the stove.
JB: I put them all in a thirty-gallon drum, set them in there and put water over them, build a fire under them, and boil them for three hours.
MB: That was green beans.
JB: Huh?
MB: Green beans.
JB: Green beans. Then take them out and let them cool, and set them in the basement somewhere. We always had fifty to seventy-five cans of green beans canned. Well, that%u2019s more than we could eat, so we had children--they naturally eat off of them. We raised about everything we eat.
JC: What other stuff would you can?
MB: I made a lot of dill pickles. Sometimes I%u2019d have almost a hundred jars of dill pickles because all my children loved them so good. I made vegetable soup and canned it, and I froze corn%u2026
JB: %u2026Made kraut.
MB: Yeah, I made kraut [paused] and peas.
JB: You could always buy Irish potatoes cheaper than you could go about raising them.
BB: Um-hmm, that%u2019s for sure. Early on, in the wintertime you%u2019d be--you were able to eat out of the garden in the summer and to can a lot of stuff--did you have--did the company store pretty well provide everything like coffee and tea?
JB: Yeah.
BB: And you had that here in town?
JB: You had to buy coffee and tea and such as that, and dishwater detergent and all that.
BB: Uh-huh.
MB: Sugar and flour.
BB: And you didn%u2019t have to go far to get that, that was--.
JB: Back then, you didn%u2019t have these here napkins like you%u2019ve got now to dry dishes on--the dishtowels. They had cloth towels and when they%u2019d get them dirty, throw them in the wash and wash them and hang them on the line. We kept clean dish towels. Now you have to buy them every week. Hand towels to dry your hands on--paper towels--throw it away, throw money away. Back then they had towels to do that with.
JC: Did everybody buy their clothes here on the mill village or did some people make clothes?
MB: A lot of people made their clothes.
JC: Did they get cloth from the company store?
MB: Uh-huh.
JC: What kind of patterns would they use? Would they just--patterns they got out of--maybe catalogs or did they just come up with their own patterns?
MB: Well, my mother sewed some. She--I don%u2019t know where she got a pattern.
JB: They got patterns somewhere from somebody; they%u2019d borrow them.
MB: A lady, Miss Lee, she come around here in Lawndale and sewed for people, and she had patterns. Yeah, she sewed a lot for us.
BB: You bought your flour and you corn meal. Did--back then, were the women using the flour sacks that were patterns--did they use those to make dresses with?
JB: Oh yeah, bleach them things out that was on it, you know? They could bleach that out some way or another.
BB: And make dresses?
JB: Yeah.
JB: Well, I was over there and my mother made us underwear when I was just a little fellow at home. She made underwear out of them hundred-pound sacks of flour.
BB: Okay.
JC: What about quilting? Did y%u2019all do much quilting?
MB: I never did. My mother quilted.
JC: I guess with the store right there, y%u2019all really had a lot of material and stuff y%u2019all could buy from.
MB: And when you made dresses, you%u2019d have pieces of cloth left, and my mother would sew them together and make quilts out of them.
JC: Um-hmm.
JB: They have them ole quilting racks hung up in a room somewhere. The neighbors would come in and help quilt that quilt. It wouldn%u2019t take long %u2018til you could turn one out.
JC: I remember when I was a kid they used to hang them from the ceilings, on ropes and they%u2019d lower it down, and the women would--.
MB: That%u2019s the way my mother did it too.
JC: Yeah. You don%u2019t hardly see that no more. I don%u2019t think I%u2019ve seen that in a house in years.
MB: No, I haven%u2019t either.
JB: Quilting frames they called it.
JC: Um-hmm.
MB: I never helped. I never help quilted any.
JC: It takes a long time.
JB: How do you like our portrait?
JC: That%u2019s nice.
BB: That%u2019s good, yeah.
JB: That%u2019s our seventieth wedding anniversary.
BB: Is it?
JC: That%u2019s a long time [laughed].
BB: That needs some kind of--both of you need some kind of real honored recognition for seventy years. So now you%u2019re--when was that made?
W: Last year.
BB: Last year. So y%u2019all seventy-one now, then.
JB: September--this next month it will be seventy-one.
BB: Seventy-one.
JB: We%u2019ve got alumni meetings over here at Piedmont School--had alumni meetings once a year over at Burns Middle School. We meet over there once a year. If you went to Piedmont, you was eligible to go. They have things that they give a little prize around whatever--who had been married the longest and who was the oldest. If you was still married to the same one--if both of you went to school at Piedmont and you was married and still together, they%u2019d give you a little gift for that.
BB: Really?
JC: So did y%u2019all get it?
JB: We get it every time now.
JC: [Laughed].
BB: You got all of them, didn%u2019t you?
JB: The man that was older than me died [others laughed].
JB: Richard Hord says, %u201CYou%u2019re the only one between me and Betty and we%u2019ll get it.%u201D
MB: One year we didn%u2019t go and Betty and Richard got it.
JB: Yeah, we didn%u2019t go one year.
MB: She said to me Saturday night, %u201CI%u2019m glad you%u2019re here.%u201D
JB: They serve a good supper over there too. Ten dollars is all they charge for it. We had a bunch of them--I guess two hundred people or better over there.
BB: Uh-huh.
JC: Wow.
BB: Don Spangler went to Piedmont. I remember when he was playing ball up here.
JB: A lot of them Spanglers went over there.
BB: You had a gym when you were at Piedmont? You had a gym that you played basketball in?
JB: We had a %u201Ctin can,%u201D they called it.
BB: Yeah. Pot bellied stove in each end?
JB: Yeah. They%u2019ve got a good gym in the buildings now, brick buildings. They did--well, over there at Burns I know they have--got beautiful schools.
BB: Um-hmm.
JC: --it%u2019s always a tough question, but did folks that worked in the mills have a reputation for other folk? Did they get a reputation compared to folks that farmed? Did they talk bad about y%u2019all?
JB: Oh, in school they called us %u201Ctrash.%u201D
JC: Yeah.
JB: Yeah, and then the boll weevil come and they come to the mill to go to work, and they didn%u2019t want us to call them trash [others laughed].
JC: So the boll weevil sent them all over here with you, didn%u2019t it? Did y%u2019all used to get in fights with them over that?
JB: No.
JC: No, no?
JB: No, let%u2019s see, we had--most of the time we took our lunch like everybody else when we went to school. I%u2019d have a bologna sandwich or a bologna and biscuit or something like that or maybe a piece of some kind of pimiento cheese or something. The farm people, they%u2019d have country ham in biscuits, and they%u2019d just swap that country ham for a piece of bologna just that quick [snapped his fingers], and I%u2019d swap it with them [others laughed].
JC: You wanted that ham and they wanted that bologna. Both of you wanted to eat what each other was getting.
BB: You were talking about taking lunch--going back to the plant, was there a plant caf? that you could buy something in the plant if you didn%u2019t have time to bring your lunch?
JB: Well, they finally put it in.
BB: They did?
JB: Yeah, in a long time. That dope wagon went through the mill every shift. He had crackers, candy and everything on it, and dopes. Then a man brought milk and put in every cooler through the mill. In every department he%u2019d put little half-pints of milk or a pint of milk, whatever you wanted. If you put it on the list--he%u2019d keep a list and he%u2019d put it in there and you%u2019d get the one you wanted when you went. But they had something to eat in the mill that come through on the dope wagon. Then, I reckon Montgomery put the first caf?--I mean, the eating joints, didn%u2019t he? I don%u2019t know, the mill--the company may have had them in, I just forget.
MB: I don%u2019t think so.
JB: I quit before--well, no, Montgomery bought it while I was still working in the boiler room, but I didn%u2019t work too long. I quit and then I went to working in the extra work at the guard shack, pulling guard at the plant. It belonged to a Gaffney outfit that I worked for.
BB: When you were working, were you in there when it began to look like textiles was going out, or was that after you had retired?
JB: It was after I retired.
BB: You didn%u2019t see anything that would indicate that you thought the textile mills%u2026?
JB: %u2026The only thing--when they started selling houses, I knew something was happening. We was grown and married when they sold the houses--lived here. But, before that, you didn%u2019t think nothing about it. But when they started selling the houses, you knowed something was going to happen. And off from here, things was already happening. This mill stayed together as long as any mill around here nearly.
JC: I think it closed in 2002 or something like that?
JB: Along in there somewheres. This Montgomery told this knitting mill up on 226 up there--I forget the name of it--said, %u201CWe%u2019re going to put you out of business,%u201D when he come to Lawndale, and he put in some good knitting machines too. It run--it made--%u2018til he started wanting them to run more than what the things would take care of without breaking the ends back. That made bad yarn. He done it his self; he ruined his self by trying to get more out than he needed to get. But them people up yonder are still knitting and he ain%u2019t [others laughed].
JC: I guess he run himself out, didn%u2019t he? You can%u2019t be too greedy, I guess. That%u2019s the lesson in that.
JB: They%u2019re all the way around--now, Gene Schenck, he worked at the Lily Mill, and John, Jr. worked at the Lily Mill. That was old man John%u2019s boys, but they worked over there %u2018til it closed down. Then John, Jr. come up here and took his daddy%u2019s place when he was fixing to leave this world. Then John III, John, Jr.%u2019s boy took it over.
JC: Now, how is the Schenck family her related to the Schenck family up in Lincoln County? Is that the same folks?
JB: That%u2019s where they came from.
JC: Okay.
JB: Over in Lincoln County.
JC: Wasn%u2019t that the first cotton mill in the state that was up there the Schencks helped start?
JB: Yeah. This one up on [ ]. Creek.
JC: Okay.
JB: About the first one anywhere around. I don%u2019t know whether they had a mill in Lincolnton or not.
JC: Okay.
JB: I don%u2019t know.
JC: But they came down here from Lincoln County?
JB: They built that one up on Knob Creek, run it a while and then they moved down here to Lawndale and built this one.
JC: Now how long did they--was it still running when you were around? The first one?
JB: No, huh-uh.
JC: So they stopped it after they moved them down here.
JB: I don%u2019t know what time they tore that down. As far back as I can remember, this mill down here has been here. I was born in %u201920.
JC: Okay. How old were some of the youngest folks that came to work in the mill, like young ones and stuff? Did they help their parents?
JB: I%u2019ve heard my aunt talk about going to work at twelve.
JC: Twelve?
JB: Maybe just to carry water. They had to go outside and get water and carry it into the mill to the hands back then. They had a well with that pump on it like I was telling you about, just outside of the mill. They would go out there and carry buckets of water and set them up on different places.
JC: And would they help sometimes--if their parents worked in the mill, they%u2019d watch what they were doing and learn that way and move in?
JB: Yeah, they%u2019d go in and mess around with their father and mother. Back then they could do anything, I reckon. They did when I went to work. There was a lot of children come in.
BB: When the bridge fell, what kind of effect did it have on the operation of the plant?
JB: I don%u2019t believe they knowed it fell.
BB: Really?
JB: They just kept going. One old man put a boat in the water down there and hauled people backwards and forwards in a boat--had a rope tied to one bank and the other one and pulled it across.
BB: Um-hmm.
JB: That way some of them got across that way. And then you could go up to the--go up the hill from the other side of the river--you%u2019d go back up there and cross over and come back down this hill up here and you%u2019d be on this side. We could travel around that way %u2018til they got the bridge built. I never did see that old covered bridge. The bridge used to be covered across the river down there.
JC: The one before the crooked bridge?
JB: Yeah, before the crooked bridge. I%u2019ve heard people talk of the covered bridge, but I never did see it.
BB: Um-hmm.
JC: I don%u2019t know if it would be the same after it went to third shift, but was there a curfew in town when you had to be at home when you were young?
JB: I%u2019ll tell you what it used to be before my time. I was a little boy when that was going on. I didn%u2019t get out of the house hardly after dark. But, nine o%u2019clock they used to have to be off the street. They%u2019d ring a bell. The nine o%u2019clock bell would ring and people had to be off the street.
JC: What would happen if you won%u2019t?
JB: They%u2019d take you home.
JC: They%u2019d take you home?
JB: Somebody would take you home. If they seen you out--you wasn%u2019t supposed to be out.
JC: And what was the reason for that?
JB: Well, I don%u2019t know. It was just one of those things come up. I reckon something come up. Some of the young%u2018uns maybe got in trouble or something. I don%u2019t know.
JC: Right.
JB: But it%u2019s like you say; it%u2019s a one-horse town. They run it all. Whatever law they wanted, they done it. Back then, they didn%u2019t have a whistle. They had a bell; twenty minute bell; five o%u2019clock bell; twenty minute bell. The twenty minute bell rung; you had time to get to the mill from any house in Lawndale, and they expected you to be there. Then they put the whistles in the mill and the sirens to tell you when to change.
BB: We may have asked something around this question. Do you remember the number of houses in the heyday that the company owned?
JB: I don%u2019t remember just how many houses there was in Lawndale, but there was a bunch of them.
BB: More than a hundred?
JB: Yeah. Yeah, but when this man bought the plant out, he started tearing down. There was colored--a whole street from the mill that went out toward the culvert out yonder was colored people. He took all them old colored houses out. He wanted the highway--the highway where it comes out--Shelby Road comes out now over here--it was down towards the mill where it come out. That Spinning B was the second mill they built. It%u2019s spinning knitting, knitting and spinning. He said, %u201CI want all my plants in the same fence. I can%u2019t put them all in the same fence with that road coming out between the big mill and this one up here.%u201D They said, %u201CYou%u2019ll have to leave it. The state will have to put that road in.%u201D He said, %u201CI%u2019ll get it in.%u201D He moved houses and took lines of houses out, but he put that road--the state put it in for him. He footed a lot of the bill, I guess, but he put his fence around everything. He had it all in one fence.
JC: What happened to the people they tore their houses down?
JB: They just got by the best way they could.
BB: On the other side of the river was the houses that I understood that the people owned themselves; the mill didn%u2019t own them. Where did those folks work?
JB: Over at the mill, a lot of them.
BB: They worked at the mill too?
JB: Yeah, a lot of them worked in the mill. Yeah, Richard Hord%u2019s daddy, he was running a little store over there and the other store was running him out of business nearly and he wasn%u2019t making no money. He told Hal Schenck--Hal was John%u2019s youngest boy%u2014he%u2019d like to go to work. He said, %u201CWell, come on over. We%u2019ll put you to work.%u201D They were just that way. They%u2019ll put you to work. If you%u2019ll work, they%u2019ll put you to work. I knowed a boy, Shan Hunt--he%u2019s dead now. My daddy was the boss of a twister room, and Shan run twisters for him. He%u2019d work all winter and the birds got to jumping around, singing out on the lines--power lines, and he%u2019d look out the window and see them. He%u2019d go over and get his coat--I asked my daddy--he said, %u201CI%u2019ll see you in the fall.%u201D
BB: Did he? [Everyone laughed].
JB: He%u2019d go out and wouldn%u2019t come back around that place %u2018til fall of the year--started getting cool, he%u2019d come back and say, %u201CI%u2019m ready to go to work.%u201D If you%u2019ll work, they%u2019ll hire you. If you%u2019d worked there before and done a good job for them, they%u2019d hire you when you come back.
JC: No matter why you left before?
JB: Don%u2019t matter why you left--you left for more money, but if you told them that you wanted to come back, well, they%u2019d hire you to get a good hand.
JC: They needed the people.
JB: Yeah.
JC: Did people leave Lawndale and go to other plants and move away?
JB: Yeah, they%u2019d leave and go to other plants.
JC: Like whole families and stuff?
JB: See, a lot of the families lived with their parents. Some of these houses big enough--if they just had one son or one daughter, when they got married they%u2019d just give them a room. They%u2019d all eat together and they would have a little bedroom. They%u2019d quit and go somewhere--it didn%u2019t bother nothing. Come back, it was the same thing.
JC: Right. So there was a lot of movement between the different mill villages and towns.
JB: Yeah.
JC: Some people don%u2019t think people moved around back in the day, but they did, didn%u2019t they, a long time ago? They were pretty moving.
JB: Yeah, I left here and went to Granite Falls. I was going to get rich up there with Shuford Mills, me and two more boys. We quit one day and got our checks and we lit out and went up there and asked them if they had any jobs. %u201CYeah, yeah, where did you work at, Lawndale?%u201D I said, %u201CYeah.%u201D They signed us up to come in tomorrow night down there on Number 4 mill or something down on the river. We come back and told our wives we was going to work up there. We went up there and they put me to doffing spinning; put this other boy doffing spinning, and put the other one running twisters. And honest to the Lord, it%u2019s what they swept off of the floor is what they was running through on that mill--in that mill. Sweepings--it wasn%u2019t no good cotton. It was just what--dust from anything they could get; they was running it through, making--it would just fall apart nearly. You couldn%u2019t twist it much without it falling. I doffed all night long and they had left a helper with me and one with the other boy, and they was bearing them for us--the frames--bearing the frames down so we could doff them. They was helping us; we wouldn%u2019t have had nothing done. Then we had to go [ ] up and get our empty bobbins and come back and start on another frame; he%u2019d have it done beared for us. We worked that one night [laughed] and we come to Lawndale the next morning [others laughed]. On the way down we decided we wasn%u2019t going to work up there [others laughed], so we come on down here and messed around, went back pretty early. We had to get some sleep--had us a boarding place--done paid board for a week. We went over there where we was paying board and we told that lady, %u201CTonight%u2019s going to be our last night,%u201D or, %u201CLast night was our last night. We ain%u2019t going to work tonight.%u201D She done had our supper fixed to take to the plant to work. We paid her for everything--what it cost us. She didn%u2019t charge nothing hardly, just a dollar or two for that one night that we stayed over there. We went in and told them we had quit. The next morning we went up to the office and asked if we could get our pay, and they started laughing; that woman started laughing, saying, %u201CThis was short time, wasn%u2019t it, just working one night?%u201D I said, %u201CThat was enough for anybody [others laughed].%u201D
BB: Like [ ].
JB: Yeah. I didn%u2019t have my Social Security number with me; they did. She give them their check. She said, %u201CJim, I%u2019m going to give you your pay.%u201D She give me an envelope and said, %u201CYou write your Social Security on a piece of paper and stick it in that and send it back.%u201D She put a stamp on it for me. I done that for her. We went back that next night, pulled in after the yard%u2019s full and parked. We could listen to them talking--them other folks at work, and they was just dying laughing, said, %u201CThat one night done that bunch [others laughed]. They left here--that one%u2019s colorblind--he got to marking the cotton for the spindles wrong.%u201D They said, %u201CI%u2019m glad they%u2019re gone [laughed].%u201D
BB: You%u2019re glad they left?
JB: But we made over wages that night with them boys helping us. We wouldn%u2019t have made nothing without them. No, that was enough. Come back down here and I seen Hal Schenck. Now he%u2019s the youngest one of the Schencks. I told him, %u201CI want my job back.%u201D He said, %u201CWell, Jim, you just worked one night. You%u2019ll have people thinking we don%u2019t work down here. I ain%u2019t going to give you your job back. You go on back up there and work a week or two.%u201D I said, %u201CNo, sir.%u201D He told the other ones he wasn%u2019t going to give their jobs back. I had a brother working in the shop over at Mooresville--foundry. He knowed I had quit or something. I had gotten the word to him some way. Anyway, he called my daddy and said, %u201CJim ain%u2019t working,%u201D says, %u201CTake him to the bus and come on over here. I%u2019ll put him to work over here where I%u2019m at.%u201D
BB: Really?
JB: I lit out over there on the bus from Shelby and rode over there on the bus. I got in about two-thirty and they would start shift change at three. He said, %u201CI%u2019ve got an extra pair of old work clothes here in my drawer--in my laundry. You put them on.%u201D I went to work at three o%u2019clock as quick as I got over there. He left the next day and left me sitting over there not knowing nobody. He took me down to where he slept and said, %u201CYou can sleep with me tonight, and tomorrow I%u2019ll tell that woman you%u2019re going to stay here. She%u2019ll let you board here.%u201D He fixed it up and I stayed there two weeks working there. I told that man up there where I worked, %u201CI%u2019m leaving quick as I can get a job somewheres.%u201D He [ ] got my job. I told him--I said, %u201CPay me my check.%u201D He said, %u201CI ain%u2019t going to pay you a check. I ain%u2019t never fired nobody. If I fire you, I%u2019ll have to get your check.%u201D I said, %u201CWhat%u2019ll it take to get you to fire me?%u201D [Others laughed].
BB: You was ready to come back to Lawndale.
JB: He said, %u201CI ain%u2019t going to fire you.%u201D He didn%u2019t get my check. I had to go back the next week to get it. But I come back to Lawndale and went to work when I come back, and they didn%u2019t say nothing to me. Hal just laughed about that--Hal Schenck. He was the best one of them Schencks.
BB: Was he? He was the youngest son?
JB: Yeah. He%u2019s the one they put in a casket that had a glass over the top, and they put him in a brick vault and put a door where you could see him. His hair and his face started sinking--he got beard all over his face. They took him out and moved him down to Shelby to a cemetery. He was a good %u2018un. He was a good %u2018un.
BB: When did the plant start really concentrating on making a real top quality yarn?
JB: Well, doffing wasn%u2019t too bad. I mean, didn%u2019t matter a lot--we didn%u2019t do nothing about making the yarn out of just taking it off and putting on empty bobbins for spinning hands. The spinning hands was responsible for running the stuff and keeping it going through good. But the winders, they had so much to do; it wasn%u2019t much you could do about good quality. It%u2019s the company that made the bad quality by speeding things up and you couldn%u2019t run it--run it faster than it%u2019ll put it on there.
BB: Who was some of the primary customers for Cleveland Mills?
JB: That bought the stuff?
BB: Yeah.
JB: Lord, I don%u2019t know. I have no idea. They shipped it all over the United States, I know that.
BB: Was it--I know Cleveland Mills made a lot of sewing thread.
JB: They made it--they run--20 is about the finest they run. Dover Mill made sewing thread, but yarn is what they made mostly over here, some kind of yarn that was a little heavier than sewing thread--seine twine and such as that. [Paused] [Laughed]--I had three or four rows of green beans out here where this building is one time, and they was just pretty, up good and high, and just starting to fall down. I had some of that gold-colored cord out of the mill; I had it strung out there--had them tied up with that. John III come driving by with Clint Newton, and they stopped and said, %u201CYou got some pretty beans there.%u201D I said, %u201CYeah, what%u2019s that in it?%u201D They come down there and looked. I said, %u201CIt%u2019s something I picked up over there where they had throwed trash.%u201D He didn%u2019t say a word [others laughed]. It was top quality [others laughed].
JC: So, would people take a lot of stuff out of the mill?
JB: Oh, people took anything they wanted, a little of it any time they wanted it and nothing said.
JC: Yeah.
JB: Old Hal [laughed], he drunk his self to death, I reckon. He come in the mill one day and the spinning frame where I was doffing; I was on this side; he come up on this side. The cylinders got hot that turns it under there and pulls the [ ] spinning--the bobbin. He got a water bucket of water and throwed it through in under there and I didn%u2019t know what it was. It hit me all over the legs when it come through, and I looked through and I seen Hal. I said, %u201CHe done that on purpose.%u201D I just went over and got me a bucket off of a post and went over and just took it and dumped it right on top of his head [others laughed]. He cussed--he cussed and said, %u201CThrow it on the certain fire%u201D--he cussed again. %u201CThrow it on the fire; don%u2019t throw it on me.%u201D
BB: [Laughed].
JC: So, would y%u2019all--that kind of leads me into something else--would y%u2019all do pranks and stuff on people in the mills a lot?
JB: Oh, law, yeah.
JC: What kind of stuff would y%u2019all do?
JB: Well, we used to get that %u201Cfart rock%u201D out of the dye house. It would run you out of the mill.
BB: Would it?
JB: We%u2019d put it in the corner of one of the winder hands%u2019 trough where the yarn was--and bobbins. They%u2019d get their hand on it or it would get to smelling--get hot and melt and just nearly run you out. They knowed who done it [others laughed]. We got all the blame for that. Some of us went out to the company store and bought some Feen-A-Mints, chewing it for chewing gum. Just got one little piece or two and we was chewing it for chewing gum. Spinning hands would [ ] up behind us and, %u201CYou got any more of that chewing gum?%u201D %u201CYeah%u201D--just shake out one in your hand and hand it to her. They%u2019d start chewing it and it wasn%u2019t long--. [All laughed]. They had to get in the waiting room [ ] to the toilet.
JC: Tore them up [laughed]?
JB: They%u2019d had this--some of them cuss good. They could really cuss you out. Some of them just get so mad at you they could kill you and look at you.
JC: I%u2019ve heard that some people used to get back at the supervisors, the boss folks. How would they do that if they were upset at them? Would they do anything?
JB: I don%u2019t--they just--he was in on everything too [others laughed].
JC: So you had a good one?
JB: Yeah.
JC: Yeah, lots of time.
JB: One of the boys come in one day and his wife was--had a baby--the first one, I believe, and he%u2019s telling us about it. He lived out on the farm with his wife. He had a brown hat and he hung it up. We got that hat and we took every little nail we could find and drove in it and nailed it to the wall [others laughed]. He went and got the boss man and said, %u201CLook what they done to my hat!%u201D Jake, he looked at us and said, %u201CBoys, don%u2019t you know he%u2019s had that baby? His wife had that baby. He needs two hats. Y%u2019uns go out to the store and buy him one [all laughed].
BB: Had to buy a hat to replace it?
JB: One boy had--sweepers would sweep up all that off of the floor and put it in the bin, ought to be five-foot-square and up that high to fill it up. Then somebody would come along directly and take a sack and get it out and take it down to the waste house. It was about full--Calvin Spurling--he was a young boy; we was all older than him. We grabbed him; we took him and throwed him in that waste box and pulled every rag he had on off. Left him standing in there naked, squatted down in that waste. His mother was sweeping--directly she come up and got those--%u201CWhat are you doing in there? Get out of there!%u201D He said, %u201CMama, I can%u2019t; I%u2019m naked.%u201D
[All laughed].
BB: Stole his clothes.
JB: Ay, Lord, we had them sitting in--laying in the office just next door. She went in there and got them and told him to put them on.
BB: Like he was in a swimming hole, sure enough!
JB: We had a lot of fun in the mill.
BB: What was the best job you can remember you did while you were working there?
What did you enjoy?
JB: Best job I had with them?
BB: Yeah.
JB: I reckon it would be oiling. The last job I had with them was oiling--oiling spindles on the spinning frames and the twister frames. There wasn%u2019t no work much to it. It was just taking an oil can and squirt a little oil on it as you went by, sew on a tape when one come off, or tie on a band when one broke. [Pause] It paid a nickel more, I believe, than what I was making in the twister room when they got me to go over there to the spinning room to do that. Now, it was a good place to work.
JC: So you would have done it all over again?
JB: I%u2019d rather work there than anywhere I could think of, I reckon. Oh, a man would drink a little bit and get him a beer or two. We used to--a man sold beer down toward Double Shoals. We%u2019d get in the car and ride down there and go in the basement, and he%u2019d have a tin tub full of beer sitting on ice. We%u2019d sit there and drink beer and talk to him a while and get up and go on back and go to work. Went bouncing in there one day, and there sat my boss man drinking one.
BB: Really?
JB: He didn%u2019t say a word.
BB: Cooled off too, did he?
JB: He didn%u2019t say a word. But it was just a good place to work, boys. Cleveland Mills was a good place to work.
JC: Sounds like you enjoyed it.
JB: Well, you had everything you needed here. The company would see that you got it. If you worked, you%u2019d get it. You wasn%u2019t going to go hungry. You wasn%u2019t going naked either.
BB: What different types of heating did you have through the years? Did you start out heating with wood, coal, or--?
JB: Old coal--black coal is what we started heating our houses--homes with. In behind there, I had a little ole basket grate about that wide and about that deep. Throw coal in and soot would go up the chimney--soot would. But you%u2019d sit in front of that thing and burn up and freeze in back. All you%u2019d get hot was your legs in front. In behind you, you%u2019d get cold. Then we got an oil heater, set an oil heater there--burned kerosene. Had gas one winter, didn%u2019t we? Yeah, they put me a gas tank out there. I burned gas one or two winters. Now, I%u2019ve got this little ole thing here; it heats this room and that one in there. I%u2019ve got a wood stove in the basement, right down under where that television sits. I can put a fire in it and put the soot up through the chimney--the smoke, it goes up and I got a funnel on top of the stove and a hole comes up right in behind there. That heat comes up; that thing don%u2019t even run when I get that heater to running right--that wood heater.
BB: Coming up through from down%u2026
JB: %u2026Keeps this floor warm.
BB: Yeah.
JB: The ceiling down there--heat%u2019s going up and gets this floor warm, and that thing don%u2019t hardly ever run.
JC: That%u2019s all you need right there.
JB: We don%u2019t heat the bedrooms or nothing like that--sleep in a cold room. I love that better than heat.
JC: Yeah, that%u2019s for sure. I don%u2019t like to be hot sleeping. Sometimes you can%u2019t avoid it though.
JB: That heating with coal--that was nasty heat. Soot would blow out in the house sometimes and get soot all over everything.
BB: Have to paint more often when you use coal.
JC: Yeah, my great aunts, they, when I was young they had coal heat, and we used to play on a coal pile--throw coal at each other all the time and get in trouble for it and get all--man, we moved the coal pile one time. My uncle got mad at us. We dug--you know, the coal pile, put it in wheelbarrows and moved it to the whole other side of the yard. My uncle came out to get some coal, and he couldn%u2019t find the coal pile [all laughed]. He was mad!
JB: When our boys were just small--raised them here and had that heater in there like that burning coal--had a coal pile out here. Wintertime come--first time it looked like it was going to snow--%u201CMama, tell Daddy not to cover up that coal pile. If he does, it won%u2019t snow.
[All laughed]. I covered it up; I had to carry that coal in.
JC: That%u2019s right. You didn%u2019t want it all to get snow on it.
JB: But he%u2019d say, %u201CDaddy, don%u2019t cover it up; it%u2019s going to snow!%u201D It wouldn%u2019t snow, and they throw that up to me today--said, %u201CEvery time he covered it up it wouldn%u2019t snow.%u201D
MB: They used to tease him and tell him to take a blanket or something and cover up the oil tank [laughed].
BB: Was there ever a time that you remember that the plant had to shut down because of weather?
JB: Yeah, it has closed down on account of winter.
BB: Would it be snow, mainly?
JB: It would be so rough the hands couldn%u2019t get there. A lot of it would close down. If any hand got there, they worked. They had something for them to do, but there%u2019s a bunch that lived at Casar and rode a bus down here. They couldn%u2019t get here a lot of times. Then the company put chains on some cars--had jeeps--four-wheel-drive jeeps, they%u2019d borrow them. They%u2019d go get you and bring you in if it got too bad. If you couldn%u2019t get here they%u2019d come and get you and bring you back home.
JC: You wouldn%u2019t see too many people doing that nowadays.
JB: No, huh-uh.
BB: Did you ever know Dwight Perry?
JB: Dwight Perry? Yeah.
BB: Do you know his wife, Ruby?
JB: Yeah. Now I don%u2019t know his second wife.
BB: You don%u2019t?
JB: They was raised right here--not the next house, but the next house. No, it was the next house, wasn%u2019t it, where Miss Wray is?
MB: Uh, [ ]?
JB: No. [ ] MB: Yeah, out there where Nancy%u2026
JB: %u2026Where her sister lives--the Perrys lived there one time. Then they moved over there on another street. Dwight was a good fellow; I liked him.
JC: Speaking of shutdowns, did they shut the plant down during the Depression any? Because some folks said that up at Esther Mill and Shelby and other places, they had to shut it down a little sometimes.
JB: Well as I remember, they%u2019d curtail a day, maybe two sometimes.
JC: But not completely?
JB: If they had a good order, they%u2019d run whatever it took to get that order filled; somebody would go in and work.
JC: Right. Was the Depression hard on folks around here?
JB: Well, pretty hard.
JC: At least y%u2019all had a garden, I guess.
JB: If we hadn%u2019t had it, it would have been rough.
MB: People would keep a hog--have a hog. They%u2019d kill their hog and have meat. And kept cows; they%u2019d have cows to have their milk. I know when I was at home we had a cow, and we had several hogs.
JB: Everybody in Lawndale had a hog in the hog pen one time, just about every house. In fact, the company built some big hog pens down here on a big gully to keep them away from the house on account of flies.
MB: People had chickens.
JB: Chickens and hogs.
BB: Was there much reason to go in--or what reason would you have to go into Shelby for?
JB: Movies more than anything else.
BB: For recreation?
JB: Recreation, or go to some of them department stores and get cloth or a suit of clothes or something.
JC: Did y%u2019all go to the County Fair?
JB: Huh?
JC: Did y%u2019all go to the County Fair, Cleveland County Fair?
JB: Yeah, the fair was down there. There would be somebody going. If you wanted to go, you could get a way down there. This racetrack they%u2019ve got over here on the river--the other side of the river, I wish to the Lord it wasn%u2019t there.
JC: Can y%u2019all hear it from here?
JB: You can sit here and you can hear them talk when they come by riding--racing.
BB: Really? I just read about it in the paper, you know, about the noise and%u2026
JB: %u2026Sit out there on the porch and you can hear them talking all the way over yonder across the river. Them old big motors takes off; it%u2019s just like they%u2019re coming right by your window.
MB: You can have the television going, and fans going and air conditioning going, and still you can hear the race cars.
JC: What nights of the week do they do that?
JB: It%u2019s Saturdays.
MB: Every Friday night and sometimes Saturday night too.
JB: He%u2019s talking about starting them up two or three nights a week.
JC: I think I%u2019d call the County.
JB: If you%u2019re sick, it ain%u2019t no way to rest when they%u2019re running, and if that air is coming this way, I mean it%u2019s rough.
JC: You can smell them?
JB: It%u2019s the sounds; it brings the sound.
JC: The sound?
MB: It sounds like they%u2019re just coming right around the house.
BB: Do you have much dust from it?
JB: I don%u2019t have dust over here. Them people over on that line that goes into it does. Yeah, they gripe about that dust.
JC: What names for different areas in the community did y%u2019all have? Did y%u2019all have sections that were called different things?
JB: Where we live up through here was Happy Hill. Don%u2019t ask me who named it; I don%u2019t know, but they called it Happy Hill as far back as I can remember. %u201CYou live on Happy Hill?%u201D That%u2019s what they%u2019d say. %u201CYou stay happy?%u201D %u201CYeah.%u201D [Others laughed].
JC: What would--what were other people%u2019s areas called?
JB: I don%u2019t know of no other street named nothing outside of Happy Hill.
JC: Happy Hill? Maybe you%u2019re happy to be on top of the hill.
JB: Yeah.
JC: Be up on top of everything up here. What you got, Buzz?
BB: I was just trying to think if I had something else that I wanted to ask.
JC: Is there anything we ain%u2019t asked you want--that you wanted to tell us?
JB: I don%u2019t know of nothing.
JC: [Laughed].
BB: We%u2019ve covered right much, haven%u2019t we?
JB: Yeah.
JC: What about you? Anything?
MB: No, I just let him do the talking [others laughed].
JC: I tell you, you have--it sounds like you both had a good life. I mean%u2026
JB: %u2026Oh, we%u2019ve had a good life.
MB: The Lord sure has blessed us. We%u2019ve lived together, this coming September, seventy-one years, and he%u2019s eighty-eight years old and I%u2019m eighty-six.
BB: That%u2019s amazing, isn%u2019t it?
JC: That%u2019s real amazing. Especially nowadays--I mean, people, they don%u2019t stay together, it seems like, no more.
JB: %u201CHow many times you been married?%u201D they%u2019ll say. I just tell, %u201CThe same woman.%u201D Got used to her and couldn%u2019t get shed of her [others laughed]--didn%u2019t want to.
JC: I%u2019ve got a question. Do you still make homemade kraut?
MB: Yeah, I still make homemade kraut.
JC: You still make it?
MB: Yeah.
JC: Yeah? See, I didn%u2019t grow up with that. I%u2019m from the eastern part of the state and we don%u2019t make kraut.
JB: We go every fall up to the mountains and get some mountain cabbage, a sack of mountain cabbage and come back and chop it up. [Cell phone rang].
JC: My pocket%u2019s ringing.
MB: I%u2019m not canning nothing this year though. I%u2019m getting too old.
JC: Yeah.
MB: I%u2019ve got arthritis; it bothers me pretty bad.
JC: Did y%u2019all used to pack the kraut in crocks or anything?
MB: I%u2019ve got a--we%u2019ve got a five-gallon jar and%u2026
JB: %u2026[ ] jar.
MB: Yeah, and we pack it in that and let it work off and get sour. Then I take it out and heat it, and can it and put it in jars. It%u2019s good.
JC: It sounds like it would be [laughed].
MB: I don%u2019t like what you buy at the store.
JC: See, I ain%u2019t never had nothing but what you buy at the store [laughed].
BB: Do you use a lot of it with sour kraut and wieners?
MB: Yes.
BB: Do you?
JC: Do you eat it as a side, to just--when you%u2019re eating whatever?
MB: Yeah, it%u2019s another dish.
JC: Another dish? Yeah. [Cell phone rang].
BB: Somebody wanting you, Bub [laughed].
JC: [Laughed].
JB: Put wieners--chop wieners up and put in that kraut, wouldn%u2019t you, [ ]?
JC: Yeah.
MB: My daughters learned how to make kraut dumplings. I don%u2019t think I%u2019d care too much about kraut dumplings though. I%u2019ve tasted them; they taste pretty good.
BB: The kraut and wieners is hard to beat.
MB: Yeah.
BB: There was one more question that I wanted to ask. Was there a time that any of the employees had to wear a uniform? Usually, you would see women that were wearing uniforms in some of the textile mills. Did y%u2019all ever have to wear uniforms?
JB: Didn%u2019t y%u2019all have to wear a uniform one time?
MB: Huh-uh.
JB: I thought you did. I never did have to wear no special thing. I sure thought the women wore special clothes one time. I know they talked about it.
MB: I think they just talked about it. I don%u2019t never remember wearing no--other than what you had yourself.
JC: It%u2019s changed a lot since y%u2019all were young, I guess, around here.
JB: We%u2019ve seen it all.
JC: You%u2019ve seen every bit of it [laughed].
JB: [ ].
BB: What is the biggest thing that you have seen change that you would like for it to go back like it was?
JB: People. People. You don%u2019t see children no more in this town--very few. It%u2019s all retired people, widow women living by their self with somebody staying with them. Oh my, every house used to have children.
JC: It used to be alive.
JB: There were children in every house, and they had to--a daddy and mammy had the right to tear their tail up if they done wrong, too. Today you ain%u2019t got that. A schoolteacher ain%u2019t got a chance to teach a young%u2019un. Little children as big as grown ones either, they%u2019ll tell them what to do. That%u2019s the way people%u2019s young%u2019uns will. They%u2019ve got a hard job, boy; a teacher has now.
BB: Um-hmm. That leads to one more question I%u2019ve got and then I%u2019ll quit. When y%u2019all started, were most of the couples both working? Did you have some in the village that the wife would stay at home and raise the children and do the cooking and the man work, or did a lot of the couples all--both work?
JB: We both worked at times.
MB: It took both of us working; we had five children.
JB: We had a colored girl that would come in and stay some time with them.
MB: And then my mother lived at the end of the road right out here, and she helped take care of the children a lot. That helped us out.
JB: I didn%u2019t like it but there was times we worked on different shifts, and we kindly handled it.
BB: Sort of, you had to make plans?
JB: [Long pause] But today, a woman has a baby; she don%u2019t know what it is to feed it, nurse it, or nothing. Slap it on a bottle and get somebody to tend to it while they%u2019re out doing whatever they%u2019re doing. Don%u2019t hardly know what its mother is.
BB: Right.
JC: Sometimes change is good and sometimes it ain%u2019t.
JB: Yeah.
MB: I%u2019ll tell you what I%u2019d like to see change is--houses gets empty and somebody buys them and they put just anybody in these houses--the government paying the rent if they%u2019re not able. They live in these houses and they let their children run wild all over the neighborhood and steal and do everything else. I%u2019d like to see that change.
JC: People to be more accountable for their kids and their lives. It makes it rough, especially getting older and trying to keep something.
JB: Well, divorce--that%u2019s the biggest thing going today. A woman can get a divorce over anything. A man can get a divorce over anything. Separations--go off and then neither one of them wants to take care of their children.
JC: That%u2019s true.
JB: Government expect--they expect the government to take care of everything today.
BB: Um-hmm.
JC: Well, I believe we%u2019ve been here a while. We could probably let y%u2019all go [laughed] instead of keeping you all day. I know it%u2019s about nap time for me [others laughed].
BB: I love my naps. I%u2019ll bet you do too, don%u2019t you?
JB: Do what?
BB: I love my naps.
MB: I%u2019ve stayed awake past my nap time. I%u2019m not sleepy now [laughed]. Right after I eat is when I like to take a nap.
JC: Right after you eat?
END OF INTERVIEW
[The remainder of the recording (approximately one minute) involved discussions about forms to be signed and the recent weather].

Transcriber: Mike Hamrick
Date: September 18th, 2009