MARGE HAMILTON

TRANSCRIPT %u2013 MARGE HAMILTON
[Compiled November 23rd, 2010]

Interviewee: MARGE HAMILTON

Interviewer: Carter Sickels

Interview Date: August 7th, 2010

Location: Gaffney, South Carolina

Length: Approximately 40 minutes

CARTER SICKELS: Okay, this is Carter Sickels interviewing Marge Hamilton at her house. Is this considered Boiling Springs? No, Gaffney.
MARGE HAMILTON: Gaffney.
CS: Gaffney, South Carolina, and it%u2019s August 7th, 2010. And now, could you just say your name...,
MH: %u2026Marjorie Hamilton%u2026
CS: %u2026when you were born and where?
MH: May 23rd, 1931.
CS: And where were you born?
MH: Cleveland County.
CS: Okay.
MH: At home.
CS: At home? Your mom had you at home? What did she say about that?
MH: I was named after my doctor%u2019s wife, and she was also his nurse.
CS: Oh, really?
MH: So I got Marjorie from her and Jane after my mama.
CS: Was your mom born in Cleveland County?
MH: Yeah, and my dad too.
CS: Your dad too? Do you have any brothers and sisters?
MH: Yeah, I had fourteen.
CS: Fourteen?
MH: Um-hmm, I%u2019m the fifteenth.
CS: Oh, my goodness. [Laughter] Where do you fit in the--?
MH: The last one.
CS: The last one, wow. What was the difference in years between you and the next youngest?
MH: That would be my sister, Hannah, and there was two year and four days between us.
CS: Oh, okay. Fifteen? [Laughter] MH: Daddy had a football team and a basketball team.
CS: [Laughter] That%u2019s right. Did you grow up in town or on a farm?
MH: On a farm.
CS: On a farm. What all did you raise and what all did you have?
MH: Cotton, corn, potatoes, beans. We raised everything we ate.
CS: Yeah. You had cows and--?
MH: Yeah. We also had wheat, and took it to the gin and--I mean, the flour mill, and had it ground into flour.
CS: Gosh.
MH: We had our own bread.
CS: Wow. Butter, probably?
MH: Yeah.
CS: Yeah.
MH: Milked the cows and churned the butter.
CS: Did you have hogs?
MH: Yes.
CS: Chickens?
MH: Um-hmm. And our beef, we raised it too.
CS: You did?
MH: Yeah.
CS: So you had just about everything.
MH: Everything we ate, we raised on the farm.
CS: That%u2019s pretty neat. What kind of responsibilities did you have when you were a kid?
MH: Well, after I got up big enough, I had to go to the field every day and help hoe cotton or pick it, or corn or whatever. When I started to school, we had to do our chores before we went to school, and after I got up about the seventh or eighth grade, I had to milk two cows before I went to school and do my other chores around the house. We had a spring; we didn%u2019t have no well or running water.
CS: Oh, you didn%u2019t?
MH: So we had a spring, and I had to go down and carry Mama enough water up to do (04:04) until we got back home.
CS: So you had a long day.
MH: Yeah.
CS: How far was your school from your house?
MH: Well, we lived--did you notice the [pause] big old house setting up on the hill on the right, coming%u2026
CS: %u2026Coming in here%u2026?
MH: %u2026down. Yeah.
CS: Yeah.
MH: Well, right back up that way, there%u2019s a road that went all the way down, and we lived off down the hill. Then the schoolhouse--well, the school I went to is right there in Boiling Springs. It%u2019s the town hall now and all of that. On the left, just right%u2026
CS: %u2026I saw that, yeah.
MH: Yeah, right below the--.
CS: So, did you walk to school, or how did you--?
MH: No, we rode the bus.
CS: You had a bus?
MH: Yeah.
CS: That%u2019s good. That would be too far. What did you do for entertainment? Do you remember playing anything or--?
MH: Yeah, we%u2019d play hopscotch and go up on the hill above the house, in the trees and all, and make us a playhouse and play up there. And then, in the wintertime when there was snow, we%u2019d get boards and stuff and slide down the hill in the snow. We just found things to do that kept us entertained because we didn%u2019t have no television, and for a long time didn%u2019t have no radio, but after I got married, my husband, Ken, was in the Navy and he was gone most of the time, so I went back and lived with Mama and Daddy. We bought them a television. Me and my brother, Carl, put in sinks; they%u2019d dug a well by then because him and Daddy had a dairy farm, dairy barn that they milked and sold milk to Biltmore. After we got the well dug and all, why, we put running water into the house, and I bought Mama a double sink.
CS: Oh, that%u2019s nice.
MH: Put it in the kitchen. It got easier. Everything got easier as I grew up.
CS: Yeah. What year did you get married?
MH: Oh, [pause, then laughter] I can%u2019t even remember.
CS: Or approximate year.
MH: Well, [pause] Teresa Gail is fifty-five years old, I believe, and we was married a couple of years before that.
CS: Okay. What was your husband%u2019s name?
MH: Kenneth.
CS: Kenneth. And how did you meet?
MH: Me and my girlfriend, we stayed at a rooming house in Charlotte. Worked in a beauty shop, and--.
CS: Was that after high school?
MH: Yeah, and after taking a beauty course here in Shelby. She was dating this sailor from Dam Neck, Virginia. He lived in Charlotte, but they was stationed at Dam Neck, Virginia. He told her one weekend that he was bringing a buddy home with him, and could she get a date for him, so she talked me into it.
CS: [Laughter] MH: So I met him that way. You want me to tell you what I done when we met?
CS: Yeah, sure, I%u2019d like to hear it.
MH: I%u2019d had the croup and all about a week, and this other woman that lived, her husband come up on the weekends, and she told him to bring some whiskey with him, and they had some hard rock candy, so they mixed that and put it in the whiskey and made me drink some of it. (09:19) had been over across the street at a little ol%u2019 service station and had got us a sandwich, a deviled egg sandwich, and I was sitting in the kitchen, and the more I tried to eat that sandwich, the more I chewed, the bigger it got, so I just put it down and went on to my room. I was a laying there on the bed and they came in, and (09:46) come in and she said, %u201CMargie, get up. The boys are here.%u201D We had a light, and I said, %u201CI%u2019m sitting in the shadow of that light bulb,%u201D and I said, %u201CI%u2019m not moving,%u201D because I knowed if I got up, I%u2019d fall. [Laughter] So that%u2019s how I met Ken the first time.
CS: That%u2019s funny. [Laughter] MH: But everything worked out all right, I guess.
CS: So he was from Charlotte, then?
MH: No, huh-uh, he was from Iowa.
CS: From Iowa?
MH: Yeah.
CS: Okay, that%u2019s right, that%u2019s right.
MH: Ottumwa, Iowa.
CS: And he was in the Navy?
MH: Yeah.
CS: How long was he in the Navy?
MH: Twenty years.
CS: Oh, wow. So did he have to travel around a lot?
MH: Yeah. Well, after we got married, of course the war was over then, but they%u2019d go on these tours and visit different ports and all, and they%u2019d go out into the communities around. They called it a friendship tour, and they%u2019d visit different places.
CS: When did you move back to Cleveland County?
MH: We was living in Cleveland County when Tracy was born. She was born in Cleveland County, and then I was pregnant with Cheryl Ann, and he had to go to Rhode Island, so we moved up there and Cheryl was born in Rhode Island at the Navy hospital. We stayed up there for I don%u2019t know how long, but then when we come back, we come back to Virginia and he was on recruiting duty in Virginia. We lived up there %u2018til, oh--Cheryl Ann, I guess, was about four or five years old when we came back to Cleveland County, moved back to--. No, we come back to Charlotte. We moved back to Charlotte when Daddy got real bad off. I%u2019d come up here and help Mama and my other brothers and sisters take care of him. Then after he died, we moved back up here after [pause] I forgot how long, but anyhow, we moved back to Cleveland County, to Boiling Springs, and lived there for [pause]. Well, Rusty and Monty was born while we lived in Boiling Springs and we%u2019ve been living here ever since.
CS: Yeah. Tell me where you worked.
MH: At Fiber Industries. That%u2019s what it was called when I first went to work in %u201968--June of %u201968. Worked down there for eighteen years and retired in June of %u201986, I believe it was. Would that be--?
CS: Yeah. That%u2019s about, almost twenty years. Were you working at all before that, before you got that job?
MH: Yeah, I worked at--I can%u2019t even remember what it was called now, but anyhow, I had to cover [pause] rubber, cover rubber and make--I forgot what all they done with it. But anyhow, I worked there %u2018til I got my job at Fiber. I guess I worked there about a year, a year-and-a-half.
CS: What did you do at Fiber Industries?
MH: I doffed yarn. We put bobbins on and string the [pause] yarn on the bobbins around the hot-rolled and the cold-rolled, and then it went on the bobbins, and when they got full, we had to doff them off and take them over to packing. I worked in what they called the drawing area.
CS: What was it called?
MH: Drawing.
CS: Okay.
MH: And I worked there all the time I was down there, but went upstairs on day shifts a whole lot of the time, working out different things and trying to make things better and do things better than what we was a doing downstairs. Then they started what they called S-3.
CS: What%u2019s that?
MH: [Pause] I never did work out there, but Teresa Gail did. I can%u2019t remember what they done.
CS: That%u2019s all right.
MH: It%u2019s been so long ago. But anyhow, I worked in doffing, doffing drawing, and then sometimes we%u2019d have to go over and work in packing, packing the yarn out and sending it out, because they used it to make thread out of it.
CS: Did you enjoy your work?
MH: Yeah. I enjoyed it, but on toward the last, my knees got to hurting me so bad. It was just like I was walking on two toothaches all day long, so I took that as much as I could and then I retired.
CS: Okay. But you enjoyed it before then?
MH: Yeah, I enjoyed the people I worked with.
CS: Did you stay in touch with them after you left?
MH: Some of them I have, when I could get up and go. I%u2019d meet some of them uptown or somewhere every once in a while, but I hear about what%u2019s going on. Me and Eloise Powell kept in--well, we still keep in touch. She tells me what she knows and I tell her what I know. [Laughter] Yeah, I made some good friends down there. For the most part, I liked all my boss men, women--two women boss ladies.
CS: Oh, you did?
MH: Yeah. Martha Thompson and Nadine--Nadine, Nadine Black, was my two female bosses, and then I had several male bosses.
CS: Did you work mostly with other women or men and women both?
MH: Yeah, well, it got on up to where just before I retired, there was some men started coming in, working on doff crews, but the doff crews was all women.
CS: It was?
MH: Yeah.
CS: Okay. What kind of differences have you seen, or changes have you seen since you were--since you started your job or since you were living here in the sixties to what it%u2019s like now in Cleveland County?
MH: Oh, they%u2019ve changed. Fiber is not Fiber any more. I don%u2019t even know what the name of it is now, but after I left, down there below Spartanburg, they had a plant down here and they shut it down and they all come up there. It just went--well, most of the people that worked down there when I did that was still down there didn%u2019t like it all that much. I don%u2019t even know how they do now or what they make down there now, because they%u2019ve changed it about three times since I retired.
CS: Yeah. Do you feel like this used to be a place, before all the mills started shutting down, where it was a pretty good place to find a job and make a living?
MH: Yeah, they paid well. I believe they was about as old as PPG was, and both of them was--everybody wanted to work at one or the other because they made good money.
CS: Yeah.
MH: Ken tried to get on down there and they wouldn%u2019t hire him. They told him he was overqualified to be a creel man.
CS: So did he work after he retired from the--?
MH: Yeah, worked over at Safety Test. Well, Monty told you that on her--. But he worked over there, and he retired from there. Then he worked as a policeman there in Boiling Springs and retired from there.
CS: Yesterday you mentioned that you had a connection to Earl Scruggs.
MH: Yeah.
CS: Can you tell me what that is again?
MH: My brother married his--George married his sister, Ruby.
CS: How much older was George than you?
MH: Oh, he was a lot older than me.
CS: Yeah.
MH: Earl and Horace used to come over at the house and bring their banjo and guitar, and Daddy had a banjo back then. They%u2019d all get out on the porch and play and all. I just have followed him all of my life. After he went to Nashville, Tennessee, he wasn%u2019t around too much, but we all kept in touch with him and knowed where he was at and what he was a doing and everything. Of course, Horace and his wire, Maida, lived here, and well, I guess, didn%u2019t live in Boiling Springs, but I guess we%u2019d call it Boiling Springs. Anyhow, it was here in Cleveland County.
CS: But you enjoyed his music?
MH: Yeah. There ain%u2019t nobody else can play a banjo like he can.
CS: Can you remember when he was getting pretty famous?
MH: Yeah.
CS: That must have been kind of neat.
MH: Yeah. A lot of people asked me if I%u2019d know him, and I%u2019d say, %u201CWell, yes.%u201D I said, %u201CI call them in-laws.%u201D I said, %u201CThey%u2019re my in-laws.%u201D %u201CWell, how are they your in-laws?%u201D I said, %u201CWell, one of my brothers married his sister, and we%u2019re just all big one happy family.%u201D [Laughter] CS: [Laughter] Sweet. Could you play anything?
MH: No. [Laughter] CS: Sing?
MH: Couldn%u2019t sing either. [Laughter] CS: But your dad could play?
MH: Ah, he wasn%u2019t all that good. He could pick out a few tunes, but he wasn%u2019t all that good. But he liked to pretend with Horace and Earl. Ruby used to, when they was a playing, she used to sing.
CS: She did?
MH: Yeah.
CS: That sounds fun.
MH: It was.
CS: So y%u2019all just would sit out on the porch and--?
MH: Or in the yard. We had big old china berry trees in the yard, and we%u2019d sit under them, make us a big ol%u2019 churn of ice cream and eat that.
CS: Mmm. What was Earl like?
MH: What was he like? Well, he was kind of timid back when he was younger, but he%u2019s fun. He%u2019d joke around with you and all. He was a really nice guy, and he don%u2019t ever forget you either. Every time he comes back down--well, one of my nieces lives up there in Nashville, Tennessee where he lives, and when he comes down here, she usually comes and drives for him. When she brings him down, she%u2019ll call me and they%u2019d come over to see me, but I don%u2019t think he gets out much any more. He used to have a plane and he%u2019d fly and land over here at the airport, and then Horace or some of them would go get him.
CS: What was it like being a part of such a big family, having so many brothers and sisters?
MH: [Laughter] Well, I was the baby, and they said I always got petted, but I didn%u2019t. Hannah, my sister next to me, always got the petting because she had some kind of fever and had to learn to walk twice, so she got all the petting. The oldest ones was up and married and had their own children. I%u2019ve got nieces and nephews about as old as I am.
CS: Wow, yeah.
MH: They was all gone whenever I got up big enough to know and start doing things. I started washing dishes, standing up in a chair, when I was four years old.
CS: That%u2019s very early.
MH: Yeah.
CS: Did your brothers and sisters stay in Cleveland County?
MH: No. I had a brother that moved to Gaffney, lived down here. Then, let%u2019s see, it was about three or four of them stayed around in Cleveland County, but the rest of them is here and yonder and everywhere.
CS: What happened to the farm?
MH: When Daddy died, he left it in his will that if Carl wanted the farm, he could pay us so much apiece for it, or we could all take a part of it, but he paid us all for it and he kept it and it%u2019s still in his%u2026
CS: %u2026Oh, it%u2019s still there?
MH: Yeah, it%u2019s still there. Of course, he%u2019s dead, but he had two girls, and his wife%u2019s still living. They%u2019ve got what%u2019s left of it.
CS: That was neat. So it stayed in the family then?
MH: Yeah.
CS: That%u2019s good.
MH: But they don%u2019t farm on it no more like we did. [Laughter] CS: Yeah. [Laughter] Yeah. I don%u2019t think too many people do that any more, do they?
MH: No.
CS: What do you think about--I talked to Monty about this a little bit yesterday, but just %u2018cause it was such a strong economy here when they had all the mills and everything. Do you see this area bouncing back at all?
MH: Yeah, I think they%u2019ll come back, but it%u2019s going to be slow. There will never be mills like it was back then. I don%u2019t know what all these modern techniques and [pause] phones that you can talk to and find out everything about everybody and all that mess. Might some of that business like that come around, but I don%u2019t ever see textiles coming back, for there%u2019s just not any room to grow cotton and corn and all like we used to grow. They%u2019ve built the houses on the land and everything.
CS: What words of advice would you pass on if you could tell the younger generation something?
MH: Well, I guess I%u2019d give them advice like my mama and daddy gave me: work hard and just let God direct you and help you get what you want to do and all, and just stay true to Him and do what%u2019s right, and everything will work out.
CS: That%u2019s good. Do you have anything else that you want to say, or anything I didn%u2019t ask you about?
MH: No, I don%u2019t reckon.
CS: All right.
MH: We was at work and the old home place caught fire and it burnt down. We was at work. We was getting off and they called us and told us it was on fire, so Hannah and Carl and me was working down there then. When we got home, it was done just about all burnt down.
CS: All gone?
MH: (30:38).
CS: But nobody was there?
MH: No, didn%u2019t nobody live in it. It just had some stuff stored in it.
CS: How did it catch fire?
MH: They think an electric wire, down around where they had the dairy barn had broke and fell, and it was real dry and all, and they think that%u2019s what sparked the fire in the grass, and it went up to the house and caught it on fire.
CS: How big was the house that you grew up in?
MH: We had two bedrooms and then Mama and Daddy%u2019s bedroom was in--I guess the living room and their bedroom was all in the same room %u2018cause they built a chimney in between the back bedroom and their bedroom. That%u2019s how we heated the house, with the fireplaces. And the kitchen, and then we had a big, long room that kind of--we called the pantry.
CS: The pantry.
MH: We had a safe in it that Mama kept pies and cakes and stuff in. Then when we got her refrigerator, it was in there too.
CS: In the pantry?
MH: Yeah. But we didn%u2019t have no inside toilet; we had one out behind the house [laughter] we had to go to.
CS: Yeah. What did she cook on?
MH: A wood stove. Well, %u2018til we got her an electric one. We%u2019d go out and hunt sassafras roots, and the place where you kept water, we%u2019d put them sassafras roots in there and we%u2019d have sassafras tea. She cooked with wood for a long time, but after all of us young%u2019uns and all left, Daddy wasn%u2019t able to cut wood and she wasn%u2019t able to get out and carry it in, so we got them an electric stove. That%u2019s after we got electricity.
CS: Right. Was she happy to make that change?
MH: Yeah, yeah. It wasn%u2019t as hard on them, %u2018cause she%u2019d have to get up every morning and start the fire in the fireplace and then the stove in the kitchen to get breakfast.
CS: What time do you think she got up?
MH: She%u2019d get up about four or five o%u2019clock. [Laughter] CS: But you probably had to get up pretty early too, didn%u2019t you?
MH: Yeah.
CS: What time did you get up?
MH: Well, it wasn%u2019t long after she got up and she got everything started and cooked our breakfast, we had to get up. Sometimes we%u2019d go milk the cows and come back and then eat breakfast and get ready to go to school.
CS: Did you usually have, like, a big breakfast?
MH: Nah.
CS: What did you eat?
MH: We%u2019d either have ham and eggs and biscuits, or sometimes if Daddy had some grits made with corn, we%u2019d have grits. Mama would make milk gravy and we%u2019d eat that over our biscuits. Daddy had stands of bees, and we%u2019d have honey to eat.
CS: Oh.
MH: And of course, when we killed the hogs we%u2019d make sausage and have that. Of course, I didn%u2019t eat too much sausage %u2018cause I just--I don%u2019t know, I just couldn%u2019t eat it.
CS: You didn%u2019t like it?
MH: No. I don%u2019t like it today. And we%u2019d make liver mush and eat that.
CS: How do you make that?
MH: You just cook your liver and grind it up and then put whatever you want in it, and put it in a pan and then cut it in blocks and put it in the refrigerator. And the sausage, we%u2019d usually can sausage in cans to have to eat in the winter.
CS: Oh, you would?
MH: Yeah.
CS: What about the holidays like Christmas or something, with that many kids? What was your Christmas like?
MH: Well, it was a house full.
CS: [Laughter] MH: We%u2019d have sweet potato pudding, but we would grate the potatoes and then put the cinnamon and butter and eggs and all in that. It wouldn%u2019t be mashed up or nothing; it would be ground.
CS: Wow.
MH: And that was good. We%u2019d either have chicken or ham. I can%u2019t ever remember us having a turkey. We just eat the meat we had. Of course, I don%u2019t know whether they had--they probably did, but we didn%u2019t know nothing about it, %u2018cause the little ol%u2019 store that we went to, to get what we needed from the store, they didn%u2019t carry too much meat like that. One day, me and Hannah--Daddy had built us a little ol%u2019 shelter to wait on the bus in--and we was sitting in that shelter one day, and this refrigerated truck went by. We heard something fall, and the back door on that truck come open and there was almost a whole leg of beef fell out, and a gallon of oysters. Well, we didn%u2019t know what oysters was so we dumped them out.
CS: [Laughter] MH: And we took that beef and put it in our building, and when we come home from school that day, we took it home and we eat it. [Laughter] I don%u2019t know whether that man ever come back to find out what fell out or not. If he did, he found his gallon of oysters a laying on the ground, %u2018cause we didn%u2019t know what them slimy things was. When we told Daddy we dumped them out, he just blessed us out. Said, %u201CWhat did you do that for? We could have made oyster stew!%u201D
CS: That%u2019s cute. Did you get candy or presents?
MH: Yeah. We%u2019d set a shoe box on the sewing machine and our Santa Claus would come in it. The last time I set my shoe box out, I didn%u2019t get nothing but a pecan in it. Carl, my brother, come in and he seen there wasn%u2019t nothing in it, so he put a pecan in it.
CS: Aw.
MH: Of course, we done knowed there wasn%u2019t no Santa Claus before then, but like I say, Daddy didn%u2019t have money to go buy like they get today.
CS: Yeah, I can imagine, especially with that many kids.
MH: Yeah.
CS: A different time, right?
MH: And then the grandyoung%u2019uns started coming along too.
CS: Yeah.
MH: I think when Mama and Daddy had their fiftieth wedding anniversary, I think there was about a hundred-something grandyoung%u2019uns.
CS: Really?
MH: Yeah.
CS: Oh, my goodness. Wow. Well, this has been really good and helpful for me. Is there anything else you want to tell me?
MH: No, not really.
CS: I think this will be real good. Lots of memories here. Thank you.

END OF INTERVIEW
Mike Hamrick, November 23rd, 2010