Courtship and leisure activities for young people in a working community
Betty and Lloyd Davidson briefly describe their courtship. Having met while working at the Dan City Silk Mill around 1930, the Davidsons courted for about two years before becoming married. Their comments here reveal courtship practices in working communities during the early 1930s. In addition, they reveal the types of leisure activities available to young people.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Betty and Lloyd Davidson, February 2 and 15, 1979. Interview H-0019. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
What do you remember about how you all met?
- BETTY DAVIDSON:
-
We were both working at Dan City Silk Mills, and that's how we
met. He was on the third shift and I was on the first shift.
- LLOYD DAVIDSON:
-
It actually was just day shift and night shift really because it was ten
hours on day shift and twelve hours on night shift.
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
Well, how could you meet if one of you was coming on at one time and the
other at the other time?
- LLOYD DAVIDSON:
-
Well, I think this——we dated on the weekend.
That's the only chance you had working those hours. And this
friend of hers, I got her to get a date with Betty and I got her a date
with my friend. That was the first date that we had together. And so
Betty and I must have hit it off pretty good because we kept dating, but
I don't think the other couple did. But we dated on as long
as we were there. She would stay in town with this other lady I spoke
about. She would stay in town in the wintertime because the road was so
bad she couldn't get in and out at home. And in the
summertime she would stay at home. See, she only lived two miles from
town. It was out in the country——now
it's part of town, but it was out in the country then,
farming. But we dated until we came to Burlington, then we was married
about a year after we came to Burlington.
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
Well what would you do on dates, say in Danville?
- LLOYD DAVIDSON:
-
Play Victrolas. That's about all you had to do, play
records.
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
Who had a record player?
- LLOYD DAVIDSON:
-
The lady she boarded with during the winter, they had one, but
that's about all you could do. Or walk to the drug store.
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
Do you remember any songs that you heard?
- LLOYD DAVIDSON:
-
They are so old, I don't remember them.
- ALLEN TULLOS:
-
How long did that go on——you all
courting?
- LLOYD DAVIDSON:
-
Well, it was about, I reckon, six months in Danville before the mill
closed down, maybe a year after we started dating, when the mill closed
down. And we was here almost a year before we married.