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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Betty and Lloyd Davidson, February 2 and 15, 1979. Interview H-0019. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

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.