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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview H-0036, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Like many families in North Carolina in the early twentieth century, the Norman family left a farm for town life, finding jobs in factories and textile mills in and around Burlington, North Carolina. Icy Norman began her working life at age thirteen, when she was offered a job by her aunt's boss at a shoe factory. She loved to work, and she loved to earn money, and she brought her work ethic from job to job, eventually settling into a job at a textile mill in Burlington at the age of twenty-nine. She would stay at that job for the rest of her career. In this interview, Norman remembers the rhythms of farm life, from corn shuckings to ice cream socials, and from milling wheat to gristing corn. She then remembers her working life after her father died and her mother sold the farm: learning her trade on the mill floor by practicing for weeks before earning a paycheck; winning the respect of her employers for her honesty, hard work, skill, and ingenuity; resisting unionization; and retiring without a pension in 1976. This interview is about one woman's devotion to her job, and the emotional rewards she earned from her work, often in lieu of financial rewards. Norman looks back on her working life with great fondness, but also with regret that she did not profit more from an industry she feels she helped to build.
Icy Norman recalls her long working life, most of which was spent at a textile mill in Burlington, North Carolina.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
It was mean. It was just terrible.
Were the people who first worked up in the mill from other areas? Mr. Haithcock thought that they had brought in a lot of people from New Jersey and Alabama to run some of the machines up there. And that's why a lot of the neighborhood was so rough.
I'll tell you, I don't know where they was from. I do know it was a lot of rough people. A lot of cussing and carrying on in the mill. But they finally got that all straightened out.
Was that mostly the men?
Just the men. Especially on pay day night, on the second shift. They get
as drunk as, they didn't know what they was doing. They got that all
straightened out. Over the years you hardly hear anybody say a cuss word
up there. You never did see nobody come in there drunk on the job. They
got out of their Little Chicago mess when the mills went expanding. Like
I told Mr. Love one time, "A lot of times it is a lot and lot of yarn
that is wasted." I says, "You're making waste. Which if people would
just stop long enough and take time, they can run that yarn. You're
losing a lot of yarn that could be made into good cloth." I reckon he
told the boss man and they got to watching some of them. They'd go and
check on them and see. It was terrible, awful that the waste them people
made. They'd just tear off yards and yards of cloth. It was just a mess
there for a while. They finally got the mill going and going straight. I
reckon people went to getting concerned about their jobs, and all and I
went to taking only a little interest in it. But as I said, a lot of
people would go to the restroom and sit two and three hours and left
their job standing. That's not right. I believe in doing your job and
not laying down on it, not slacking back waiting on somebody else.
Everybody who is in any kind of mill work, any kind of textile work,
they give
Was it very dusty in the mill?
Yeah, it was pretty dusty in the cotton part. That creeling job was something on cotton until they put them fans that run around the track. That would blow the lint off of it. It was terrible until they put that up there. Out there in the cotton winding room, I don't know whether they ever did get anything. Now they did on the twisters, they had them blow things on the twisters that would run around the track. That kept the lint off of the yarn. But now the winding, they'd have to stop off about twice a day and clean up in the cotton winding room.
Did people have trouble breathing sometimes?
I don't know. I never did work in the cotton winding room. The only cone winding I done was on them little Universal winders. But I did work on the cotton creeling. Them fans kept it blowed. The lint, and it wasn't too linty. When the mill was stopped off and we was changing the mill or creeling a mill on it was pretty linty. But when we started it up them fans would start blowing. Then the lint would all blow off.
Do you ever remember any strikes up at the mill?
Yeah.
When was that?
I believe it was in the latter part of '30 or maybe '31. They struck up there and I think they were out about two weeks. Then the old union would come to the mill and give out them old papers, wanted you to sign up. A lot of them did sign up. I never did sign up for it.
How come?
I don't know. I didn't understand all it was about. I didn't think it was a good thing to do, to be honest with you. So I never did sign up for it. But a lot of them up there did sign up for it. But they never did get the union. Three or four months they would be out there. Then they put that fence around the mill.
When was that that they put the fence up?
That there was along about '34 or '35.
They'd be out there at the gate with them old union papers wanting you to sign up. A lot of them in the Burlington Mill did sign up. And one time they thought that they really had the union, but they never did get it. But I never did mess with it.
Did people come around and talk to you about why you should join?
Yes. I'd tell them I wasn't interested in it and they'd go on and leave me alone. I didn't know whether it was good or bad so I didn't mess with it. Something I don't know nothing about I don't like to mess with. So I just never did mess with it.
When they went on strike, did everybody go out?
Yes, they had shooting. Up there at the Plaid Mill they shot
Why did the people go on strike?
They claimed they wanted more money.
Did you know Reverend Swinney very well?
Oh, yeah.
What was he like?
He was a sweet person. He was just a friend to everybody. When we come here the Glen Hope Church was in a little wooden building. Like you're going up Beaumont towards the mill at the stoplight. Over on the left after you turn, it would be on the right. It was a little wooden building up there. And that's where Preacher Swinney started preaching. In that little wooden building. Then they built the first church. That's the one that got burnt down. Then they moved. Where he was they kind of made a little apartment out of it. I think Holt owned that. They lived out in the field in a great old big house. But now Burlington Mills bought all that and tore that house out and made a parking lot and built a trucking terminal and all out there. They owned it. They had a three room apartment that people lived in. They finally bought so much of that land back over where it was at that they tore it down.
Yeah, Preacher Swinney was a fine person. He had a hand in making
Burlington what it is. Really have to give him the praise for that.
He was very influential?
Yeah, he was a good person. He was a likable person. He just had friends everywhere.
Did he and Spencer Love….
Yeah, him and Spencer Love was real close. Spencer Love would give money to that church, money to help build that church. When that first church burnt down, I think Burlington Mills give them money on the church now that they got. I think they put in a whole lot of money to start it back.
But they had helped build the first one, too?
Yeah. Spencer Love give big donations on that. And they give a lot on this other church. All of them head officials of the Burlington plant and Swinney was real close friends.
Did you go to the Glen Hope Church? Would he ever talk about the mill at church?
You know like homecoming, he would always tell about. Sometimes Preacher Swinney would say that Spencer Love told him that whenever he needed anything to come to him and he would get it. Some of the rest of them might have told you that he would go and tell him the problem and Spencer Love would give him the money. Spence helped a lot in that church up there. I reckon they still give some to it, I ain't telling it for sure. But I do know that other church they did.
Did Reverend Swinney's brother used to work up in the commissary in the mill? I thought Mr. Haithcock told me that Jack Swinney ran the commissary up there.
You mean the one that started the commissary. Might have been him coming around. They started bringing a little long tub on wheels in twice a day, with ice in it with ale. Then they started bringing little cookies and like that in. It was a hand cart. Now, what was his name? Anyway, he opened the commissary. He run the commissary for years and years. Until they expanded and built a place for the employees to go eat. Get things, all kinds of stuff out of the machines. He quit then. Bill Hancock was his name. He went somewhere and then went up there and started a little ice cream parlor. That's the last account I have of Bill Hancock. But he run that commissary. I can't remember nothing about… unless it was, I don't think it was Preacher Swinney's brother. It could have been.
Did you know Mrs. Swinney?
She's just the sweetest.
We're going to try to call her and see if we can visit her sometime next week.
Have you been up to Clarence's and Irene's? That's Preacher Swinney's daughter and son-in-law. He's the pastor of the church now. Clarence Vaughn. He lives right up there in that brick house. That's where Preacher Swinney and Mrs. Swinney lived. They built that for them. Swinney retired and they bought this house that they're living in, the church did, for Preacher Swinney and Mrs. Swinney. Then Clarence and Irene moved in the pastor's house there. But the church bought this home. You ought to go see them and talk to them.
Did your mother ever work in the mill?
Not here. My mother worked some in Schoolfield. My daddy never would let
her work. She had a job and worked I reckon about three months. My baby
sister, she was just a little baby. They had a nursery. They would
What kind of nursery was that?
They had trained nurses, real nurses. I mean they had a degree. It was a big nursery that the company had. They would keep tiny babies, year-olds, two years on up until they was sixteen years old. They had a category for each one. They had trained nurses. They checked when you went in that nursery—they changed your clothes, they put their clothes on you. They checked each child every morning. The little tots, where they could set up at the table, they had a big round table about that wide with little chairs for them little young ones to sit there and eat. Then they had place for the bigger children. It was a huge place, you know. They went in age groups. They had doctors to come in once a week to check each child. If any one of the children was running a temperature they would send for its mother to come home, to come to the nursery to take that child home.
Did the mill pay for that?
The mill paid for that. Old Dr. Crumpler was the mill doctor there. They had a dentist. I forget what the dentist's name was. One time I had a toothache. My daddy carried me up there. That old dentist pulled my tooth. Didn't numb it, I thought I would die, sure enough. That made me scared of dentists. It was years before I'd go to one.
It sounds like the mill ran the whole city.
They did. They built a Y.M.C.A. and they had this nursery. Then they built a huge Hilton Hall. Oh, that was a huge building. It was eight stories high, counting the two ground floors, counting the basement. They built that. People could go there that worked in the mill and have a boarding place. They served your meals and everything. They didn't charge but so much a week. All they had to do was cross the railroad and right into the mill. Then they built that Y.M.C.A. Then they put a movie in here. They had a huge city park. That was the most beautifulest park you ever seen. It was then, I don't know how it is now. I ain't been over there in years. Schoolfield just run all of Schoolfield.
North Danville, they had a cotton mill down there. They went in together and expanded. They are kind of expanding like the Burlington Mill, expanding out. Seems like the Plaid Mill or the Mayfair did run some yarn, nylon, for the Dan River. They expanding out too.
Did you know Hester Taylor? She lives over on Rt. 100 going towards Elon. She came from Schoolfield and used to work up at the mill. She was a weaver.
I don't know but one Hester Taylor. I wonder if that there is my cousin.
Her husband's name was Ellis.
I don't remember this one. The one I'm talking about has been married twice. Her and her first husband is separated.
I don't think that's this one. I was just talking to her the other day and she used to board up in Hilton Hall. She couldn't remember the name of it.
Hilton Hall was the name of it. They had swimming pools there. They had exercise rooms, a gym. A huge gym. Once a week us school children we'd go swimming there. One day out of the week we'd go to the gym. One day out of the week we'd go learn to cook. One day out of the week we'd go learn to sew, the girls would. They had something else for the boys, too. But I never did learn to swim. I still don't know how to swim. It would just tickle us to death to go over to that Hilton Hall. It was so pretty. We'd go over to that gym, we'd play. They had all kinds of swings and things. Now they never did have no see-saw. When we went into that gym we had to have our white tennis shoes on and our white socks. If we didn't have no white tennis shoes we had to pull our shoes off. That floor was just like a looking glass. But if we had our white tennis shoes, we could wear our white tennis shoes in there. We'd go over there and have plays over there. It was just wonderful.
Did you like school?
I liked school up until I was in the fifth grade and my mama got sick. My daddy couldn't get nobody—back then it was hard to get anybody to stay with you.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Did they hire their teachers as well?
Went to school over on Baltimore. Had a great old big school over there. It went to the ninth grade, was the highest it went. Then when you got to the tenth grade you had to go over there towards Luland Lake. You had to go over there to that school when you got to the tenth grade. Over there in Baltimore school you could go until the tenth grade. I wished I had a went on back. I see where I made my mistake. I thought I'd be out six weeks. I never would catch it up which I could have. But I never did go back.
So when did you get your first paying job?
When I first went to work? That was at Elkin. They have a shoe factory there. My aunt, my daddy's sister, worked in the shoe factory. She'd always come over there on Sunday night and my brother would take her to Elkin. She stayed down with my cousin all week. Dewey would get her and bring her and then she'd go on home. Sunday night she told mama, "I want to take Icy down with me and let her see the shoe factory. It'd be a curiosity to her." I wasn't but thirteen years old. Mama says, "We got a big day. Got a big washing to do, I don't care if she goes if she gets back and gets this washing out." So I went on down there. Aunt Leotta carried me all over the shoe factory. Fred Knees was over. We was looking at different things, the cutting room. We started from where they started the shoe and ended up where the shoe was ready for you to wear, to be sold.
Fred Knees come up and he says, "Miss Carter, who is this little lady you got?"
Aunt Leotta says, "That's my niece."
He says, "Does she want a job?" I looked at him and thought my goodness,
he's crazy.
I looked at her and says, "I didn't come down here after no job."
Aunt Leotta says, "You come on here." Well, I went on. She told Dewey that Fred give me a job and he went home. Boy, mama had a fit. That young one down there, she ain't old enough to work.
I went in there and learnt to make shoes.
What was that like?
It was electric sewing machines. They had a cutting room. They had sizes and would cut so many shoes out, vamps, and then they would cut the heel part. Then they would send it to the sewing room. Well, you take it there. They had it stamped. You put it on that brandisher, back part of the shoe to the vamp and you sewed. You'd go up this side and back down, make two little stitches along there. When you got that done, they'd take you along to the one that made the linings. The linings was made just like the shoe. And they'd make that and stack it and send it on in to where they put the soles on. Then they'd send it. Then put the heel on. It was interesting. I worked there then until it went bankrupt. Fred Knees then went into the woolen mill.
My daddy died in February. He come up there and he told mama. See, my daddy owned this farm. He told mama, "Now, I can give Icy a job in the inspecting room."
Mama says, "Can you give Barney and Dewey a job?"
He says, "No, I can't put them on right now. I ain't got no opening. But I can put Icy to work. I got an opening in the inspecting room." That's inspecting them blankets. I know you seen them Chatham blankets.
Mama says, "No she's not going to go to work unless you give Barney and Dewey a job. If she goes to work they'll have to take her down there and go get her, bring her back. That's too much running. I don't want her staying away from home all week."
How far was the farm?
About nine miles. He says, "Let Icy go to work and maybe in a few days I can have an opening for Barney and Dewey."
Mama says, "No, if you can't put them all three to work, she ain't going to work."
Your mother sounds like a tough bargainer.
Mama knowed how to manage and she knowed how to make a living. Naturally she didn't want me away from home, me nothing but a young one. I wasn't but thirteen years old. Well, I was fourteen then, I just worked at the shoe factory a year 'till it went busted. So, it would cause Barney and Dewey to make a lot of trips. Mama couldn't see no point in that. Then we went to Linksburg and I got a job in the cotton mill there filling batteries.
I worked there a long time. And Dooley Carter, the fixer that was in the shoe factory, he found out that he run into Barney and Dewey. He was a boss man then. I know you seen the Craddock Terry shoes. He come over there on Sunday evening. He says, "Icy, I want you to go to work for me over in the Craddock Terry shoe factory." Talking about a shoe factory. That thing was three stories high. Boy, you walk in that mill you thought you was walking on a piece of glass. Everything was clean as a pin. You didn't see nothing out of place.
I says, "Dooley, how much will I make?"
He says, "I'll start you off at two dollars and a quarter a day." That was more than I was making in the cotton mill.
I says, "Allright, when do you want me to come in? I'll have to tell Mr.
He says, "You work this week's notice and then you be over there next week."
I went over there and I worked. Then work got bad. We'd work a week and stand two weeks. That's when we come to Burlington. See, I was working and making money. I come to Burlington and went into the Burlington Mills with nothing.
When you were learning to sew on the shoes and then in the cotton mill, did they pay you while you were learning?
Yeah. They started me right off. I made five dollars a week in the shoe factory. No, five dollars and a half because we worked five days and a half. Dooley, he started me off at two dollars and a quarter a day.
Did you like the work in the shoe factory?
I just loved the shoe factory. I enjoyed it and I hated to quit. Barney and Dewey didn't get no work period. I was the only one that was a working. Then I'd work a week and be out two weeks. And so mama said she thought it was better for us to go see if we could get a job where all could work. So we took off and we come to Burlington and have been in Burlington ever since.
What year was that, that you came to Burlington?
Twenty-nine. Been fifty years.
When you and your mother moved from the farm to Linksburg, did you sell the farm?
No, not right then. We did later on. We sold it after we moved here.
Could you not make a living off the farm?
Oh, yeah. But mama just took a notion she wanted to sell it. I begged her not to sell it. She had the say-so, so she sold it.
Did you like living on the farm?
Yeah, I enjoyed it. I'd get out there about daylight. Dooley, he would be a plowing this field. I'd be in this field on a harrow I'd have that field harrowed by the time he had that field plowed. Then we'd plant our crop. Then when the stuff come in we worked from sun up to sun down. That was good days. Back then you could work in the field until it was so dark you couldn't. Then you'd come in and have to milk the cow and feed the horses or the mules, whatever you had. Then fix supper. Then wash the dishes. Then you'd have time to go somewhere in the neighborhood. You know, the neighbors there lived a half a mile, maybe a mile apart. Some of them two miles. Some would always come to my house. We'd take a circle and we'd visit everybody, they'd take a circle until they'd visited everybody. And everybody just had a good time. Now people don't have time. They have more things to work with. They don't even know what the next door neighbors is doing. That's the truth.
Now you take a lot of places here in Burlington, you can have a lot of
sickness and your next door neighbor don't know you're sick. You can
have a death in your family and they don't know anybody's dead. I don't
believe in that. I believe in fellowship and being friends and
cooperating with everybody. I reckon it is because the way my daddy and
mama raised me. People this day and time, they don't act like they care
anything for you. All for self. But me, the greatest joy is if I can do
you a favor. I want to do you that favor. I get more joy out of that and
more happiness. If somebody's sick that I know I can
You didn't think it was the difference between living in the country and living here that made that difference of neighbors?
You mean trying to be friends with people. My daddy and mother teached us
eight children to love and fellowship. If you could share something with
somebody, do that. I reckon it was the way I was raised. Now you take
What kind of things did people do together in the country?
At school they'd have a supper. They'd call it a box supper. The
teenagers, the young ones, they'd fix it. Well, if we was going to have
a supper tonight at the school, well, you would cook something yourself.
And you'd fix you a box and you'd wrap it real pretty. But you'd fix
your box so you knowed it from the others. You didn't put your name on
it. They would give that box off. The one that bid the highest, well,
you had to eat supper with the boy. That was a lot of fun. We would have
ice cream suppers and we'd have parties. In the wintertime they'd have
dances in some of the homes. Of course, my daddy never would let them
have a dance there. But he didn't care if us young ones was going. The
young people would meet at our house once a
Would people in the mill village get together and do things like that?
Yeah, they have the church. Senior citizens. They meet once a week and carry a covered dish. Then they meet, like the Sunday school classes, at your house. And the next month they meet at somebody else's house until it goes around. They have this big bus at the church, senior citizens go different places. I believe it was sometime along in March they went to Charlotte for the day. They go trips. People get together. Anybody can go on that wants to, if the bus ain't filled up. If you find out they're going, you just have to call Mildred and ask her if they got a vacant seat and you can go.
Another thing I enjoy, I like to get up real early and take my mile walk. But it's been so bad I ain't been this week.
Where do you walk?
I usually go out Piedmont Way, down Hopedale Road, back down North Mebane Street back in around to the stoplight back up to Beaumont then back home. It's a mile.
When you first came here, how big was the mill village?
Just a little old bitty place.
Mostly over by Piedmont Way?
Yeah. Let's see, Piedmont Way and then Long Street was the mill houses. That street over there back of Long Street, it was mill houses. But the ones that was going from the corner of Piedmont Way on Beaumont down on the left side, they was the Silk Mill houses. But then from Piedmont back to that other street was Burlington Mill houses.
Do you know when this part of the town was incorporated into Burlington?
I don't remember.
Because people say it was a real rough neighborhood until it got incorporated because there wasn't any law out here. There weren't any police-men out here.
Well, the roughest thing was people moving in and out of the houses. They'd get drunk and they'd fight. But that never did happen on the street I lived on. Back there on that street where Lottie Adams live, that street was pretty bad. They'd get drunk and they'd get to fighting. I don't know what year it was they incorporated, but it's been a long long time. Might have been in the '35s, somewhere along in there they incorporated. Then the policemen would make a round, but they didn't go every street. If you needed a policeman, you had to call him. He would make a round, like it was Beaumont then. But it wasn't no name. He'd make a round, back around by the mill and back in town, up Church Street, North Main Street, rather. Then they built that road on in and called it North Church.
What kind of crops did you grow on the farm?
We growed corn and all of our vegetables. We didn't raise no tobacco. My daddy would plant one row in the back for chewing tobacco. That's all the tobacco he would plant. We'd have wheat, we'd have rye. When we gathered all of our corn, we'd cut them tops—now I was working in the shoe factory then, Dewey was, too. Barney wasn't there, he was somewhere in Roanoke. Me and him, we'd work until six o'clock. We'd come home and mama would have supper on the table. That's the only time my daddy would let me wear a pair of overalls, would be when I was cutting tops or pulling fodder. He'd let me wear a pair of Barney's overalls and tie them around the ankles on account of snakes. Me and Dewey we would come in at six o'clock. Well, in the fall of the year at six o'clock, it's dark. We'd go out there and cut tops and tie them tops and pull fodder by the moonlight until eleven or twelve o'clock by a night. To take care of our fodder and stuff for the cows and horses. Then we'd go pull the corn. Then we'd have a corn shucking. Now, that's when you'd have a good time.
They'd have a pile of corn bigger than this house. They'd shuck that corn. The mothers would always cook dinner, if it was dinnertime. At supper-time another neighbor would cook supper. Then after the corn shucking they'd give us young people a dance. That was a lot of fun. Then they'd have quilting. People would gather and have quilting at different houses. It would be the same way. They'd cook a big dinner, a big supper. And after that was through, the eating and everything, they'd pull everything back and the young people would have a little square dance.
Who would play the music?
Different ones would make music. My daddy never would let no dancing going on. But he never did care us having a little party, a sociable party. Back then, if we both went to a dance. You had a fellow and me had a fellow. Teenage girls usually have them a partner. Like you and your partner and me and my partner. We went over here to this house, they was going to have a little dance there. They wouldn't have it at the same place every week.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Let's start when you were born.
I was born in Coalwood, West Virginia. My daddy was a bank boss there. Something like a boss in a mill here, but they called them "bank boss" in the mines. We left West Virginia.
When was it you were born?
In 1911. The thirteenth of April. It was on Easter Sunday, snow, mama said, was knee deep. As best as I can remember, I've had two birthdays on Easter Sunday. They left from there then—I wasn't but three months old.
Were you the oldest?
No, my brother that lives in Florida is eighteen months older than I am. My mother was married twice. Barney, he was born in West Virginia, but he was born in Dixon. But I was born in Coalwood. And he's eighteen months older than me. We left from there and went back to Wilkes County up in the mountains. My daddy stayed there. I think he put out two crops. Then he went to Schoolfield.
When he was farming, did he buy his farm or was he renting?
He owned a farm. Then we went to Schoolfield. I think I was around three
or four years old. I don't remember going to Schoolfield then.
What did he do?
He run an elevator in Number Four Mill. He worked there fifteen years. His health got bad. Back then, doctors was good doctors, but they really didn't know then what they do now. They didn't have the kind of medicine and they really didn't know what to do like they do now. My daddy got sick, he had high blood and sugar diabetes. He had heart dropsy. He got to the place he just wasn't able to work. He wanted to go back to the mountains to live and die there. So we moved back to the mountains in 1927, the fourteenth of February. He lived from then until the ninth of February of 1929. He died on the ninth. That's how long he lived after he did quit work.
My mama had him in all the hospitals. Winston-Salem and High Point. She had him in Danville before we left from there. Then she had him in Mt. Airy hospital. They all told her they wouldn't operate on him for nothing. Said his blood was so high that he would die. He had a fatted tumor in his stomach. That tumor was so big you could see the shape of it when he'd have his clothes on. He had high blood and sugar and heart dropsy and then that fatted tumor. He died kind of sudden on Saturday night.
All this time, how were you getting along? He wasn't working.
Well, see mama has been married twice and she had five children by her
first husband. So my daddy, he helped raise them five children. Then she
had three by my daddy. Barney and me and Florence, my sister that lives
in Greensboro. She's the baby. The baby boy by her first husband, he was
Mama says, "Well now, we got a big washing to do. If she'll get back in time to help me start-that washing, she can go."
I got up next morning and went with Aunt Leotta and Dewey, carried her down there. She was showing me over the plant, how they cut out shoes and how they sewed them. She sewed, that's what she done. She showed me where they put the bottoms in the heels. She showed me where they smoothed them off and polished them, ready to ship out. That just tickled me to death. We started back up the steps and we run into Fred Knees.
He says, "Miss Carter, who is that little girl you got with you?"
She says, "That's my niece. That's my brother's daughter."
He says, "Does she want a job?"
Before I could say "No," Aunt Leotta says, "Yes, she wants a job." Well, it scared me to death.
I says, "No, I don't want a job either."
Aunt Leotta says, "Yes she does, too! Put her to work, Fred." "Alright," he says, "You come along with me, little girl."
I was scared to death. I didn't go for no job. I just went to see it. He
carried me over
Well, I didn't go home and did mama throw a fit. She told Dewey, "You get in that car and you go down there after that young one. She's not going to go to work."
Dewey says, "Mama, I can't. She's already at work."
My daddy says, "Aw, Charity, they'll cook her. She'll come home if Dewey goes down there."
Dewey says, "No, Aunt Leotta told me to tell mama to fix some clothes and send Icy and we'd be home Saturday." I stayed down there and stayed at Jenny's. Well, you know, I loved to sew anyway. I just enjoyed that after I got the hang of it. It didn't take me over a day to get the hang of the machine. So then he put me out sewing the vamp of the leather onto the sides. After I got on that I made a little more money. I made five dollars and a half a week for five days and a half.
Saturday I went home and mama just had a fit. My daddy says, "Charity, now just hush. Let that young one work if she wants to. She don't have to work. If she likes it, let her work a while."
Well, I went back. Aunt Leotta come back Sunday night. Instead of going
to Jenny's Sunday night we went to work Monday morning. We would just
cross that little old branch, at dinnertime, and go in Jenny's house.
She'd have a hot dinner on the table. We'd eat dinner and go back. We'd
work until six
I says, "It's yours."
He says, "I don't want it. That's your money."
I says, "Uh-uh. It's yours."
He says, "You take this and do with it whatever you want to do with it."
I says, "No, papa. I want you to have it."
You know as long as he lived I give him my money. He go to Elkin, he'd go like sometime through the week. He would surprise me when I went home on Saturday. Mama didn't like it at all because she was short of me helping her do all that work. I'd go home on Saturday—we got paid every week. I'd take my money and give it to my daddy.
He says, "I'm tired of you giving me that money. I don't want it. It's
your money. You take it and buy what you want to. If you don't want to
buy
I says, "No, I want you to have it."
He says, "I don't need it."
"Well, you take it."
He'd go down there. I'd come home on Saturday. About once a month he'd have me the prettiest outfit you ever seen. He was the best somebody to buy clothes. I know one Easter he went and bought me a new dress and a new pair of shoes and he got me a hat and he bought me a spring coat. First spring coat I ever remember seeing. Oh, I thought it was the prettiest thing I ever seen. You know right today I can't buy nothing I'm satisfied with. My daddy, he could go buy things for me and it was just perfect. My mama, she couldn't buy nothing that I liked. Mama would go buy me things but I didn't like it. But just seemed like my daddy knew exactly what to buy me. And today I can go see things that I think that I like. I get home and I don't like them. That's one thing I think my daddy ruint me. He ought have made me start buying things. He was the best thing you ever seen. He would go to town. He bought all of mama's clothes. Mama never did offer to go buy her an outfit. She was like me. She would get home and she was dissatisfied with it. He'd go pick out. He knowed exactly what to get that would look good on her, that would look pretty on her. Well, after he died. The shoe factory then went busted and I was out of a job.
Did you like working in the factory better than working on the farm?
Oh, yeah. But I'm getting a little too fast. In the meantime me and Dewey still put the crop out. He was there by day and I would help when I got home, you know.
Well, Fred come and told me one Saturday, "You tell Dewey to come in. I need a hand in the cutting room."
I says, "Goody. Goody. Goody. I get to go home every night." So I told Dewey. And Dewey, he went to work. Well, we had the crop planted and it was coming up. We would work. We'd have to work until six o'clock. We'd get home and since we eat, we'd take off to the field. He would plow and I'd hoe. We worked that way and raised our crop.
What were you raising?
We raised corn, beans, stuff like that to eat on the farm. Back then you couldn't go to the store and buy vegetables. You had to raise everything you'd eat through the winter. We raised wheat for flour. Of course that wasn't no trouble. All you done, you sowed your wheat in the fall. That's all you had to do to it until you thrashed it. Then a man come around with a wheat thrasher and with a crew of men and they'd thrash a big field of wheat in a day. Yeah, you had to raise everything you eat. We would always raise potatoes. I've often wondered why people can't do that this day and time. Back then we would raise potatoes anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred bushels of Irish potatoes. My daddy would have Dewey there in the field take this wheat straw and put down and put a shock of fodder and corn right in the middle and stand it up and pour them potatoes around it and then cover them up in wheat straw and pack dirt all the way around them. And we done our sweet potatoes that way.
That kept them?
Yeah. And we done our cabbage that way. And turnips. My daddy would have
us pull our turnips up. They call them holing them away. And we'd
Then the shoe factory shut down. My daddy he died the ninth of February,
1929. So, Fred come up there. He told mama, he says—he went to the wool
Mama says, "Well, will you give Barney and Dewey a job." Well, Barney and Dewey had a job down there and I don't know what happened. Well, I do too. I think they got sleepy. Went out there and crawled down in a car and went to sleep and left the machine running. They fired them.
He says, "No, I can't give them no job. Now you got your home here. You got your living made at home. Let Icy go to work in the woolen mill. I've even got her a ride so she can come home. To go every morning and come home every night."
Mama says, "No, if you can't give Dewey and Barney a job I ain't going to let her go to work."
I just begged mama to let me. We had a home there and had everything. My daddy had three great big hogs killed. We had over fifteen hundred pounds of meat hanging in the smokehouse. No, mama wouldn't do it. So we went to Linksburg.
Did you sell the farm?
No we kept our farm. Mama's twin sister lived at Linksburg. She wrote her and told her to have Uncle Hugh see if he could get us a job. He wrote back and said, "Yeah, they said they'd give us all a job." In the meantime Dewey and Barney both had married. So we took off then to Linksburg, where Rosetta worked a while. But she didn't get to work but three months because she was pregnant with her first. That was Dewey's wife. So Mary, Barney's wife had a little baby. He wasn't quite nine months old. He was born the fourth of December, 1928.
My Daddy died in February. Then we moved to Linksburg on my birthday the 13th of April. That's how old Gilbert was.
So Mary, she didn't try to go to work. Me and Dewey and Barney and Rosetta worked—she worked about three months and then she had to quit. At first she didn't know that she was that way when she got her job. We worked there then until August. They closed the mill down for two weeks. They'd work a week, then stand two weeks. You know, back then you didn't draw no unemployment. So the two weeks that the mill stood, Mama told Dewey and Barney, "We can't live here like that. You don't know, the thing may shut down for good. We're going to go hunt us a job, hunt you all a job." So we got in my daddy's old T-Model. The whole two weeks that the mill stood there, we was on the road hunting jobs. We went everywhere. Back then it was in the Depression was starting. Mills was closing down. So you just couldn't get a job. Every freight train that you seen pass was loaded down with people going from town to town, hobo-ing.
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[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
We tried there, and Mama said, "Being we're this close, let's just go on
to Durham and see Don." That was Mama's oldest boy by her first. Him and
his wife lived out on the Raleigh road. I don't know what they call it
now. And they had built a home there. So we went down there and spent
the night. And Mama was talking to Don and said, "We've been everywhere,
and they can't find a job. They've still got their job in Linksburg, but
they work a week and stand two weeks." And Don says, "Well, I might
could get them on there at the Golden Belt." That was a hosiery mill.
"Next week I'll see what I can do. Mama, while you're this close, don't
go home tomorrow." That was Sunday. Says, "Don't
What year was this?
1929. And so Mama says, "No, if you can't put Icy to work, we'll not come."
Your mother was a hard bargainer.
And so he says, "They can go to work tomorrow. I need them." And she says, "No, if you ain't got nothing for Icy to do, we'll come back when you can give her a job." And he says, "Well, you come back, and don't make it over three or four weeks." You see, Barney and Dewey knowed everything in the mill. They could do anything: they could spin; they could doff; they could fix; they could do anything. And me, I was helpless; I didn't know nothing.
What had you done in the woolen mill?
I didn't do anything in the woolen mill. I filled batteries in the
Linksburg Cotton Mill. That was in the weave room, filling batteries. I
knowed how to do that, but see, they didn't have nobody doing that here.
And so we come back, and he told Mama that he was ready for me to go to
work. And he says, "When can you move?" Mama says, "Well, if you'll give
Icy a job, we can move any time." And so he called up a moving van, but
before he called them Mama says, "Have you got a house empty?" And he
says, "No, not right now, but I'll have you one empty in a week or two
weeks, a five-room house. I know Mr. Andrews up here in the Post Office.
He just finished building a new house. Go up there and see him." Went up
there, and Mr. Andrews said no, he hadn't rented it, and so he give Mr.
Copland the keys and we went up there and looked at it. Oh, it was the
prettiest little house; it was a little rock house. That was the
prettiest thing, and I was tickled to death over that. Oh, it was so
pretty. And so we went back by the Post Office, and Mama paid him the
rent. And so Mr. Copland asked Mr. Andrews, "Can I use your telephone to
call the transfer?" And he says, "Yes." And so he called a transfer, and
the transfer says, "I'll be there in a half hour." And Mama told Barney,
"You take Rosetta, Mary, and the baby"—that was Barney's little
baby—"and Icy back to Don's, and me and Dewey will go with the transfer,
and we'll be back tomorrow evening." We went back, and it just tickled
Don to death. But I still thought…. I was so green, I didn't ask Mr.
Copland would I make any money. And come to find out, anybody that
didn't know nothing had to go in and learn the job, and if you learnt
the job and they was satisfied with you, they'd give you a job. Well,
Mama and the transfer come in. We left Don's and
Did you know how he did it?
Yes, me and Mama would fix it like Papa. We had hogs after we come here, too, and a cow. We didn't have no cow in Linksburg, but we bought us a cow when we come here.
Me and Barney and Dewey went to work Monday morning. That was the twentieth day of September, 1929. Barney and Dewey went to making money right off. They carried me over there to Dewey McBride. He was weighing up yarn. He told Dewey, "I want you to fix a place for this little girl. She's going to learn to wind. Give her two spools of thread and show her how to tie the weaver's knot." If I had knowed that I had to have done that…. You see, Mama was a weaver. If I had knowed I had to work through all that rigmarole learning to tie that knot, my mama could have showed me and I could already know. I sat over on that old box all day long tying old weaver's knot. I thought, I'll never make it. Jim Copland come by and Old Man Smith, they come by and they set down there. Jim says, "How's my little girl doing?" I says, "Mr. Copland, I ain't doing. I can't tie that knot." And he set there and watched me. The more they watched me, the scareder I got. I never could do nothing with nobody looking right at me. Can you?
No.
So he had showed me how to tie it. And I sat on that old box two days.
When I started home, Dewey MacBride give me two spools of thread with
just a little bit of rayon on it. Says, "You take this home, and you
practice this tonight." And I said, "Well, I'll take it, but I'll never
tie that knot. Why can't you just tie a knot like this?" He says, "You
can't do that, Icy. It's got to be a weaver's knot. It
Where had your mother worked?
My mother worked in the woolen mill after her first husband died. She
rolled the sample blankets there at the woolen mill. She was the one
that made the samples that the salesmen took out on the road. She set
there and she showed me. I said, "Well, that's the way they said I had
to do it at the mill, but it won't do for me." So I kept messing. Next
day, on the old box I sat. Well, I sat there. The more I studied about
that thing, the more I hated that. Oh, I hated that mill. Ooh, how I
hated it: And I thought, "Well, if this is all they got for me to do, I
don't want it." I went home and I was crying. Mama says, "What are you
crying about?" I says, "Because I can't tie that old knot." And she
says, "I've told you how to tie it, and I've showed you how to tie it.
That's the only way you can tie a weaver's knot." I said, "Mama, there's
a way you can tie that knot. I don't care what they say. There's a way
that I can tie that knot and it's a weaver's knot, and it's all the same
thing." She said, "No, you've got to tie it and make your loop around
it, take this finger and hold it, and bring it through." I set down
there. She said, "I want you to hush up that crying." I says, "Mama, I
wisht I was back in Linksburg. I hate it up there." I says, "I wish I
was either in the this finger and held it down. And you
know one thing? I'd tie them
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
Just hugged his neck. He is just like a daddy to me. Because he has been in our home and went to our table. Sat down and eat whatever we had on the table. He acted like he was just tickled to death with it.
I heard he was a pretty rough man.
He was hateful. Now, if he liked you, he liked you. That's the kind of
man he was. He was a regular old tyrant if you made him mad.
What kind of things would get him mad?
That would make him mad? If you done anything on the job he thought you wasn't supposed to, he would tell you right now what he thought. And it would have to be done right.
It went on then, and then they took me off of my box and carried me over there and put me with Essie Gammons. Old man Smith told her, "You teach her everything about handling the yarn, how to tie it up, how to find the ends."
Well, you know, she was on piecework. She was after making every penny. I could understand that. I could understand it. She wouldn't let me open a pack of yarn. She wouldn't let me touch that yarn. All she'd let me do, she let me take the full spools off and put the empty ones on. She never let me try to put up one end. Well, it went on there about the middle of the week. Mr. Smith and Dewey McBride come over there. Mr. Smith says, "Mr. Copland says to give you that little winder, that forty-three end winder over there. Come on."
I thought to myself, I'm going out the other door. It scared me to death. Went on over there, Dewey, he weighed up. They was in ten-pound packages. And it was five skeins in a hank. They called them a hank. You'd pull a hank out and shake it out and you had five skeins there. Dewey marked me up ten pounds. I said, "There ain't no need to mark that up." He says, "Why? They give you a job."
I says, "I can't help it. I don't know one thing about that. Old man
I says, "Well, you want me to tell you the truth, don't you? I don't know nothing about that. I've never fetched one of them packs. I've never opened a pack. I've never pulled a skein out. I've never put a skein on. I don't know how to cut the tie bands. I don't know which way the tie bands go." About that time Jim Copland come over. Old man Smith, I can see him. He had a wad of tobacco in his mouth. He yanked that old hat out. He throwed it down. He spit in it, jumped on it. He was just cussing up a storm.
Mr. Copland come up. I was sitting there crying. I was scared to death. He sat down, he put his arm around me, "Honey, what's the matter?"
I says, "They give me that pack of yarn and told me to go to work. Mr. Copland, I don't know nothing about it. I'm going home."
He says, "No you ain't going home. I give you a job and you going to work on that job."
I says, "You ain't give me nothing for I don't know nothing about it."
He says, "Didn't that girl teach you?"
I looked at him. I says, "You want me to tell you the truth? My daddy always told me to tell the truth if it hurt me."
He says, "Yeah. I want you to tell me the truth. I'll believe what you'll tell me."
I told him, I says, "All she ever let me done, she let me take the full
spools off and put the empty ones on. She never let me cut a tie band,
she never let me touch that yarn. She never let me open my pack of yarn.
Mr. Copland, I don't know nothing about it." I was just a boo-hooing.
Tears was just rolling. And he was trying to get me up. I says, "I'm not
touching that
He says, "Come here."
I went over there and I stood. And he showed me how to open a pack up. Well, there lay it all. It was the prettiest whitest yarn, as white as snow. And five skeins in a hank. He took up a hank and ran his arm through it and kind of shook it. There was five skeins. He showed me how to put a skein on. You run your hand in it and kind of straighten it out. Then you pick this reel up and start and go over it. You've seen an old spinning wheel?
Ah-huh.
Well, that's the way they was except they had spokes up here on the side and it was empty here in the middle. But it had a band from this leg to this leg. That helped the yarn up. Then you would pull them bands up and tighten the yarn and hitch it on to the spool. It would go around and around. He showed me how to do that.
He says, "Now here's one tie band that's got the end to it. It's a different color. Be sure to put your knots, all your knots will be on the right side. Cut all your other bands and then come back to this here certain band with the end to it." He showed me how to start it up. Says, "Now you try it."
I says, "I ain't going to do it. I'm scared of it. I'll mess it up."
He says, "No you won't."
I says, "No, uh-uh. I'm going home."
So he turned around and walked off. Mr. Copland was still sitting there. He says, "You come down here and sit down. I want to talk to you. Now, honey, I give you this winder. You going to make a good hand.
I says, "Mr. Copland, I can't do that, for I don't know how."
Well, here was the end broke. I seen they would run their fingers around and turn this swift until the end would come up. But I was afraid I'd mess it up. I'd roll the wheel, the swift around, but I couldn't see no end. Mr. Spivey, he come by. He stopped and was talking. Some of the yarn had run out, the empty swifts were standing there. I was still crying and I told him all about it. He helped me get it straightened out. Put it on. Just like Mr. Copland did. He says, "Look, if an end breaks, you just let it go. Then me or Dewey McBride or somebody they'll come and help you find it."
I says, "Well, I'm scared I'll mess it up."
He says, "We'll help you."
So it went on. I'd go home and I'd cry all night long. I'd get up the next morning and my eyes swelled shut. Mama just talked to me. She was so patient. So it went on.
Were you getting paid now?
I was getting paid for what little I done. That wasn't much. I think I made a quarter one day.
So it went on there. I think I made a quarter one day and one day I made
fifteen cents. Anyway, I didn't draw but a dollar. And I just cried. I
told mama, I says, "I wish I was back in Linksburg. I was making two
dollars a day. I ain't making nothing. I won't never make a winder." All
of them girls, they was on piecework, they'd make anywhere from twelve,
fourteen, fifteen dollars a week. I knowed I never could. So I'd just
cry about it. And poor Mr. Copland would come and sit and talk to me.
Well, everyone of them was so nice to me. They didn't talk hateful to
me. If they had I'd a went running out of that mill.
I sat down and I says, "You know I hate this place." And I started crying.
He put his arm around my neck. He says, "Don't cry. We all have to go through this."
I says, "Yeah. I got a mama and a little sister to take care of. I ain't making nothing."
He says, "You know one thing. Thems the ones that make the best hands."
What did he mean by that?
I didn't know, I didn't know what he meant.
He says, "Thems the ones that make the best hands. Honey, don't cry. You'll catch on to it." Oh, all the rest of them was just working up a storm and making money and me doing nothing.
Well, Ethel and her sister, I really did like them. If I got messed up, both of them would help, they'd have their side a running. Well, they wouldn't have nothing to do until it run out and they'd start putting on more. They'd come down there and they'd help me. They'd help me find my ends. And they'd show me. They showed more about winding than Essie Gammons. Essie Gammons didn't show me nothing. Old man Smith went up there and carried her in the office and what he said to her, Lord knows I don't know. But I told the truth because mama and papa always told me, "Tell the truth if it means it's going to hurt you. Don't never tell a lie about nothing." I was raised to tell the truth and I told the truth. From that day until the day she left the mill she never spoke to me.
Well it went on, Ethel and her sister would help me. Finally I got to
Mama says, "It's all going to work out, the Lord's going to help you. He's going to be with you. I have prayed that the Lord's going to help you."
I says, "I ain't getting no help now." Back then I was a sinner, you
know. My poor mama, she was a good Christian woman, her and my daddy
both. So I kept on working. First thing you know, back then they had a
board. They'd put each day, where your name was, how many pounds you
run, production. There was a production sheet, that's what they called
it. Well, I never would look at mine for mine was so pitiful. Everybody
else, they was it. And I felt I was nothing. I think that was one reason
I cried so, because I couldn't compete with them. So one day it seemed
just like something spoke to me, "You can do it. Get in there and do
it." Just as plain. I thought, I says, "Well, there's all of them girls
working making good money. If they can do it, I can, too." After
whatever it was, I don't know what it was, but it just seemed like
something just spoke, "You can do it. Get in there and do it." I looked
around and I didn't see nobody. Well, that got me to studying. I
thought, "Well, maybe I can do it." I went to work and I worked, oh
brother, I worked fighting fire. I got so I could put the yarn on real
good. I'd cut a leave blank and I'd wet it and flip it up on the spool.
It would go just a flying. First things you know I run two packs of yarn
that day. I was so tickled because I hadn't been running sometimes a
half a pack a day. I run two packs. Dewey McBride says, "You getting a
little better, ain't you?" I didn't say nothing. He made me mad because
he thought when he put me over there I
I says, "What?" I didn't let on. I knowed I run two packs. I says, "I didn't even look at that old board."
She says, "Honey, you ought to look at it every day."
I says, "I did. I'm so downhearted. I hate this place."
She says, "Don't feel that way about it. You doing good." She and her sister would brag on me. So I run two that day. I run two more packs. I said, "I'm running two packs a day." Next day I worked just as hard as I could work. Next day I run my two packs. I went down to the scales and I said, "Dewey, I want another pack of yarn."
He says, "WHAT!" just like that.
I says, "I want another pack of yarn."
He says, "What have you done with that other one, put it in the waste can?"
I says, "No. I run every skein of it." He give me another pack and I run half of it. That was two packs and a half. Well it was a little bit better than the other two days. I kept on going but I never would go on over and look at that production sheet. Here come Mr. Love and his daddy. They sit down there and got to talking. Spence says, "Honey, come on over here. I want my daddy to talk to you."
I drawed up. I knowed he owned the mill, him and Spence together. But I'd
been talking to Spence but I didn't know that was his name. I just
talked
I looked up at him and I says, "Are you all Mr. Loves? Lord mercy, here I've been talking to your boy telling him all my troubles and a crying. Telling him how bad I hated my job. And he owned the mill. I apologize. But I do hate it."
He says, "Little girl, you're doing fine. Mr. Copland is real proud of you."
I says, "Mr. Copland's been knowing me ever since I was a baby."
Him and his daddy sat there and talked to me. Every time they'd come through the mill—we'd have boxes back here at the back of us to put our yarn in— they'd sit down there. They'd say, "Come here, I want to talk to you a little bit." If they hadn't encouraged me like they did. And Mr. Copland. I wouldn't have stayed in that mill as long as water would have got hot. I hated it. And on payday, them men, especially on second shift and a lot of them on daytime, they'd slip out, I don't know where they'd get it, they'd bring the stuff in there and get started drinking and they wouldn't know one end from the other.
Did the supervisors…
No, they went home. They'd get drunk. They'd have a ball. And the supervisor went home. Now the supervisors didn't drink, it was the help. Well it went on then, old Odell come in there. Did he take Mr. Copland's place? But, anyway, went on, and boy I was just working up a storm. First thing you know, old man Smith come over there and says, "Come over here." I thought, "Oh, what have I done?" Went over there, he says, "I want to talk to you and I want to show you something." I thought I had done something that he was going to fire me. He was worser than Mr. Copland. Boy, now he was an old bear, an old tyrant when he was mad. I went over there and thought, "Lord, mercy, what have I done?"
He carried me over there to that production sheet, he says, "You see that production sheet?"
I says, "Well, Mr. Smith, that's the first time I ever looked at it."
He says, "Why?"
I says, "Well, because I knowed there wasn't no need to me a looking to see what I done for I didn't do nothing much. Wasn't no need of me coming over here and looking at it."
He says, "Well, from now on I want you to look at that production sheet. Look up there at your name."
I looked. I says, "Yeah, I see my name up there."
He says, "I'm going to tell you one thing. I'm really proud of you. Mr. Copland's coming here and he's going to talk to you. I'm really proud of you. You know, this end of this week—that was on Monday morning—you was the top winder."
I backed away and I says, "No."
He says, "Well, there it is on the board. You is the top."
You know one thing, it wasn't long before Mr. Copland come down there.
And
Well, it went on, I guess about six months after that. The truck brought in some yarn and it was damaged. He turned over somewhere or other. Anyway, he had damaged the yarn, busted the boxes open. Them old wooden boxes hitting that yarn and just made it matted, you know. They wanted us to try to run it. It wasn't no way, every time it come around to that matted place it would stop. I put it up on my post, I beat it, but that old matted place wouldn't come out, wouldn't come out for nobody. Finally I got to looking at it. I put it on the reel and I cut one, the end and everything, pulled the tie bands out. I got to turning that thing, got to looking at it. It looked like it was a way you could save some of it. Dewey McBride said they was going to have to make waste out of every bit of that truckload. It was just all matted. Looked like you just took it and rubbed it. I got to looking at that thing and running my finger under there. I kept running my finger until my finger would go all the way around the reel. And it wouldn't hit that fuzzy place.
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
I didn't know Jim Copland and Spence Love was back up there. Well, I seen
them, too. I take that back. I seen them up there talking, but I thought
they was talking about, you know. But they was watching me, come to find
out they was watching me. I kept running my finger around there and it
was all smooth. I took my scissors and went through there and whacked it
off. I pulled it off. My end come up in my hand. I put that old matted
place in the
Mr. Copland says, "Honey, wait just a minute."
I thought, "Lord, I done it this time." For you supposed to run every inch of that yarn. But it wasn't no way you could do that yarn, because they done said they was going to have to make waste out of it.
He says, "I want to see that."
I says, "Well, Mr. Copland, I thought it was better to save a little bit than throw it all away."
Mr. Love spoke up and said, "You're right. I want to know how you figured that out."
I says, "I just figured it out. I thought that maybe we could save some of it." So I whacked it. They was standing there seeing me. I throwed it in the trash.
He says, "I want to see that yarn after you start it up." I started it up. He run around and looked, he says, "You got every bit of the fuzz. You know that is really good. I'm proud that you thought of that. We can save part of that truckload. Why aren't them other winders doing that?"
I says, "I don't know." I went on and I had mine just… They come down there and say, "How you getting that matted stuff to run?"
I says, "The matted places ain't going to run. You got to cut them out."
"I wouldn't cut one out for nothing. You'll ruin the whole skein."
I says, "Well, you see mine's running." It went to running out and I put
on another matted and they stood there and watched me. I cut it out and
started it up. They said, "I'm going back and I'm going to try it." They
went back
I said, "I showed you with that skein there I put on."
"Yeah, but I want you to show me on my winder."
I says, "Alright." I went up there. They put a skein on. They pulled the bands out. I started where that fuzz was, I picked it up. I run my finger under it. I kept bringing the swift over, my finger was going on around. It come to where it was smooth. "Now cut it," I says, "right there where my finger is at." And they did. By me doing that we saved part of that truck. I forget how many hundred dollars that was going to cost.
Did the company ever give people rewards when they thought of ways to do things better?
No, well that ain't been over eight or nine years ago. If you wrote a slogan they would give you a silver dollar if they put—no. I sure did make plenty of suggestions in that mill. Sometimes they would work out. They would fix it and they was real proud. Sometimes they paid no attention to it.
After I got used to be in there. And I really loved my work.
How long did it take you to begin to like the mill?
After I got to where I got up to drawing ten dollars a week I was well satisfied. I liked it all right except on payday when they, them men, would go to getting drunk. I didn't like that.
Did the women get drunk?
No, I never seen a woman up there drink. But the men would. I don't know
what it was they drunk or nothing about it. They would have something
they'd get drunk on. They'd get so drunk they'd pass out. Them machines
running. It was a lot of waste. Spence Love lost a lot of money there on
How did they get things straightened out in the mill, how did they get people to stop drinking?
I started to tell you. They come a union there. They was wanting to get union in. Work was running bad. It was people that was working there when work got bad would quit and go to other places. Then when the mill boomed out they'd come back to the Burlington Mill. That's the way it was. They put a fence around that mill and they had a gate watchman. They took our picture. Couldn't nobody go in that mill unless they had a picture on them. He looked at your picture every time you went in, that gate watchman would.
This was after they tried to get a union?
No, that was before. We was wearing our pictures then with our
He was there all day?
And he'd be there the next morning. I don't see how in the world the man held it down. But he did. If he seen any of them a drinking he'd fire them. Hire somebody and put in their place. But everybody went in that mill, they had to learn their job for nothing. But now in this day and time, people would laugh at you if you said, "Well I'll give you a job if you want to learn it. After you get learnt I'll pay you." They wouldn't do it. No way could you get nobody to do that this day and time. Then that was the only way you got a job with the Burlington Mill. If you didn't already know how to do. If you went in there to learn you learnt for nothing. And I really learnt for nothing.
I stayed on with them. A lot of them would try to get me to quit when the work was slack and go other places. I wouldn't do it. I stayed right on with them. I know work was getting so bad, Spence Love come down there and he look like he was so down and out. I said, "Mr. Love, you look like you're mighty low this morning."
He says, "I am. I'm just on rock bottom. I don't know which way to do for the best. I'm going to have to close the place down."
I says, "Well, there's always a brighter day a coming. My mama told me that when I come here and I told you how bad I hated this place. But I really love to work here now. It will be a brighter day."
He says, "You really think so?"
I says, "Yes. It will be a brighter day. I'll stick with you through thick and thin. If you sink, I'll go down with you." I laughed and he got to laughing.
He says, "You just beat all I've ever seen." Then it wasn't too long until that strike, they walked out.
Well, I think they was out, a week or two weeks. Some of them signed the union and some of them didn't. I never did sign it. Time and again since then they'd be out at the gate trying to get— I believe a time or two after that they give them papers out. And I think a time or two they did come in the mill and people would go talk to them. If you wanted to sign, you signed. If you wanted to not sign, you didn't sign.
You were never interested?
I never did sign.
How come?
I don't know. I just heard so much about the union, I thought "I don't
know whether it would pay or not." I read the paper about people being
out for months and months on strike. I just didn't believe in it. If you
was working and was making money all that times you was out on strike,
you would come out to the end a whole lot better than you would be
laying out maybe three and four months at a time. So I never did sign
it. So I stayed with the Burlington Mill. I did everything they ever
asked me to do. I always got along with every boss man. I seen different
bosses. In other words, I seen overseers, bosses and second hands go and
come. I always got along with every one of them. I never did have one
say a short word to me because I always went and done what they would
tell me to do. I do my work as near right as I know how.
Was this a pension or a profit…
Well, you see, if you're there so many years and retire at sixty-five you get $12,500.00. See, they knowed that was in the making. They could have let me work on until January and I would have got that. But my bosses and my supervisors, my second hand supervisor and my superintendent, they had a meeting. They brought it up. They said that I was part of the Burlington Mill, I helped found it. And I stuck with them. They felt that I should have that. You know Klopman, he's gone in the Burlington Mills. Old Klopman spoke up and said, "No, if she's to get it, the ones that been out two or three years wasn't entitled to it. Do you think so?" And that's what my superintendent and overseers and all—and Klopman said, "No they'd have to come back."
That kind of hurt me, kind of hurt my feelings. I felt like I was part of the Burlington Mill. Because Burlington Mill was nothing but a little old two room plant when I went there.
What year was it you retired?
I retired in '76, first day of June. They let me work until June.
Do you go back up very often?
Yeah, I go back once in a while. I go back when they have their dinner. Lots of time I'll take a notion to bake them a pound cake and take up there. I go about lunch time. Then I go around and talk to all of them. I see them there at lunch time. I haven't been up there since I come back from Florida, but I think if nothing happens I'll go up there before too long.
You take Milton, I run into him over here at the store. He says,
Mattie and Bill both was winding. They's first. They was skein winders.
They told me one day when Millie nailed your brother up in a box and was going to ship out, Barney.
I don't remember that.
She was talking about how people used to play jokes.
Some of them up there took to doing everything. That Bill, I call her Bill, Millie Jane, everybody calls her Bill up there. She was forever more doing something. One time there our winders had a wide belt, a leather belt on it about this wide. It was at the end of the winder. You'd start the winder up, that belt would pull it. It was about that wide, leather, and about that thick. One time Ethel—you know back then they wore their dresses long, not down to the floor, and full skirts, about four yards of cloth in the skirt—she started around the end of the winder, coming up there to tell me something. She was full of life, always had something going. Here she started around the end of my winder and that belt was running, and it caught the tail of her skirt. She hollered. I run down there and I cut it off. It done had pulled her skirt slap off of her by the time I got down there. There she was in her petticoat. I laughed and I laughed. It scared her to death. I knowed she wasn't hurt, so I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed and laughed until tears rolled down.
It went on, I forget who it was, seems like it was Barney. Somewhere or another he slowed the belt and got her skirt out. It didn't hurt her skirt except in one place, it kind of chewed it. A place about as big as your hand. She put it back on. But I laughed seeing her standing there in her petticoat. She had a blouse and there was four yards of cloth in the tail of that skirt. I run, she a hollering. It done pulled it off of her time I got down there and cut it off. It kind of scared me. I thought it was going to pull her in there. I stood there and laughed and laughed. I said, "Ethel, I ain't laughing at you, but it was so funny, I can't…" It scared her, she was afraid it was going to pull her on in there. It wouldn't have hurt her unless it got her arm or something.
Did people get hurt in the mills?
Oh, yeah. That's one thing I want to tell you about. I was talking about Bill Shoemaker and Mattie. They first was a spooling and then they moved the spooling out. Then they went to winding. Then they went to skein winding. As you say, Bill was forever more running her tongue. She had something going all the time. She's all the time doing something. She was a person she didn't care. She'd see a stranger she'd walk up and start going on, old crazy talk and all. I wouldn't done it for nothing in the world. But Mattie, poor Mattie, she was sort of like me, a shy type. She was in for things like that. She'd push Bill, she had Bill fronted. She wouldn't do it but she'd push Bill. They would up there. I tell you, that Bill is something. But I always liked her. They always kept something a going. Always doing some plan, some kind of prank on somebody. After all, they was all right people. They didn't do nothing to hurt nobody. It was just full of prank.
One day Bill and her, what was her name, was a back winding. I can't
think of that girl's name. But she was a great big old fat girl. Her
husband run a warp mill. Anyway, her and Bill was backwinding. They got
so much for how many spools they back wound. Bill and her got in an
argument. Bill told her she
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
Little universal winders in there. They went from that back to dyeing the cake yarn. They'd get the cake yarn in white and they would dye the cake yarn. I would run one of those Universal winders. That's the way they made their stripes and different designs of colored material. Then they took it out, took out all of the rayon, went to ordering all white and it already wound. Put in the rayon and then they took out part of the rayon. They left two mills for the rayon. They put the rest in on nylon, pure nylon. They put in these dye slashers. Now they run it all white and put it on that slasher and run it over in the color. They color it any color they want. I sure did love to run that little old Universal. I know one time they moved my little old Universal winder over against the wall down there to give room to put in these nylon warp mills.
Spence Love, he had been dead, I guess, two years. He was playing golf or something and had a heart attack and died. So it was about two years after he died that his wife and another lady come through the mill. They was looking around, come on down. I had my back towards them. I went to turn around, I was doffing my cones off, went to turn around. She come over and grab me and hug me, she says, "Honey you are still with us, ain't you?"
I says, "Well, Miss Love."
She says, "I don't see nobody I know. They all new. I'm so glad to see you. You sure have been a faithful person. You have been faithful to the Burlington Mill."
I says, "Yes, Miss Love, I give my whole entire best part of my life to the Burlington Mill."
She just hugged me and she says, "I'm so glad to see you." After she left, a lot of them come running over there. They'd say, "Do you know her?"
I says, "I've been knowing her for forty-seven years." Now, I said forty-seven, but it wasn't forty-seven. I said, "I've been knowing her for forty-seven years."
They said, "I seen her grab you and hug you."
I says, "She sure did. I was just as tickled to see her as she was me."
But one time, the first time they ever give a supper. They give a five
year pin and a supper. They give it up here at the old Army hall. I
think they tore that building down. They had a supper up there. Well,
Spence and his daddy and his mama and his wife, a lot of them big shots
you know, was there. They made a talk. They had tables set and had your
name at your plate. I wound up and Mack Freeman was sitting beside of
me. While they was talking, nobody didn't eat until they got through
talking. They made the talk, how proud they was that they could fix a
supper for the ones that had been with them five years. They had a
little present for us and a pin, a five year pin. They had a wonderful
supper. You know, Mack Freeman was so drunk, he layed on the table right
beside me. That about killed me. You know, one night he lay down on that
table and he eat, he eat. He never heard one word they said. I said to,
I believe Lottie Adams was sitting next to me on the other side, I said,
What did they give you when you retired?
When I retired? They fixed a dinner. On Wednesday. Milton come told me, says "Icy, they're going to take you to Greensboro tomorrow."
I says, "What for Milton?"
He says, "They're going to interview you at the main big office."
I says, "I ain't going."
He says, "Oh, yes you are. They're going to leave at eight o'clock in the morning. You come in dressed. You go have your hair fixed. I want you to look real pretty."
I says, "I'm pretty the way I am. You know that ain't so."
He says, "You go and have your hair fixed. They'll pay for having your hair fixed. You come in dressed. They're leaving at eight o'clock. The personnel man and Lloyd—Lloyd was my boss man then—and Jimmy Jordan, that was the super. They're going with you."
I says, "Can I be trusted with all them men?" He just laughed.
Well, I got my hair fixed and went in dressed next morning. They all says, "What did you come in dressed up for?"
I says, "Because Milton told me to dress up. He wanted to see me pretty one time." And I laughed.
They says, "I have to admit you sure do look pretty this morning." Everybody just complimented me about looking good. I did try to take extra pain.
I went up there to that main office. They carried me all over that thing.
I says, "They went all the way out with this, didn't they?" This girl that took us a tour. She was about your size, hair a little darker and she had glasses made like yours. She was the sweetest thing.
She says, "Do you know what this room is, Icy?"
I says, "No, but it is something. Them other rooms is something." That was the prettiest place I ever seen.
She says, "This is where the big shots come. This is where they have their meetings when they gather from New York."
I says, "What?"
She says, "You going to meet all of them."
I says, "No I ain't either. I'm going home."
Personnel man laughed and said, "You won't go home until I take you home."
First thing you know, all them big shots from New York, twenty-five of them. There was poor little me, scrootched up with all them men. They got to talking to me, asking me questions. They asked me how long I'd been with the company. Some of them says, "That's amazing. She's the oldest hand the Burlington Mill has got anywhere." I'd been with the company longer, that's what I mean. They talked, they took pictures. Well, they asked me everything in the book. Sort of like you ask me, questions. I'd answer them. They says, "You know one thing, you might not believe it, but if you ever come to New York I want you to come to the main office. You will have a welcome mat for you. Spence says you just really don't know how Spence Love has remarked about you. Did you know your name is on top in the main office in New York?"
I says, "Huh."
He says, "That's right. We knowed you by Spence talking about you. I am so proud to meet you." So then we went down to dinner. There I had dinner with all that bunch of men. I really enjoyed it. It was a whole day of it. We talked, I got to talking to them. I felt I knowed them all my life. We sit there at the table and we talked. They was taking down everything that was said.
They says, "I just wish he was able to been here to eat dinner with us. He'll be here later on." It ain't Kauffman, I can't think of it now.
Anyway after dinner we went back up in to another room. Then we went into the studio. They made pictures. They made all kind of pictures. They made pictures with me with some of them, pictures by myself.
They says, "You know, this will be showed on T.V."
I says, "You mean that's going to be showed on T.V.?"
Them people from New York says, "Sure, we can't let that go by without showing it on T.V. I don't know when it will be, but we'll notify you. It will be on the "Sixty-Minutes" program."
I says, "Well, maybe I'll get to see it." They then carried me into the studios and reshowed it all on T.V. I really enjoyed it, I enjoyed that so much. After they said I was going to meet all them executives, all them big shots in the Burlington Mill. After they got to talking they said they already knowed me from the way Spence Love talked.
"You know one thing," he says, "you are one hand that Spence Love said you went through thick and thin with them. You have made the Burlington Industries. Your part and your faithfulness to the Burlington Industries, you have got a part in all the mills that the Burlington Mills owns."
I says, "I feel like that I'm a part of it. I wasn't nothing but a young one there and I growed up with them." And they laughed.
See this all happened after I went to New York. See, I got a chance to go to New York to Madison Square Garden. Preacher Wilson, he chartered a Trailways—that's the church my sister and them goes to—a hotel bill and all didn't cost you but fifty dollars. My sister and niece put at me to go, too. I thought I have always wanted to see New York. So I told my boss man that I wanted off for two days. He says, "I don't know whether you can be off or not."
I says, "I got a chance to go to New York. I never been and I want to go. I've always wanted to see it. I've seen some of it on television."
He says, "Sure, you can go. Go ahead."
I went up to my sisters and we caught the bus there. That's where Preacher Wilson had it chartered. That thing was loaded down. We went to Madison Square Garden to see Don Stewart. He's the best thing, the sweetest somebody you ever seen. He was running a crusade there. He had it at Madison Square Garden. We went to the meeting. The Madison Square Garden was right like over there. You crossed the street and there was Madison Square Garden. Well right down here, the second building, was the hotel we was in. Preacher Wilson had chartered rooms for each one that went. We had receipts. Each Preacher, the bunch that he brought, had reserved seats. If I had a knowed that I would have went to that place. But I didn't know it until after I was getting ready to retire. Next morning they chartered a bus and they carried us all over New York and showed us all over New York that morning. They carried us down there in what they call Chinatown and all around. Have you ever been up there?
Um-hm.
This man, we went down one place, back kind of, I don't know if you've been on that street or not, but the bus made a wrong turn. It was a raining. And people was just laying on the street. Just laying in the road and on the street. I says, "Well what's the matter with them?"
Preacher Wilson says, "I don't know unless they must have been drinking something and got drunk."
This man that was announcing on the bus, telling us each building and, he says, "No, what you see out there, the bus driver made a wrong turn. We wasn't intending to bring you all down this way. What you see out there is people that's on this dope. They took too much and they passed out."
One of the men spoke up and says, "Why don't they put them in jail?"
He says, "You know, we've got 15,000 policemen in New York. And every jail we got is running over. And we ain't got nowhere to put them. We just leave them a laying out."
You know, it was pitiful. Some of them was just laying across one another. Some of them, maybe three or four, laying on top of one another, just cross ways. It was just pitiful.
The bus driver says, "I'm sorry I made the wrong turn. I have to go down this way now before I can get on my right route." And he passed this main building where all the executives and all, and he explained it to us. If I had known it see, I could have got to go in there. I didn't know it until later I retired.
See, I retired on Friday. Milton told me Thursday, he says, "You don't
have to work tomorrow. You come in, tomorrow is your day, you do
whatever you want to do. I know you want to go around and tell everybody
good-bye. Go in the weave room, go in the winding room, all around and
see a lot of people you
I says, "Well listen. You all shut up just one minute. Let me say one thing."
Milton says, "What's that Icy?
I says, "I know in reason you all have me a cake. But please don't have it trimmed in blue."
Milton looked at me so funny. I seen him jump up. I didn't think no more about it. I says, "Please, please, don't have it trimmed in blue."
Milton laughed and said, "Well I think that's pretty."
I says, "Thelma's cake was pretty, but I didn't like the decoration on it." That's all was said. In a few minutes he looked at me just as straight, and he jumped up, closed the door and went in his office. He called and told them, he says, "When you make that cake I ordered. I told you what to trim it in. Don't do it! You trim it in pink and yellow."
So I didn't know. It wouldn't have mattered to me if it was trimmed in blue. I just said it you know, I didn't mean for him to, after he had done placed the order. I didn't know he had placed the order.
He laughed and said, "How do you know you're going to get a cake?"
Well, I says, "I don't care if I don't get a cake. You all like my cakes pretty good. I'll just bake one and bring it up here." So that's all was said, "You know, I was so short.
They used to have wooden
He says, "No. Lordy, mercy, do you want to get me fired?"
I says, "No. I'll go out the back way, but I want to take my stool with me. I'm going to be a little piggish. I don't want nobody to have my stool. That's mine."
Well, I went in there. There was about two weeks before I retired. My stool would always be sitting at one or another of my warp mills. I went in my warp mill, my stool wasn't there. I thought, "Well, they left it over at another mill. I'll go over there and look." They was changing the other mill. I was looking for my stool, so I could get the top, for I couldn't get the top unless I had this stool. And my stool wasn't over there. I went up there to Roy, a colored fellow that run the front of the mill. I says, "Roy, where's my stool."
He says, "It's back there in the warp mill."
I says, "It ain't."
He says, "Oh, it's over there against the wall."
I says, "It ain't over there nowhere. Have you hid my stool?"
He says, "Icy, I ain't touched your stool."
I said, "My stool's gone. Somebody has stole my stool."
Well, he helped me hunt. We hunted all over that room. We looked in every empty of box. I thought, "Now, somebody is playing a prank on me. Roy", I says, "Let's look in that empty box." We looked in every empty box. We killed two hours hunting my stool. I says, "I can't work without my stool."
He says, "Well, you'll just have to use my stool." I says, "I'm not going to use your stool. I want my stool, and I ain't going to work until I find it. You can just sit down or you can help me hunt my stool." I went out there, he come to me, and I thought, "Well, they got it over on the nylons." I went over there and looked at every stool.
They said, "What are you looking at?"
I says, "My stool's gone." Elena was up on the stool. I says, "Elena, let me turn your stool over."
She says, "What for?"
I says, "My name is on my stool and I'm a hunting it.
She says, "Icy, this is an old stool that's been over here all the time." She sat down, I looked at it and it wasn't my stool. I says, "No, it ain't mine." I went on every warp mill, up and down each side, and I couldn't find my warp stool.
[END OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE B]
… my stool. I went up there in the slasher room. I went up one side and down the other. All over the front. I was so sick over my stool. About that time I was coming from the slasher room back to my warp mill.
He says, "What you doing up here, Icy?"
I says, "Milton, somebody stole my stool."
He says, "Ain't nobody stole your stool."
I says, "My stool's gone. Roy's helped me hunt it and I've been all over this plant, and I can't find my stool."
He said, "Well, I'll look around. Could be that some of them in the twisting room come down here and borrowed it."
I said, "Why didn't they borrow some of the rest of them?" I went on back, I had to take Roy's stool. I worried and worried and worried about my stool.
Didn't nobody know that I told Milton what I was going to do. If they had I'd have laid it on any of them, hiding it. But didn't nobody know it but Milton. I told Milton. So come to find out I never did find my stool.
On Friday morning I went in. I had my Sunday clothes on, my Sunday shoes. Had my hair fixed right pretty. Everybody says, "You look so pretty, you didn't come in to work."
I says, "I didn't. This is one day I'm going to pester everybody." I had to learn a girl, Julia Candem, to creel on my, she was going to take my job. I learned her how to creel. I took more pains with that poor soul. She wasn't old, she wasn't but thirty, maybe thirty-one. I took the most pains. I said the way I was treated when I went in there, the way Essie treated me, if I ever had to learn anybody, I'd do the very best. Show them everything. And help them anyway that I could. And I did. And I learnt, I don't know the hands I learnt. So Julia went on over there and says, "Icy, Lord mercy, I can't keep them two warp mills up."
I says, "I'll be back after a while and I'll help you." So I went all over the slasher room, talked to all the slasher men. They all hugged me and said, "We sure will miss you."
Then I went on up to the cotton winding room and went around to all of them. They all hug me and says, "I wish you the very best. I wish it was me."
I come on around to the office there where Gene and Allen and Boyd, all of them, I talked with them girls, their secretarys, Jean, all of them was in there. They was all around me and hugging me, saying, "I don't know of nobody in the world I hate to see, as bad as I hate to see you leave."
I says, "Well, I hate to leave you all. I growed so fond of everybody. I
love everyone of you. Y'all feel like one of my family. In fact, you're
the only family
I had talked to Sherry that lives right there. I was sitting there and talking to her. All at once the telephone rung and I was leaving from there going up to the main office, to talk to Fran and all. The personnel man. She laughed and said, "Yeah. She's fixing to leave right now. She's going up to the office and talk to the personnel and Fran and all." And it was Milton, he called. It was him she was talking to. He told her and her face turned just as red. She says, "Well, I'll do my best."
He says, "I'm getting on my scooter and I'll be there in a minute. You hold her there. They're all down here."
I says, "Who was that. You looked at me and laughed. I'm going up to Fran's and see all of them, personnel, Jimmy, that was the superintendent. I'm going up there and tell them goodbye."
She says, "No, you can't. Milton's on his way up here on that scooter."
I says, "I ain't riding on that there little scooter."
She says, "Well, he's on his way." About that time here he comes busting in the door.
He says, "I come after you."
I says, "You told me I could go around and tell everybody ‘bye’."
He says, "I did."
I says, "I ain't got to the office up there. I'm going up there."
He says, "You can go up there later. I got something down here I want you to do for me."
I says, "Go ahead, I'll be on down there." I thought maybe, what popped into my mind, was that Julia run up against something she didn't understand. I says, "I'll be right on down."
He says, "You're going with me."
I says, "I ain't riding that scooter."
He says, "Yes you are." I got on the back of that thing. I says, "I'll fall off of it."
He says, "No you won't. I won't drive fast."
He rounded the curb and the whole crowd was standing there. All of them from the main office, slasher hands, dye hands, the warp hands, and two or three of the retired hands was there. They had everything fixed. When Milton drove up and turned the scooter this way and they snapped our picture. Then Jimmy, he made a little talk. He didn't say but a word or two, he filled up and he quit. Personnel man was talking. Every one of them cried. They took the picture of the table.
I looked at Milton, laughed and said, "You didn't fix me no blue floweredey cake, did you?" That was the prettiest cake, I just wish you could have seen it. That cake was that long and it was that wide. I have never seen a cake that long. It was decorated all up. It had the year I come there and the year I was retiring. And says, "Happy Retirement, Icy. We love you." That was the prettiest thing. They give me several presents. Bobby, he knowed I did snuff. They had paper cups there at them vending machines, and I'd always take one of them and I dragged my cup along with me. If I had to go over to the other warp mill, I'd take my cup with me so I could spit. You know what he had, them warper hands made up and bought me a gold cuspidor with my name "Warpin', we love you Icy." He hand me that.
I says, "Bobby, if that's a cone of yarn, I'm going to throw it at you." That's what I thought it was. I opened that.
He says, "Well, it ain't no yarn." I opened that up and that was so
pretty.
I says, "I'll never spit in that. That's too pretty to spit in." They made me up $350.00 to give me and give it to me with a real pretty card with everybody's name on it. It was real nice. All the other retirements, they said something about it. A lot of times they'll call and say, the bosses will, "What's you going to do. You got anything planned tomorrow." And if I did, I'd tell what I was going to do. They'd call that next evening, "You got anything planned tomorrow." And I'd say, "No."
"Well, you be ready. We're going to take you out to lunch." They come and carried me out I don't know what the times for lunch from the mill. They ain't done none of the other retirements like that. Thelma Ward especially, she said, "They never did take me out for lunch."
I says, "They come and carried me out. They called me and asked me, told me to be ready, they'd pick me up at five minutes to twelve. We'd go out and eat dinner."
It kind of hurt me about the money they giving them now. Of course, I got
my little dab of profit sharing. It wasn't much. I got it. But still
that wasn't like that main. I could have really used that money. I felt
like if anybody was entitled to it, I was, because I put my whole life
there. My young life and I growed up there. Where them that's getting
that money, they have quit and be gone for from two to five and six
years and come back and get another job. That wasn't fair. Probably it's
fair to them. I'm glad they're getting it. But it wasn't fair to me. I
felt a little hurt over that. Milton and Jimmy and all of them said they
done their level best to get it for me. They said Klopman put in his two
cents. They said it knocked me out of it. They really felt that if
anybody in the world needed it and got it for the years that I give to
the Burlington Mills, I deserved it.
Let's go back a little. You were going to talk about people getting hurt in the mills.
I guess it's been maybe seven or eight years. Wilma Clemmons, do you know her? She's not retired, she's still working. She was running the front of the warp mill. Well, on that warp mill it didn't have no stop motion. If the end broke down, she had to stop it off. I was creeling up there in the corner of the mill. I was helping another girl quill her mill. My mills was running. Wilma was over there. All at once I hear something scream out. I turned to Mary Dell and said, "What was that?"
She says, "It's somebody pranking."
About that time I heard them scream again. I looked and I said, "Lord have mercy, something's happened to Wilma." I flew under the end and I flew to her. That roller was taking her whole arm up. She had one of them great old big thick wedding bands, real thick. She had that on. That mashed that wedding band as flat as a flatter and it tore every speck of the meat off of this hand. She didn't have no meat on there. I run to her. I didn't know how to stop it off, not that one. Had it been one of the others I could have stopped it.
I screamed to Buster, "Buster, run here quick and stop this mill." For I
knowed it was going to take her whole arm. He run over there and he
stopped it. About that time the boss men come. They went running to the
machine shop and they got some iron poles that big that was bent flat on
one end. They had two of them things on the front prying that roller and
two at the back, with men, two on each one of them, doing their best to
pry that roller up. And there she stood. Shirley she come running.
"Shirley," I says, "Wilma is going to
That wasn't too long ago then.
It's been about seven or eight years ago.
Do you think that machinery lately is more dangerous than it used to be?
No, uh-uh. Since then they went around and put them stop guards on all the machines. But them others, them high speed, if an end come down on them, when it run up to where that end fell out, it would stop. But this one, she had tied the ends and went to start it up. Some way or another that thread wrapped around her finger and took it on in.
Oh yes, it's much safer. I know I was creeling, helping them change the high-speeds. They had a stool just like that but it was this high. Them high speeds is higher than this house. I couldn't reach the top. I couldn't reach them two top ones on a stool this high. Lunchtime, Lena got down and she started and says, "Icy, let's wash our hands. It's time to eat."
I said, "Lena, I didn't know it was that late. Time sure did fly." We had
all the yarn took out of the mill and starting creeling the pieces back
on. The mill was empty with them spindles sticking out. I went to come
down off of
I says, "I fell off of that stool. I started down that high stool and I missed the second step and I fell down between the warp mill."
Well, she run over there and she checked it. She says, "There ain't no bones broke." She went to putting ice on it. She called Milton and Milton come straight on up there. It scared him. He wanted to know how it happened.
I told him, I said, "Lena got down off of her stool I started down mine. She said it was time for us to go wash and eat. I told her, ‘The morning sure did pass fast.’ I missed the second step. Spindles was out and I fell right down, down them."
It scared him, he thought I'd broke my arm. Pat told him, says, "I checked her. Ain't no broken bones. But she does have a terrible bruise."
He says, "You stay up here with Pat."
They was all working and I still hadn't eaten no dinner. She kept that ice on me there about two hours. Then she rubbed some kind of medicine on it and she wrapped my whole arm in that wide—like that you wrap your leg or something in. It hurt me so bad. Milton says, "Icy, you can go home if you want to."
I says, "No, I'll stay and do what I could. I couldn't reach up with this arm I put the cones on where I could tie. I didn't lose no time.
It wasn't but about a week until they come down and measured. Pat, she come. Pat and the personnel man and another man come down there that evening and looked. They talked.
I said, "What you all going to do?"
She said, "We're going to get rid of them stools. We ain't going to have nobody else fall. We're going to have some made just like bannisters with a rod back there and two rods down the side and down the steps."
I said, "That will be in the way of creeling."
So they made two for every warp mill. I never did use one. I couldn't. It seemed like it hurt my back. I'd have to reach over to put the yarn on like this I still drug my little stool. Milton would get after me. I said, "I ain't going to use that old stool for I can't do it. I wouldn't have fell if you wouldn't have made me go over to that old nylon mill."
"Well," he says, "we didn't want you to fall."
But they changed the stools. They put them rods then a handle you could hold to go down.
Was Milton the superintendent?
No, he was the head boss man over the warping.
That's the only time I ever got hurt. Well, I did one time, it wasn't me
that done that. We was creeling on them little old V-creels. I come out
to get a box of yarn, truck of yarn, rather, to go back in. It was one
of them hand trucks, you know, that you slide under. It was in Thelma's
way and she give it a shove and it hit my big toe there. Lord, I just
sit down and cried it hurt me so bad. She didn't mean to do it. She
hated it awful bad. She said, "I didn't think I give it that hard a
shove." But it sure did hurt my big toe, and I've had trouble with that
old toe with an ingrown toenail. I never did know what
Everybody seemed to get along and everybody seemed like they enjoyed working with one another. Just like I said, everybody up there in the room I worked in felt like just one family. We just laugh and joke. We'd say anything. We didn't think nothing about what we said to one another, because nobody paid no mind. We'd all work together and tried to pull together. I think that's the main thing on the job. Especially where it's a group of people. If they all work together.
Was there a lot of competition? Did they always have that production board up?
No, they stopped that. When they went to running the high speeds. They
had a clock on there would tell you how many yards a warper hand would
run a day. It would clock it off like your automobile, how your
automobile will tell you how many miles you got on your car. Something
similar to that. Its warp mill is running and that clock is a clocking
all the time. At the end of the day, the warper hands, they had a sheet
to do them all with. They put down how many yards they run each day, the
days of the month, and all. We didn't have to keep production. I creeled
anywhere from seventeen to eighteen hundred cones a day. Long towards
the last them cones went to weighing anywhere from eight
That's the law.
But I did, just let me work one more year. Just let me work from now until next April. Then I'll have all my debts paid off.
They says, "I wish I could. I hate to see you leave so bad. We'll never replace you."
So I went back up there in a month or two. Roy says, "Icy, please go over there and creel that mill up for me. You know I ain't run one yard all day long."
I says, "Roy, you know better."
He says, "I ain't."
END OF INTERVIEW