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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-0067, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Frank Durham discusses how his family first came to work in the mills and describes other people they got to know there. Over the course of Durham's life, he followed his father's path, working his way up through the mill's supervisory ladder to become superintendent. His broad experience enables him to describe the inner workings of the mill, the ways management negotiated labor complaints with the employees, the social structure of the mill village, and the commonalities of mill town life. He also discusses many moments in employee life, including the ways they hazed new hires. As a part of community entertainment, many of the locals put together bands. Durham and some of his friends were in the Chatham Rabbits, and he proudly recalls how popular they were across the region. He describes how his parents disciplined them. Several of his relatives struggled with alcoholism and other addictions, and he discusses why such problems were common in mill towns. He ends the interview by talking about all the changes that have taken place since he started as a mill worker early in the century.
Frank Durham discusses how his family first came to work in the mills and describes other people they got to know there. He describes the inner workings of the mill, the ways management negotiated labor complaints with the employees, the social structure of the mill village, and the commonalities of mill town life.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Well, he died in 1909. Then they left in 1910, the whole family, and went to Hillsborough somewhere. They owned a thousand acres of land, they said, all up and down the river, and a big plantation. He had a brother lived right across the road, Luther Bynum, right across the highway in that big house over there. That was his brother, Luther Bynum.
Oh, so Luther Bynum lived over there. Wasn't it Luther that started the mill?
Yes. Them two brothers
So there were two different Bynum families, is that right?
Yes. There were two different families. Luther Bynum on that side and Carney Bynum on this side of the road, and the highway used to go right down through there.
How were they related to each other?
They were brothers.
I'd like to find out more about your family, because you seem to have been a very important family in town.
Well, not too much, I don't think, but. . . . I had a good family, as far as that goes, but my mother now is over here in the rest home. It's a nursing home. She's not able to do anything. She's and she knows me, and I was over there yesterday. She's ninety-six years old.
Wow.
Papa lived to be ninety-three. He died in '76.
Did your father move to Bynum?
Yes, he came here when he was a kid boy. His daddy died and his mother
married again, and he left home, he and his sister and two brothers. Up
here in the country around Brown's Chapel somewhere. They had a sort of
falling out before they was any age at all, hardly. His sister had done
left. She was the oldest. She'd left and gone to work somewhere. She
went to work when she was about fourteen years old. Well, Papa took his
two brothers and went to Saxapahaw. That's another mill town right on up
by the river. And he had an aunt that lived up there. He stayed up there
a while, and then they walked away from up there and walked down here.
He had another aunt that lived over there. She wrote and told them to
come down here and stay with her. It was his daddy's sister. So they
come down here, and he went to work in the mill and
Did he come back here to marry?
Yes, he come back here and married my mother. She was a Moore. And he was
made, finally, overseer. Second hand and then the overseer of the
spinning, and then he stayed that way till he retired. He had to retire.
He left the mill—oh, a long time—in '44. And after that he just bought
and sold real estate. He had a heart attack or something. And he got
over it. For about two years he didn't do anything, but just like the
doctor told him over here, doctor at Watts Hospital. He got over that,
seemingly, went back to work just doing what he wanted to, buying and
selling stuff to pick up a little money.
So he managed to save all that money working in the mill?
Yes. Lord, I don't see how he did it.
That's amazing.
Him and Mama built the house on up the road up yonder in 1909. They stayed there ten years and come down here in 1919. And I don't see how he ever done that. They didn't have nothing, you see. And I think he didn't have much money, but they had a mighty good living. But there was three acres of land up there with that thing, and he tended and did everything he could. He had a wonderful garden and kept two cows, and he raised hogs and chickens, and they raised everything they ate, just about.
So they were living over . . .
Over here up the road. Right above that store, the house on the left.
Then he sold that one when he found he could buy this place down here.
Thought it was a good thing, and sold that and bought this down here. Of
course he had to pay
So this is really your family house.
Yes, sir, I've been here Lord knows. Well, I was just a kid like when we come down here.
Did your mother work in the mill, also?
She did until they married. She never worked anymore. She did a lot of work around home. She learned to be a real good seamstress. She was real good with her hands; she could do anything. She sewed for a lot of people. Because I remember all over the place were dresses and things. They'd come over and try them on. I'd carry them when they was finished. I had three brothers and a sister. We was all young together; there wasn't quite two years between none of us. My oldest brother is dead, and my youngest sister. My oldest brother did live right out here.
In the house here.
Yes, and that belongs to their estate now, the other house out there. My brother Cary. He's the one that used to run that store down there. That's all gone now. And there's a boy now that closed it up, and he's selling cars for Coggin up there on the Boulevard, you know. They did a lot of business a long time. He was in business down there fifty years, Cary was.
Didn't another one of your brothers own a store, too?
Yes, Lewis Durham, right up above there. Yes, them Durham They sold and
made a dwelling out of that. He sold the house, only they owned this
home right down here. He sold that and then he sold and he built in
Durham County up there, right on the edge between Orange and Durham. He
don't live but two or three miles out of Chapel Hill.
How about your older brother, Cary? When did he start his store?
1926, and he closed up sometime in '78. But he'd had a stroke in '75. He run it all the time in his name, but he didn't actually run it anymore after he had the stroke because he wasn't quite capable. He got around pretty good for a year or two, but it finally killed him.
Your mother's family were the Moores.
Yes. Edgar Moore was superintendent of the mill down here for years, her oldest brother. They had four boys and four girls in that family.
Were they originally from Bynum?
No, they come from down here on the New Hope. They moved to Pittsboro and run a mill over there, a cotton gin and a grist mill. And her daddy got a farm and was coming out here between here and Pittsboro nights, farming over there. And he was a young man, and he died. Just died in about two days. They think now it was appendicitis, appendix busted, but they called it a kidney problem that killed him. So Uncle Edgar was the oldest one in the family, and he come across over here and got a job over here in the mill. He took a textile course. They seen something in him, and he was a brilliant fellow. The company helped him with the textile course, and he worked through the mill and he got to be superintendent.
Oh, really.
He stayed there. Then he left here and went to Edenton and down
So he started working in the mill as a young boy and . . .
Yes, he started here, and then he moved around. He went to Edenton and stayed down there a pretty good while. He come back here. Stayed here till he retired. He worked till he was eighty years old.
Wow.
He was in good health then. He lived sixteen years after that.
So he started working in the mill down here, and then did he take that textile course before he went to Edenton?
Yes. He got that before he. . . . He was taking that right here and was working in the mill and learned all the jobs.
He was taking that here. How?
Correspondence. You could do that. You can still do it.
How did he happen to go down to Edenton?
There was a fellow that moved out from here who was overseer of carding here, and when my uncle got to be overseer of spinning, this fellow Jim Cates moved here and went to work for Erwin at Durham. And he left Erwin at Durham and went to Edenton. And he wanted to know if they'd go down there. He got him down there. Mr. Cates got to be a big man down there sure enough. They were both good mill men, good, practical mill men, really.
It sounds like the foremen in the mill and the superintendent all were local people here.
Yes. I was foreman.
Yes, I understand you were the super . . .
For years and years down there. Lord, yes. I worked down there about fifty-some years. I was superintendent the last seventeen years of my life down there. My working life. I was overseer of spinning for several years, and then I went over all of it on the second shift, for a long time, twenty-five years.
I'm still trying to figure out how the whole management of the mill works. The superintendent is over everything, is that right?
Yes. Then we have a plant manager now that's over the superintendent. The plant manager, the superintendent, then the overseers of the different departments.
And was the superintendent in charge of all three shifts?
All of it, yes, everything. Both shifts, everything. He's responsible for the whole mill, all that's running, all the time.
And then the supervisor is over the card room and the spinning room.
That's right.
Did you have a different supervisor for each shift?
Yes. Every shift. Yes, there's a supervisor for each shift and each operation; carding, spinning, and winding. There were three in three shifts.
Who took care of the hiring and the firing?
I did every bit of the hiring when I was there. The head man
But now they have a plant manager.
Yes, they have a plant manager and a superintendent now.
Does the plant manager do sort of what Mr. London used to do?
John London was plant manager down there all the time that I was superintendent. But John's retired now. He went to Pittsboro. His brother died. He was secretary and treasurer. He died, and then John went to Pittsboro as that, and they hired another fellow over here. And there have been several fellows down there since this new company got it now. John and them sold out to a company out of Mount Pleasant. They own five mills; this makes the fifth. They had it leased, and then they bought it here about two months ago.
Oh, really.
John was the only one in his family connected with the mill. He's seventy years old, and he wanted to get out, so he just sold it.
I see. So now the mill is no longer owned by the Odell Company.
No. It don't belong to them, but it's still in the Odells' name. They own eighty-seven percent of it. There's thirteen percent of it somebody owned, and they wouldn't sell. They've still got it. But all the company wants is the controlling interest anyhow, I guess.
Could you tell me a little bit more about your career? How old were you when you started working in the mill?
Oh, Lord, I was twelve years old. And going to school
I'd have to eat everything, and I'd stand there and she'd . . . . I
learned to make up beds and sweep and all that stuff in the house, just
like a servant, you know, but she was good to me. Just as good to me as
she could be. I enjoyed it. The next summer, though, I had to go [Laughter]
Gosh.
They had those hours. And several of the boys would work from 6:20 till
3:20, and I come on at 9:20 and worked on. They had it fixed
When was that? That would have been in the 1920's?
1918 I went to work. And it had to have been, I think, about 1920 when that labor law came out.
Did you continue to go to school in the wintertime after that?
Yes, I did. I went to school. Yes, he'd stop us and send us to school,
Papa would. He was the foreman, you see. He'd put you to doing something
or another down there. He didn't make no money at all out of it, [Laughter]
So the money that you earned in the mill, that was your parents'?
Yes, because he bought everything for us. And he'd give us a little money, but that was mighty little along in then. It didn't take much. They wouldn't let you throw nothing away nohow.
You learned not to throw nothing away much, because it was hard times always. Mill families coming along then, if they wasn't a good manager they wouldn't ever have nothing. It'd take good managing, because you didn't make anything.
The company helped out a lot, didn't they, with the housing and all of that?
Yes, there wasn't nothing to do to the houses or the rent, as far as
that. Papa didn't stay over there. After they married, I don't think he
stayed over there but about three years, and he built this house
How's that?
Mr. London and Mr.
Oh, really.
Yes, and he paid them back, and they didn't charge him no interest. Captain London. He was a captain in the Civil War. Captain London. And they always called him Captain London. He died in 1916. I remember seeing him a time or two and speaking to him, but that's about all.
Was your father a foreman by that time, when he built that house?
Yes, he was. Yes, he was foreman, but they didn't make much. When he
built that house, he was making $1.25 a day. That's all. And I mean he
had to work eleven hours a day
When I went to work you got paid by the hour, and I made.
My goodness.
Something fell off. They're doing some work in there. That's my boy; he's going to move in here with me.
Oh, good.
He's going to sell his home in Raleigh. See, I'm here by myself till they get up here. My wife died.
I heard about that.
And had to carry my mother over there. She fell and broke her hip. I was
going to the hospital to see my wife; my wife had a cancer. And from the
time we knew she had one until she died wasn't but about three months.
Just all right now. And while she was in the hospital, my mother fell,
and I was going up there to see her. My sister was up here with Mama,
but she got up to go to the bathroom and failed to take her walker some
way or another, and she just fell and got to going back. She said, "I
didn't fall. I just got to going backwards." Something
Oh, gee.
She'd always been awful healthy, but it got her. They can't stay long,
but then a lot of times they linger on. Some of them don't do nothing
but linger on.
It's good that your son is going to be living with you. . . . How did you meet your wife? Did she work in the mill?
We just met in school. She moved here out of Burlington. Her brother and
her, just two children. And they moved from the mill in Burlington. Her
daddy was raised up the country here, and he come back down thisaway.
And we just met in school and married when we was young. I was seventeen
years old. Yes, sir, that's how old I was, about
A lot of people in town have told me about her mother, Mrs. Ida Smith. She took care of a lot of the people in town, didn't she?
Oh, yes, she did. Her mother was the same as a doctor, near about. And Louise did what she could, but her mother was real good. Children and people that's sick. They all did; they just sent them children.
Do you know how her mother learned to doctor like that?
No, I don't. They were just old-time remedies that were handed down, and
she was the best with babies that I ever saw. I declare, she could do
anything with a baby that a doctor couldn't do, it looked like, near
about. One thing: she knew these old remedies actually better—I mean, at
the time she was at it—than the doctors knew a whole lot, it looked
like. They've got the specialists and all now, you know. But around a
neighborhood like this one here, years ago, there was no doctor, hardly.
If you went to the hospital, you had to go to Watts, or Rex in Raleigh;
that was all. And you didn't go unless you was dying or something about.
Nobody didn't go to the hospital; hardly ever in the world anybody went
to the hospital. And people in the neighborhood looked after one another
the best they could, and they did pretty good at it. And another thing,
it's a fact that if you lived along then and compare them times with
now, [Laughter] [Laughter]
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
So your wife's mother was originally from Burlington?
They come out of Burlington, Alamance County. But they both originally come. . . . She come from over here. She was born and raised down below Pittsboro, come here from down there. And he was born back up here somewhere. But they'd met somewhere, I don't know where, and married, and they moved into Alamance and stayed there a long time. Then they come back down here.
What job did you first have when you went to work in the mill?
Just cleaning up. Cleaned up machinery. Stop them off, [Laughter]
You really learned all of the jobs in the mill.
Yes, sir, I did. And then they put me in the other room, and I learned to
run stuff in the card room, cards, lappers, drawings, frames, all that
stuff. You see, in a mill you start with the lapper, and every machine
drafts it down. The card
Twenty-five, that's the real fine yarn.
Yes, that's right. Then they'd run it on spools or cones in the winder. That's the way they set it down here, in little cones or spools. But everything is cleaning and drawing down; it's getting finer as it goes on through.
Didn't they have to keep a certain amount of humidity in the room
Yes, sir, they do now. I remember when they first put in the first
humidity. Before that it would get so hot and dry you'd sprinkle.
Sprinkle them down the walls and right on the spinning frames. Wet it.
It'd get to where it wouldn't half run sometimes. You'd wet in under
there. And then they put in these disc humidifiers with a fan back there
and a disc in front and teeth all around it. Throw out that spray,
br-r-r-r-r-r, just throw a nice spray on it. Oh, that was real pretty.
And they'd just shine. Then they took them down later on and got their
air system; it's air and water
Does that new air conditioning system help to keep the dust down?
Yes, sir. They've got a dust trick in now. It takes the dust away from the cards and brings it out there. It blows out onto a screen. The screen is turning like this all the time and just putting it out down here on the floor kind of in a separate place, just a sheet of it about that wide, that holds together. It just drops on down and dusts it. Oh, it's terrible. I mean in the air it is. When I was coming along up and for a long time, that was all in the air. It's a wonder I can breathe, but somehow or another it didn't affect me like it did some folks.
Did all that dust bother people?
No, not too bad. But it just killed some folks. They had to get out.
Couldn't stand it. I smoked up until about
Am I right that back then, when you first started working, when you caught up with your work on the machines that you could leave them running and take a break?
Yes, you could. The company was real lenient; they were a good company.
Now you take a fellow running card—I don't care what you was
running—they got good enough at it that they could catch up. They'd get
a little catch-up time, and especially one of them would watch one
another's work. You hardly ever left your work unless there was somebody
there watching. If you leave the thing running, it might tear up before
you got back. An end would come down, and
Do they have to turn off the machines to do that?
No, they don't. They do like that; they have certain ones go at a certain time. They've got a certain length of time; fifteen minutes is the usual break.
Were there some jobs that it was easier to do that than others? I've heard that you had to keep a closer watch on winding machines than you did . . .
Oh, yes, you did. You couldn't leave it; it just stops. It runs out,
those winder stems, they do. And spinning, it'll ball up on you if you
don't watch them. If you stay away from them very long, end comes down.
Now used to we had these lap sticks. Every time an end come down, there
was a lap stick under it just run for six ends. But now there's air that
floats under there, in case
Were certain jobs paid on production?
Yes.
Was that for all of the jobs in the mill?
No. The frame hands,
They were paid by the hour?
No. If you run ten sides, why, you got more, so much a side. At that time, twelve was the limit. Had several ten-side spinners. Make the sides come out right, and some of them just simply weren't as good as the others and couldn't handle them all. Sweepers and doffers. Doffers was paid by the side, most of the time. They work by the hour now, and I think they've got the winding hands and everything by the hour now, just about. But it's not as good, I don't believe, as the other, because, well, when I was down there we paid near about everything on the incentive system, either by sides or. . . . The doffers got paid by the side. They tend to keep them running better, trying to make another side, you know. And the pounds in the winding room: well, you just take somebody there that can wind 300 or 400 pounds a day and another one wind 250, why, that good hand just do well to drop down to the other one if he's going to make the same pay, you know. There's got to be some way or another, and I don't know how they handle it now. I haven't been down there to amount to nothing lately.
Winders could only wind if they had bobbins. Was there ever a problem . . .
Used to we'd catch up a bobbin some, but they tried to never let them
catch up. If you did, you'd allow for that. I did; we did; we would
allow. If they caught up and they had to sit down and didn't have
Did the people ever come to you with complaints about how the work was going?
Oh, Lord, yes.
What sort of things would they complain about?
[Laughter]
How about during breaks? What did people used to do during their breaks?
Usually, if they got coffee, they'd drink coffee and smoke a cigarette. All of them smoked in Bynum.
Inside the mill?
Yes, you've got a place for it, though, you know.
Oh, really.
Yes, there's a room in the winding room where the spinners and the winders use; that's the break room. They've got all these machines in there, sandwich machines, Coca-Colas, and a money changer and everything in there. And they go in there. Then there's tables around there. They sit around in there and drink coffee or drink their drink or eat a sandwich and smoke a cigarette. Then they're ready to go back to work, usually.
How about back when you started work? What did people do then?
Oh, they went on outside. Just smoked, that was all. We didn't have no
drinks nor nothing. There weren't nothing down there except water. And
if you smoked, why, you'd catch up long enough to go out and smoke.
[Laughter] [Laughter]
Were there families here in Bynum who did that, where the father didn't work?
Not too many here. They had a good bunch that worked here, ever since I come over there. I don't remember no real sorry folks that would do that much, but it wasn't that big. But around these big mills, they said they was bad about that, and there probably was some here, too. I'm sure there was. But as a young'un I didn't pay much attention to it. And by the time I began to get grown, they were getting away from a lot of it. They done pretty good.
Some people have told me that during their breaks they used to go down fishing or go to Pittsboro.
Well, they used to, them doffers, sometimes.
Could they do that?
Yes, but now you didn't give them any break; they earned it, but
sometimes they'd overdo it, and you'd have to lay them off for a day or
two at a time or something like that. They didn't do much of that, and
if they did you could break it up by. . . . Say a fellow makes a round.
He's doffing twenty frames, say, [Laughter]
Do you have any idea why the mill in Bynum was more lenient than other mills?
Yes, much more, they were, but they got along with them real good. None better.
Was there any particular reason that you . . .
No. Here it's just the management, tough management, just wanted that
tight. Now you get some fellows that have been here, they'd have had a
fit. You take these folks that come in down here and bought this company
out, they stopped that going out of the mill right straight. And it made
everybody. . . . A whole lot of them quit and left, and a whole
Oh, really?
Yes, sir. Yes, you didn't have to pay them as much. They didn't pay as much here as they did. One thing, you could live for near about nothing with the house rent, you know. It weren't but $1.25 every two weeks for a three-room house, and they were big rooms. That's mighty cheap rent.
Some people have told me that people used to play pranks in the mill. Do you remember any of that? Mrs. Gattis was telling me that, before they were married, her husband came down to visit somebody in the mill, and the man poured a bucket of dirty water over him.
Yes, they tried to do that. They'd let you off, too.
Oh, yeah?
Yes. They throwed a bucket of water on And they messed his clothes up. They finally found out who done it and laid him off for a week for that.
Oh, really.
Yes, the superintendent did. It wasn't me; I wasn't there. I was overseer
of spinning at that time. But they'd do things like that. One time there
was a colored girl—a good one and a good cook—brought her lady that was
spinning down there, that she was working for, her dinner or supper. A
fellow dropped a little paper bag of water on her head [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter]
Can you remember any other things like that?
Well, not especially. There was something like that going all the time, some little old tricks and then playing pranks. A new hand would come in down there sometime to work, and they'd send him after a lefthanded monkey wrench, and go down there and get the key to the elevator, and the bobbin stretcher and all that stuff. Somebody that didn't know there was no such thing. Send it to a foreman or something, and he'd send them back. They'd say, "Well, I'll let So-and-so have it" or something, then run him around a little bit. Some dumb folks come to work, but they'd never been in a mill or nothing, you know. They'd play stuff like that. Oh, they just enjoyed themself by doing a thing like that. But they all did seem to have a good time.
It was just a happy family almost looked like; it sure was. They didn't
make. . . . There was no future to it, as far as that goes, except for
just living, but they all made a good living. I tell you, a bunch of
cotton mill folks, they used to say, is about the happiest people on
earth, because the company [Laughter]
Somebody was telling me that they used to sing during breaks. Did they get together outside and sing at all or tell stories?
Oh, yes, they would sometimes, yes. There was always somebody on the job
that was
A quartet?
Yes. The watchman, he'd come on. He used to sing tenor. [Laughter]
Do you remember what they used to sing?
No, I really don't especially. They'd sing a lot of songs that they knew at that time. Offhand I don't remember none. I don't remember none to amount to anything. But I know they were singing something.
You used to be in a band, didn't you?
Yes, we had a string band here, the Chatham Rabbits.
The Chatham Rabbits.
Chatham Rabbits, that was the name of it. Yes, it used to be rabbit
county, you know. I reckon there were more rabbits here than there were
anywhere in the state. They was everywhere, but there come a disease in
here and killed them out, and there never have been none. Aw, we had a
good band.
Who all was in the band?
Mr. Farrel and Patterson Farrel Louise Farrel up here, her granddaddy and her daddy were the fiddle players. They were real good, too. Her granddaddy played the first fiddle, and her daddy played the second. And they were good. Then we had a banjo player that worked in the mill, David Baker. They're every one dead but me now; they're all gone. And Bob Clapp and I played the guitar. And now he's gone. And the harp blower was a real good harp blower, and he's dead, Talt Riggsbee. And Briggs Atwater played the mandolin, and he's gone. They'd get together, and it was good. There was no radio; there was nothing much, you know. When I first started playing, there wasn't nothing. You had to use phonographs and little old. . . . They were oldtimey. But that's the way I learned about all my songs; I had an old phonograph that you wind up, you know.
How did you learn to play?
There was a fellow in the village that I learned to play with, a
McDaniel. He could play anything. And I just went and bought me a
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
. . .and want us to come to
WPTF.
"We Protect the Family." That's what they said.
Where is that?
In Raleigh. It's there now, WPTF. They'd call up here and want us to come down and play. But every one of them was married, and some wouldn't allow us. They went so much, they'd get tired of them going.
[Laughter]
If they said yes, some would come with us. They was all young enough to
get around a little; they had a pretty good time. But they got to where
they didn't. . . . We went down there I think it was three or four
times. But they had a pretty good audience down there.
About when would that have been?
That was in the late twenties, '28 or '9. We got a telegram, I know, one time from somebody in Alabama.
Geez.
Said that they enjoyed the music and told us a certain song they wanted
us to sing the next time we played, one time we went down there. And
they hoped that the Chatham Rabbits didn't get in the cabbage patch on
the way home. [Laughter] [Laughter]
I don't want to take too much of your time, then, but I'd sure love to talk to you more about this. Shall we end here, and I could come back some other time?
Okay.
Okay, that'd be great. Well, thank you very much.
Yes, sir. You
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
We were talking about the Chatham Rabbits the last time. How old were you when you first started playing?
I was about nineteen or twenty years old. I don't know whether I was over eighteen or not; I don't recall for sure.
Were there many boys in the village that played instruments?
There wasn't many, no. There wasn't but one, the guitar player.
Who was that?
He could play anything. He was a guy who didn't mind learning and teaching. In fact, he finally had a class of them. But I was out then. I'd done gone into another band. I'd gone into the Chatham Rabbits band. I started playing with McKinley McDaniel. We had an Hawaiian band started with, so I played a Hawaiian guitar.
You played the Hawaiian guitar?
No, I just played a straight guitar. He played the Hawaiian guitar, piano, or anything; he could play anything. But I had never fooled with nothing much but a guitar. And we played every whichaway around.
You told me that you'd played on the radio, on WPTF.
Yes, we played there on WPTF.
What sort of things did you play for around town?
We played for dances mostly, around out in the country and around. We
hardly ever played except Saturday night, and sometimes Wednesday. Most
of the time it was on Saturday night. And they was asking you to play
more than you could play a whole lot of the
Where were the dances usually held?
A village down here they called
Did they have the dances in the schools?
People's houses. No, we never did charge for them or nothing. We just played for them for pleasure. They would offer us money, but we never. . . . I don't know that we ever made any money playing at a dance, except during World War II we played over here every Saturday night at the American Legion hut. They paid us over there, and they charged. We got paid for playing for them every Saturday night. Lord have mercy, that place was full all around.
What kind of dances were they?
Round dances, square dances. Square dance mostly.
Did people do any clogging?
Oh, yes, they'd have a little. But mostly they called figures and square danced. It was kind of like that clogging, a whole lot of it was. That figure caller come out of Sanford. I forget his name now, it's been so long. The poor fellow's dead now.
So it wasn't somebody in the band that did the calling. It was somebody from Sanford that would come up.
You had to have a good figure caller. He run the dance, and he kept everything on a. . . . You had to learn them figures, to know what move to make with your partner.
Do you remember any of the tunes that you used to play for those dances?
Oh, yes, most of them. "Mississippi Sawyer" and "Cindy" and
I've talked to a fiddler from outside of Sanford named Lauchlin Shaw. Have you ever heard of him?
No, sir, I don't. No, I've been out of it a long time. I really don't know him.
I was just wondering, because I think he was playing about the same time. Did your band ever do any singing?
I sang in the band right smart, me and Bob Clapp, the guitar player. We sang some.
So that was separate from the Chatham Rabbits.
No, it was in the music. Like when we'd play, they'd want you to sing sometimes. Between dances, while they was resting a little bit, they'd want you to play and sing something. And we knew right many songs then, but I don't know.
Do you remember the names of any of the songs?
No, sir, I tell you the truth, I've just lost. . . . I haven't played any now in so long, I don't even hardly remember none of them. They were songs in that day and time that was pretty good at that day and time, I guess, but I don't. . . . Most of them we had the violins to lead; we didn't sing much. Violins and banjo picking out a lead all the time.
Yes.
I heard there was a lot of singing in town, though. I've heard people used to get together in houses to do singing.
Oh, yes, they did, over there in the village. Yes, all around here. Yes, they'd have singings a whole lot. Little old parties and candy pulling and stuff like that in the wintertime and singings. There wasn't nowhere else to go much, except to entertain yourself in your own. . . . Well, way back there was no way to go much. There was no transportation to amount to nothing. I can remember when the first car that ever was in this place. I was just a boy. My uncle and a store owner bought it together, a Model T in 1912, I believe it was. Or '14, somewhere along in that day. There weren't no cars, nothing but a horse and buggy. A lot of them, horses and buggies and mules was working. The blacksmith's job and the grist mill and all that stuff going then that's gone now. They had a big old grist mill down here that ground wheat and stuff, run night and day in the fall, never stopped. It would rush.
Who is it that ran the grist mill?
Atwater and Lambeth's store. They run a sawmill and grist mill and a cotton gin. And they were big for a little old place. They were said to be the largest general store in Chatham County. They handled everything. They advertised "from the cradle to the grave." They handled all sorts of caskets, and cradles they had. They did; they handled them; I've seen them.
They went bankrupt, didn't they, eventually?
They did.
How come?
I'm sorry, I didn't understand.
Guano, you know that stuff you put in the field?
Oh, yes, fertilizer.
They said they broke him. It had to be paid, and they got him in such bad shape that they finally closed him sometime in the thirties.
So they used to give this to people on credit.
Yes, let out. Yes, they had an office manager. Mr. Atwater run the office. Mr. Lambeth run the store with his help; he had help in there. Mr. Atwater looked after the office. And they'd let farmers have one year, and maybe they just couldn't make it quite that year. Pay a little of it, and then they'd carry it on over into another year, until the first thing you know, they just couldn't do nothing. They'd have a bad crop, and they'd make no headway at all on their debt, and they just went under and finally closed up.
What happened when a farming family went bankrupt?
It was sad, I mean. Well, they got in such bad shape that they couldn't
even get nothing to eat, hardly. And the merchants would carry them,
this one, this merchant, this outfit would carry them, hoping to get
paid in the fall when they'd sell their cotton. Mostly cotton was what
they was raising, and they got mighty poor cotton. There wasn't nothing
in cotton. I mean it got to where it weren't nothing, five, six, seven
cents a pound, and you couldn't make nothing at it. If you had a
wonderful crop year, you still couldn't make no money. That's about the
only money crop there was. And then they got into this tobacco; it began
to come around. That took the place of cotton; there's no cotton raised
around here at all
I doubt it.
This mill down here bought all they could of the cotton that was raised around here, be cause it was good cotton. It was what you call redland cotton, and it put a kind of a cream color to the yarn. Whenever you run it through your mill, it had sort of a cream color. It was just right for underwear, and that's what they were selling the yarn for. At that time they sold a lot of this long underwear, all over the country about.
Did farming families move to the mill when . . .
Yes, about all there was here come in from the farms originally, and they would just learn how to work in the mill, because it was better than farming for a lot of them. I mean for just sharecropping. A man that owned his own farm, he was all right. He done pretty good. There wasn't nothing to nothing, though; as far as making any money, no. You'd just labor, and you could make a living; that was just about all, and a mighty poor one at that. Mills or a farm. There weren't nothing to the farm neither. Noways like it is now. A little old family farm, just about all they did was raise enough for them and sell enough to buy their coffee and stuff like that that they needed, flour or whatever. They raised their own flour, mostly.
Was there enough housing in the village for people that moved in? Did they ever have to build more houses on the hill?
There was [enough], but they just wouldn't take but so many. If you lived
in a mill house, you'd have to work in the mill. Because they near about
furnished them for nothing. Near about nothing. And they
What about for the people that lived here? Did any of them lose their jobs when colored people came into the mill?
No. No, they'd gone somewhere else. Yes, most of them had gone. No. They
just hired colored people when they needed them. If they had white folks
for it and they was on it, they didn't lay them off to
I'd like to ask you a little bit more about your own childhood when you were first growing up. What sort of things did you do to keep yourself amused when you were just a child?
[Laughter]
What would you do when you got together?
Games or playing piano in the neighborhood, and phonographs and things of that type began to be in. Some parents really enjoyed having young folks, it looked like; they knew where to go to be well liked and not be disturbed too much. Some people didn't like them much.
What sort of games did you play?
We played post office and just little old games
Oh, really.
Yes. It was real good. I had one when we were first married.
Was that one of those pianos that's sort of automatic?
Yes. There was rolls, and you had to pedal it, kind of.
Someone in town had one of those.
Yes.
Who was that?
It was the girl that I married. Her father had one. He
You said something about a game with a thimble?
Yes.I'll tell you the truth, I don't remember nothing about it. It passed
around like that, and you had to hold your hand like and close it [unclear]
[Laughter]
Yes.
Were your parents pretty strict with you?
No, sir, they wasn't too bad. They were pretty good, but they had it under control all right. But they weren't too strict. But we knew to do what they said.
Did you have chores to do?
Yes, sir, oh, every day, yes. Certain things to do every day. We cooked
with a wood stove. That had to be got up. And then one of them was
firewood had to be fixed. And the water had to be drawed and brought in.
That wood had to be tended to every day. We had a cow, and we had hogs
and we had chickens; all that had to be looked after. They raised them
all the time. Had a gang of chickens. We always had plenty of eggs and
meat and milk at home. They kept two cows. Papa sometimes had two or
three cows. He had a pasture, and he would buy them [unclear]
So he was doing that all the time he was with the mill.
Yes.
Somebody told me that when people didn't have enough money in their paycheck, or something, that he used to lend them money?
Yes. I think he did. Oh, he's loaned a lot of money. He always had a
knack some way or another of having it. They'd come to him and want
some. And he got a little something out of it; he didn't do it for
nothing, I don't think. They would borrow so many dollars and pay him
back such a thing at a certain time. Of course, he got stuck, too,
sometimes. I don't know whether he made much at it or not. [Laughter]
I'm sure that must have happened a lot with store owners and things like that.
Yes, he got stuck, too, bad, I know he did. Ain't no telling
Did he own both of those stores that are
Yes, he did. Those down there, yes. There was a store there and a barber shop, a post office.
Who was it that ran the barber shop?
Clarence Anders run it; Hackney [unclear]
If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to do a family tree. Just put down who your parents were and. . .
My parents were John Manly Durham and Flossie Moore Durham.
Do you remember your father's parents at all, your grandparents?
I was named after my Grandfather Durham, Frank Sidney Durham. My grandmother on the Durham side was Florence Durham. That's all I know, is Florence Durham.
You don't by any chance know the names of their parents, do you?
No, I don't know them. I never did see but one of my
Do you know their parents, by any chance?
No, sir, I don't. That's as far up as I know.
Your father had three brothers and a sister?
No, he didn't have but two brothers, Coy and Jeff.
And your father was the oldest.
He was the oldest boy. He had a sister, Sally, that was the oldest child. Sally Durham.
Did they all move to Bynum with him?
They was raised out in the country here a while. They came here when they was real young. Because their parents were dead. So they came here to stay with their aunt.
Was Coy the next one after your father?
He was.
And then Jeff.
Then Jeff was the youngest. Mama and Papa had seven children, and the oldest one died, Walter. And then there was Cary and myself and Vernon and Louis and Florence and Irene. Now Irene's dead and Cary's dead. Walter died when he was a baby.
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
Do you know who owned this house before your parents? Did they buy it directly from the Bynums?
No, he bought if from Mr. Ed Ward in Blackstone, Virginia. He had a brother, and he was raised here. He was a banker, but he was raised here and he knew about this place. When it come up for sale, he just bought it to resell. And Papa bought it from him. Uncle Don Ward was Mr. Ed Ward's brother, and Uncle Don married Aunt Sally Ward. That's how that come about. He sold his place up yonder and bought this one.
Did your family have any family stories? Did your parents tell you anything about the history of your family way back?
No, sir, not much. Mama and them, Mama come from down there on
So your father's family was farming family. . .
Yes, that family owned a farm up here on the river. They sold it after they all left there and made a big mistake. Along then nobody didn't think that land was no value much, but it got to be valuable. Timberland got to be so valuable. The fellow that bought that place sold the timber on it for $65,000.
Wow.
And Papa and them sold it for $1,200.
This would have been after his mother died?
Yes. His mother died and his grandmother died, and Grandpa was [Laughter] [unclear]
How far does your father go back? He doesn't go back to the Civil War, does he? He was born after the War?
He was telling what his daddy said. No, Papa was born in '83. His daddy was born back there. He was just about ready to go in the Civil War when it ended, I think. He knew about all of it, the history and everything.
You were telling me that your father went to Saxapahaw first?
Yes, they moved and he went to Saxapahaw. He had some folks up there. Uncle or something. He didn't stay there long, though. He come down here and stayed with his aunt over here.
Who was his aunt over here?
This was his mother's sister over here. She was a Mann before she married a Snipes. And she took care of him. He went to work as soon as he could.
Was she working down here?
Her folks were in the mill, yes. Her husband and two boys, I think it was, worked in the mill. And Papa went to work in the mill when he was just eleven or twelve years old, just as soon as he could.
When your father started work down there, your uncle was not superintendent.
No. The Bynums were in there. No, Uncle Edgar was farming at that time, I reckon. He hadn't even come here when Papa went to work. It was later on. I don't know who was super. Somebody from South Carolina. About all the overseers and everything come out of South Carolina, I think.
Did any of them stay around here?
They
They were hard on them.
Yes. Some of them, one or two of them they liked. But they had a lot of
children to deal with. A whole lot of children worked in the mill. And
they were aggravating: you couldn't get much out of them; you couldn't
do much with them. About the only way you could do it was fear, I
reckon. Some of them hated them. Some of them young'uns would have half
killed them if they could, I reckon. [Laughter] [Laughter]
I bet a lot of the pranks and things were played by those young children?
Yes.
Do you have any idea when it was that your uncle went to Edenton?
I think it was about 1919 or '20, along there. He was there in 1920, I know.
Was he superintendent down here by then?
Yes, he was when he left here. He went down there as assistant superintendent. That was a bigger mill than this one, right much.
Do you have any idea when he became superintendent down here?
About 1904, I think.
So that must have been right after the Bynums left.
Yes. It was about 1904 or '5, I think, moved in here.
What sort of a man was your uncle?
He had a right smart temper at times. He was a real good fellow, a nice guy. But he was a nice-looking fellow, a good mixer and all that. He got into trouble one time with a woman, the poor fellow. That's the reason he left here.
That's the reason he went to Edenton?
Yes. There used to be especially—and still is—right smart of trouble with mill superintendents, supervisors, and things, and oh, women give you a lot of trouble if you don't watch them sometimes.
In the mill?
Yes. They sort of make a play for you a little bit when you got a little
authority and think you'll favor them or not. Oh, it just seems
Did they ever give you trouble that way?
Yes, he did. He got caught with one over there, and he had to leave here. Or he did. He left here. The rest of the help wouldn't have worked for him no more, I don't reckon. They were planning to come out, I think and strike. Planning to walk out, I think.
How long was he gone?
He was gone seven years. He come back here in '27.
How was he able to come back then?
The family died out and left here, most of them there was. Folks didn't
pay no more attention to it, it looked like. And the manager and the
Londons wanted him back. He was a good mill man. And the one that they
had, they didn't like. And he wrote to him to come up here; he wanted to
talk with him. Papa lived here then, and he came here, and Mr. London
come over to see him while he was here and met him at a certain time.
And they started, and they got dickering for him to come back and
offered him a certain price and all. I don't know into it, but I know he
did get him back. He had about the same thing or maybe a little more
than he was making down there; I don't know about that. But he wanted to
come back. He wanted to get things sort of straightened up. There never
was no sense in it nohow. Some of them caught him
Was there much of that that went on in the mill?
No, not around here, no. Not in that day and time. Nothing like that hardly at all.
Did men and women work in the same rooms in the mill?
Yes. She worked in the mill. She was a good-looking woman. Mighty good. And she was about his age; they were both about thirty-five or forty years old then, I reckon, apiece.
How about when you were growing up? Did your parents tell you much about the facts of life?
No, not much. Well, they did some, to try to keep you out of trouble, but not much.
How did you learn?
Just through you own observation place. [unclear] [Laughter]
People had large families back then.
Yes, there were right many large families.
Was that because they wanted to have a lot of children, or because they didn't know how to keep from having children?
I don't think they knowed how. They didn't know how to keep it down, I reckon. Another thing, they didn't seem to mind; in fact, they probably liked to have a large family. Some of them really did, I know. I had an aunt that had sixteen.
Wow.
Aunt Betty Thomas is my great-aunt, Mama's aunt. Had about
So it was named after them.
Moore's Bridge, yes. Moore's Mill was over there, and all that stuff. He lived on this side, and Grandpa Moore lived on that side, and this was his sister.
That was farther down
Yes, further down. Right down the river.
What community was that?
It's down below Hanks Chapel is all I know. It's called the Moore Mill section, though. It's just a small family's. . . . They had a family graveyard and everything there. And they had to move it on account of the dam was going to back water up there. They got in and moved all of them. Because he come up here to see Mama about it. A federal official or somebody.
Where did they move it to?
They moved them to churches in community, some of them down here to Pleasant Hill and some of them between here and Moncure.
How about when you were growing up? Did people know by then how to keep from having children?
No, I don't think so. Well, yes, they did, about the time I got grown, yes. Not like they would now, though. All that pill business and all that stuff, you know, hadn't been out too long.
What sort of things did people use?
About the only thing I know they had was the prophylactics and stuff of that type.
So did families start getting smaller about the time you got married?
I think so, yes. Some did; some didn't. Now some people just can't have them, you know. That was the same thing. We didn't have but one child. Nothing happened after that. My wife was mighty young. Never did have another one. That's him out here on the back porch.
What is his name?
Robert Manly. Bob, they call him, and some of them call him Manly. His wife calls him Bob all the time. He's named after both his grandparents, Robert Smith and Manly Durham.
When was it that you retired from the mill?
I retired in '74, November.
When were you born?
December the 18th, 1905. Seventy-three years old the last birthday.
You've got a lot of years left.
I don't know. I've done a lot of hard work, I tell you. Sure have. Over
the years. Went to work mighty young and went to school. And then
How about your wife's family?
How many was in her family?
Yes.
Nobody but just her and her brother, Reid Smith.
Was he older or younger?
He was the oldest. They had just two children, Reid and Louise.
And her mother's name was . . .
Ida Smith.
And how about her father?
Her father's name was Robert Lee Smith, Bob Smith.
Did you know her grandparents' names?
No, I don't. I know Mr. Smith's daddy was named John, and they called him "Yankee John." He was a Yankee, come down here and married. Never did go back. "Yankee John." I never seen him, of course, but I heard a lot of talk about him.
What did he do?
I don't know what he done. I know he had a bunch of boys. They was a grand lot; they were all giants, near about. And they all worked in the mill, I reckon, till they got up to some size, and they all left. They left here years ago and scattered out every whichaway.
They worked in the mill here.
Yes, they worked here over yonder a little while, they said.
But then she moved away to Burlington?
Yes, they all moved into Alamance County and Guilford County and every
whichaway and moved out. Then what they got into
Wow. Do you remember any other of your wife's uncles?
Luther Smith and Askew [unclear]
Was your wife's mother the youngest of them?
I don't know whether she was or not.
Do you know her maiden name?
Yes, she was a Clark. Ida Jane Clark. A fine woman, I declare she was.
Yes, everybody's told me about her and how much she did.
Yes, she was a nice thing, the best thing I ever saw. Loved everybody, it looked like.
Do you remember any of her remedies?
[Laughter]
Did she ever actually deliver children?
I don't think so. Maybe so. Really, I don't know. I know she did, because there was a time or two I heard her say that the doctor didn't get there in time, you know, and it'd be born when he got there.
She would have to deliver it.
Yes. She'd be done handling it. Said the doctor would praise her work, you know, but of course they . . .
. . .license a whole lot cheaper and easier than you can now, I believe. And I don't think they knowed much. I don't know how much they know now, but. . . .
Do you think there were any of them that hadn't really gone to school, and just said they were doctors?
I don't know. Might have been. I had an uncle that was a doctor. Now he had his. He went up here to Chapel Hill. Dr. Mann. He was my grandmother's brother. And he had a brother that was a druggist. There are Mann drugstores all over this state now, a whole lot of them. He started a chain of them and got pretty wealthy. There's one in Sanford, I know, and High Point now. Mann Drug. Uncle Jeff Mann. He had a brother that was a merchant in Durham, and a nigger killed him. Stickup. Robbery. Waylaid him on the way home and hit him and killed him.
Their name was Mann?
Yes, they were Manns. My grandmother was Florence Mann, and she married a Durham.
I see. So these were her brothers.
That's right. Beverly Mann and Berkeley [unclear]
There was a Jeff Mann?
Yes. He was the druggist. It must have been a pretty prominent family.
They seemed to be. Now Uncle
Was drinking a problem in town? Did a lot of people in town drink?
There's not too bad around here now; there used to be right smart of. . . . The same fellows would get drunk about every once in a while, when I was a boy.
What did they do during Prohibition?
[Laughter] [Laughter]
Was people drinking a problem in the mill?
Yes, it was, it is, and there always has been some. They'd make it and
bring it to certain places, and they'd hide it. You'd pay for it, and
they'd tell you where to get it. Pick it up at a certain place. They'd
make liquor and hide it around. The fellows that knew them, and boy, you
had to know them
Did people get together to drink?
No, not much, I don't think. Sometimes they would. Older fellows would
get drunk together sometimes playing cards and things like that
How about later on, after Prohibition?
It got better, I believe.
There was less drinking?
Yes, you could get it, and it wasn't no worse, I don't think a bit worse,
but probably better. Because I don't believe they had a strong desire.
There's not as much drinking here now as there was during that day and
time, I don't believe. Because you can get it, and along then it seemed
to be that it was a great desire to get it while you had a chance
Did people ever drink while they were working in the mill?
No. No, they'd fire you. I never had no drinking on the job in my life when I was in there.
I was foreman there for twenty-five years
If people got thrown out of one mill, did they have trouble getting jobs at other mills?
Yes. They'd call you sometimes. Now like Saxapahaw up here, I got a lot
of calls from up here. "So-and-so's up here hunting a job. What do you
think of him? What sort of fellow is he?" and stuff. They wouldn't put
him on, unless you recommended him, hardly ever. But I never went
against a fellow if he was out hunting a job; I never did while I was
on. I'd say, "Well, he left us." I'd try to fix it so he could get a
job, and maybe it'd be all right
People moved around a lot, didn't they, from one mill to another?
Yes, they did sometimes.
Was there one period of time that they did that more than others?
I don't know as there was here special times, but the mill here had some
qualities the other ones didn't have, and they lacked some. They didn't
pay as much as they did in mills in town, but it cost you a little more
to live there with rents and things. They didn't ever pay as much. They
could get by here not paying much. One thing was the privilege, the
Did people from one mill ever go to another mill and try and get workers?
Yes, they would.
Was that ever a problem down here?
Yes. A lot of the time, the foreman was out hunting sometimes, and they'd come around the mill hunting help sometimes. Especially if they knew you had a good bunch of help, they'd come around here and try to hire them. And sometimes they'd go, but most of the time they didn't. I know people from Siler City come up here a time or two trying to hire people, and out of Carrboro. There used to be two mills at Carrboro, two nice mills. Belonged to the Durham Hosiery Mill.
Was there anything you could do about that when people. . .
No, sir, except that you could run them off company property, you know.
[Laughter]
Because there were less people to work in the mills?
That's right, yes. And everything was on the boom. Everything was moving fast. There was a lot of work going on in this country then, more than there's been in a good while. And a lot of the people moved out to other jobs besides the mill. They got out of the mill, a lot of them did, when they had an opportunity.
When people were working in the mill, were there any shortcuts that they could take in their work to make the work run faster?
No, sir. No, the mill supervisor had control over that. They didn't
bother with nothing. This mill down here was run at a speed that was
proved to be satisfactory, the best for the mill and the help, too, for
quality and everything. And nobody bothered it. They do now sometimes,
they say; I don't know. You're constantly taking roller [unclear] [unclear]
Was there any time during the time that you were working there that they sped it up at all?
No, I don't know. You kept a governed speed that was proper with the type
of work you was running. You couldn't have beat it. No, we never tried
to break a leg with speed. We had a good-running job. A lot of fellows
that would come through would remark every time they come, "Well, this
is the best-running work I've seen." Yes, it did run
Was there any change when the mill switched over from water power to electricity? Did you have to get new machinery?
No, sir, all we had to do was improve the water plant, the water wheels and generators. Inside the mill, you couldn't tell it.
Was there a motor that drove the belts after that?
Yes. At one time there was a big old rope drive from the. . . . The wheel
run, and the big old shaft run
There are now individual motors on the machines?
Yes, on every one of them.
When did that happen?
It's happened gradually. If we just did
When exactly was it that the mill switched over to electricity?
Oh, we had electricity in the mill a long time. We got electric power over here in '22, I believe it was.
That was electric power on the hill?
Yes. But in the mill we didn't. We used
Do you remember when you switched over to that electric motor in the mill?
We had it so we could
Did they have to shut down the mill while that was going on?
No, they had power in then. They would run everything on Carolina Power.
They hung the whole
I just wanted to ask you a few more things, and then I'll. . . . You were telling me last time about how they used to tease new workers by asking them to get things like a bobbin stretcher.
Oh, yes. That was the help would do that, to one another. They had a
little fun. If you was green and you didn't know nothing, they'd just
try to play a little [Laughter]
Did they do that to anybody that hadn't been in the mill?
Yes. If some guy come in there to go to work he'd come out of the country, you know, and most of the time they'd be eighteen, nineteen, young fellows. And they'd just play pranks on them and try to. . .
How about people in the village when they first went to work down there? Did they play pranks on them?
Yes, they would, the whole lot of them. But [Laughter] [Laughter]
Mrs. Gattis was telling me the other day about another time that there
was a man down there that didn't like chitlins. And so somebody brought
him a biscuit with chitlins and told him it was bacon. [Laughter]
Yes. One fellow down there one time was especially fond of chitlins, and
they brought him some but they cracked a little corn and put in it to
make it like it hadn't been cleaned. He just take it and spit it out.
Said, "I know." [Laughter] [Laughter]
I think your sister-in-law, Fula Durham, told me one time about how once they filled a foreman's hat with water?
Yes, they'd do that, and nail people's shoes. A fellow's feet was bad,
and he had cut holes in his shoes. They'd nail them to the floor. [Laughter] [Laughter]
I was also interested in nicknames that people had.
Yes. [Laughter]
Do you remember any of them?
I don't, no, sir. [unclear]
Somebody's name was "Hammerhead"?
"Hammerhead" Braxton. Hammer had a good big head. A good old boy. He's dead and gone. "Hammerhead" was all they ever called him, about.
What were some of the others?
[Laughter]
Did you have a nickname?
No, sir, I never did, except when I was a kid boy. They'd call me "Cute."
Thought it was going to worry me. I was picking peas for Mr. Atwater, me
and Cary, and Gertrude Hamlin and Ella Sturdivant were two girls older
than I was. They were pretty and nice. They were several years older
than I was. They started running me. I was a little old fellow. And they
said, "Come here, you little old cute thing. I'm going to kiss you." And
Cary come home and told it
[Laughter]
Oh, shoot. I remember that day. That got away with me so bad. It worried
me to death for a while, and then I quit pay no attention to it. But
that's all they called me for a long time. But them two gals, they were
picking peas, too.
Well, I don't want to take any more of your time. You've been real good to talk to me this long.
Thank you.
I'll make some copies of these tapes, and I'll give you a copy of the tapes.
All right. Don't you go to no trouble about it, though.
Oh, it's no problem at all. If I could do just one more thing, I just wanted to get straight one more time what the order of the jobs that you had in the mill. . . . You first started just sweeping around.
Cleaning up, cleaning the machinery and sweeping.
About how long did you do that?
My first summer. That's all I done. The next summer I went to . . .
Then you worked on the farm.
Yes. The next summer I just plowed and worked with Mr. Lambeth and worked at his home, mostly.
And then you went back to the mill?
The next summer I went back to the mill.
What did you do?
I went to learning to wind and went to winding. And the next summer I went from there to spinning and doffing. I learned to doff.
So one summer you learned to wind, and then the next summer you learned to spin?
Yes, and the next thing was off of spinning to doffing, which was more
appropriate for a boy anyhow. And then after that I stayed like that
till I went to work in the mill kind of regular in there. I went to
fixing. I was made a fixer. I was learnt that. Oh,
That's when you first started to work fulltime?
Yes. And then I was what they call the second hand—that's second to the foreman, you know—for a year or two. And then they put me foreman on the second shift. From then on I never did work under a foreman, I reckon, no more.
Did you stay foreman of the second shift until you became the superintendent?
Yes. I was foreman on the second shift spinning and winding for about ten years, and then they put the card room on me. That was the whole mill then; I was over the whole mill for fifteen years. That was the twenty-five years I was on the second shift.
So you were in charge of spinning and winding for ten years, and then carding for fifteen.
Yes, and then carding and spinning and winding. See, they were all in together then. For fifteen years.
And then you became the superintendent.
They put me back on daytime as superintendent in 1955. I stayed there till 1972. I'll tell you one thing, too, that's very rare, in a way. I worked for thirty-two years without losing a day.
Wow.
Ain't much of that.
Wow.
Yes.
[END OF TAPE 4, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 5, SIDE A]
No. Didn't do nothing. [Laughter]
You quit?
Instead of retiring, I quit. This new company come in here, and I didn't
like part of their ways and all, and I was ready to retire anyhow. But
the manager, John London, didn't have nothing to do with it no more. He
wanted to really stay and just retire together. I said to him, "I don't
believe I can stand it, but I'll try." But I just felt wrong and quit.
The only time I ever quit a job in my life. I quit and left. I was ready
to come. My wife wanted me to come home. She wanted me to get out. She
thought they was trying to mess me up a little bit. They weren't, but
she thought they was making it too hard on me, and it was worrying me
right smart because they was changing everything so, and they changed
all that, so I went in there one day, and I just told them I believed
I'd come home. That was
What were they changing?
I never got mad at them; I just quit and come home.
What were the things that they changed?
Well, see, it was a new company, and they went to blends instead of all cotton. They have a certain blend, ninety percent cotton and ten percent rayon, and thirty-five percent this and all sorts of percentages. I was used to a cotton job all the time, and I liked it so much better I never did get used to it. It never did run good. It don't run good yet. But they sell it, and so they say they're making money. A long time they didn't. For a year or two there they didn't make no money; they like to went under.
You became superintendent right after Edgar Moore retired?
Yes, I became superintendent when he retired.
Who was the superintendent during that period that he was gone?
Charlie Neal. He was with the American Tobacco Company in Durham, but he used to be here, and he was a mill man, a good mill man. And Mr. London got him back in 1920, and he stayed here till '27. But he got tired of it. He couldn't get along with it right, somehow or another.
Do you remember who was superintendent before Mr. Moore?
No, it's so far back I couldn't say. Some of them guys from down. . . .
Hislop, I think, from
Well, Mr. Durham, thank you very much. You've been very . . .
Yes, sir, you're certainly welcome.
And I'll make a copy of these.
Okay,
END OF INTERVIEW