Full Text of the Excerpt

LU ANN JONES:

What did you do with your money that you had to spend? Did you buy. . . .

TESSIE DYER:

I saved up money one time till I had seventeen dollars. This is the truth. I went to town, and I bought me a dress, and a coat, and a pair of shoes, and I believe I bought me a hat. My next door neighbor up here, at that time, she went with me. She was wanting to go get her some things, wanted me to go. I told mother, I said, "Well, I believe I'll take my money and go buy me something," and oh, I thought I was dressed up. I never will forget it, it was black and white checked coat. It was pretty, it was made pretty, and I just loved that coat.

LU ANN JONES:

Where would you go shopping?

TESSIE DYER:

We had to go all the way to town then. We'd have to ride the street cars; there wasn't no bus a-running out here then, it was street car. We'd go there. I can recall back when my children was little, they both like to go to a movie. We used to work till 3:00 on Saturday evening, and we'd come home and we'd get ready and get them ready. We'd go to town and have supper and then go to a movie, usually a cowboy picture-western, that's what they liked. I really did enjoy that, I won't never forget it because they enjoyed it too. I'd always tell them that morning that we'd go to town see a movie that night, and we would.

LU ANN JONES:

What other kinds of things did you do to have fun like when you were a teenager? Were there parties here in the village?

TESSIE DYER:

Oh yeah, there used to be parties around. We'd go to parties and spin-the-bottle, like that. They used to have a band here in North Charlotte-a musical band. [END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B] [TAPE 2, SIDE A] [START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]

LU ANN JONES:

You were going to tell me something about the band.

TESSIE DYER:

This band-I forget how many it was in it-but it was real good; everybody enjoyed it.

LU ANN JONES:

What kind of music did they play?

TESSIE DYER:

It wasn't string music, it was just horns and different instruments. I remember this particular night, they had a club [of] girls here-cooking club. We'd meet every Tuesday night or every Thursday night, so we'd used to meet on Thursday night. We was asked to cook them a supper, so we did. They had one that they were going to ask to eat supper with the band boys that night. I never will forget that. They called my name out, and I just almost fell in the floor! They had me placed sixth at the end of the table; the table, it was long as from here down the hall, I'll say-you know how long those tables are like that-with the boys on each side. I was the only girl-I really did feel honored. I just wasn't dreaming of asking me to be, but it really got away with me. I enjoyed it.

LU ANN JONES:

That cooking club, did you meet every week?

TESSIE DYER:

Yeah, we'd meet every week.

LU ANN JONES:

Were most of the people in that, were they young women and women who worked in the mill?

TESSIE DYER:

Un-huh. I know we went to Washington one time on a trip. Then we went to Baltimore and somewhere else-I forget where we went on that trip.

LU ANN JONES:

Who was the organizer of it?

TESSIE DYER:

It was Miss Eves.

LU ANN JONES:

Who was she?

TESSIE DYER:

I forget her first name, but she was a Eves. She's out here I guess, for four or five year or longer than that.

GEORGE DYER:

She was the sponsor?

TESSIE DYER:

Yeah.

GEORGE DYER:

She sponsored the. . . .

LU ANN JONES:

Was that her job?

TESSIE DYER:

That was her job, but she got paid for it. The mill down here had something to do with it, see.

GEORGE DYER:

That was nice that they helped you all. I didn't know that.

TESSIE DYER:

She was out here a long time.

LU ANN JONES:

Were there other activities that she organized?

TESSIE DYER:

No, it was just cooking club. [interruption]