Title:Oral History Interview with Alice P. Evitt, July 18, 1979.
Interview H-0162. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007):
Electronic Edition.
Author:
Evitt, Alice P.,
interviewee
Interview conducted by
Leloudis, Jim
Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the
electronic publication of this interview.
Text encoded by
Mike Millner
Sound recordings digitized by
Aaron Smithers
Southern Folklife Collection
First edition, 2006
Size of electronic edition: 192 Kb
Publisher: The University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
2006.
The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.
Languages used in the text:
English
Revision history:
2006-00-00, Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic
edition.
2006-05-22, Mike Millner finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing.
Source(s):
Title of sound recording: Oral History Interview with Alice P. Evitt,
July 18, 1979. Interview H-0162. Southern Oral History Program
Collection (#4007)
Title of series: Series H. Piedmont Industrialization, 1974-1980.
Southern Oral History Program Collection (H-0162)
Author: Jim Leloudis
Title of transcript: Oral History Interview with Alice P. Evitt, July
18, 1979. Interview H-0162. Southern Oral History Program Collection
(#4007)
Title of series: Series H. Piedmont Industrialization, 1974-1980.
Southern Oral History Program Collection (H-0162)
Author: Alice P. Evitt
Description: 195 Mb
Description: 56 p.
Note:
Interview conducted on July 18, 1979, by Jim Leloudis;
recorded in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Note:
Transcribed by Sharon King.
Note:
Forms part of: Southern Oral History Program Collection
(#4007): Series H. Piedmont Industrialization, 1974-1980, Manuscripts
Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Note:
Original transcript on deposit at the Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.
Editorial practices An audio file with the interview complements this electronic edition. The text has been entered using double-keying and verified against the original. The text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 4 of the TEI in
Libraries Guidelines. Original grammar and spelling have been preserved. All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity
references. All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as " All em dashes are encoded as —
Interview with Alice P. Evitt, July 18, 1979. Interview H-0162. Southern
Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Evitt, Alice P.,
interviewee
Interview Participants
ALICE P.
EVITT, interviewee
JIM
LELOUDIS, interviewer
[TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Page 1
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
JIM LELOUDIS:
Well, let's begin by talking some about your family and your childhood,
how you came to Charlotte.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, I was so small, I can't remember. My father was a carpenter. He
done all this fancy work in Cramerton's house used to be over here on
Morehead Street. He was workin' here and we moved here, come from
Virginia over near Richmond. We come here then. He worked and my sisters
worked in the mill. Back then you could go in the mill. I'd go in there
and mess around with them, they'd spinnin'. I liked to put up the ends
and spin a little bit, so when I got twelve years old, I wanted to quit
school. My daddy didn't want me to quit, and he said, "Well, if you quit
school, you've got to go to work." So I just quit and went to work [laughter] , and I was twelve years old. The
first day I went, I run two sides, twelve and a half cents a side,
twenty-five cents a day, from 6:00 till 6:00, took forty-five minutes
for dinner. That was a long time for twenty-five cents a day and just
got paid off every two weeks. But I loved it, I enjoyed it. So, we just
stayed here. We moved away and come back, and we'd always come back to
Charlotte. So I worked a long time in the mill.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said your father was a carpenter in Richmond. You said he came to
Charlotte to work on a house?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, his people was up in here. He was born, and my mother too, in
Gaston county. They was born and raised here. He was a sawmill man too.
He had two sawmills. He had somebody runnin' one, and he took care of
the other one after he quit cotton work. All the rest of them
Page 2
worked in the mill. I had three sisters and two brothers.
They all worked, so I went to work too, and I enjoyed it. I spun out
here for a long time. 1915, then I got married, and I learnt to run
speeders and worked for the card room way after that. But when I
married, my husband was stayin' in Clinton, South Carolina. I went
there, and I run twelve sides there—I made $1.44 a day there—I raised my
wages some. So I spun there, and liked to run frames too. So I run
frames and wherever I'd make the most—in the card room or the spinnin'
room—if I changed jobs, that's where I'd go. I worked at Mooresville and
I spun up there. You made more spinnin' than you did in the card room,
so they'd get me out the spinnin' room to go to the card room to help
them catch up; they'd get behind. But they paid me for spinnin' an' I
loved it because I loved my card room work. So they'd pay me, and I
stayed out here nineteen years.
They had curtains on these winders, and they had big cloths; they'd cover
up the machinery to blow down. They let me come out and stay home two or
three days and sew for 'em and pay me my wages right on. They was awful
good to me out here. They made broadcloth, and they'd give me a lot of
that broadcloth and I'd make shirts out of it. So I loved the mill work.
I've worked alot in Gastonia, Rock Hill, Fort Mill, all around. But I'd
always end up back in Charlotte.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You really moved around then, didn't you.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. I just loved Charlotte. After got married, I changed so much. I's
single, we didn't move so much. Back in then, you had to move on old
wagons. We
Page 3
lived in Hardin—they call it Worth
now—that's up above Gastonia and Dallas. We moved to Charlotte from
there. We'd go there and work and then we'd to to Charlotte. The wagons
would be a couple of days and nights gettin' here with our stuff, so we
didn't move so much then; it was too hard gettin' around.
JIM LELOUDIS:
After you got married, did you move by truck, or car, or something?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, we boarded a long time, and then trucks and cars come in. I was
married in '15 and there wasn't any trucks or cars then, but we boarded
a long time. We didn't move much then.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did trucks make it easier for you to move?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Oh yes, because wagons would be a day and a night a'gettin' there and
you'd be out of your stuff. Oh, they made it a lots easier. But back in
the '15's when I married, I never had seen but one or two cars. We
didn't hardly know what a car was than a truck back in them days.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Where were you born?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I was born near Richmond, 1898, so I'm gettin' old. But I never been sick
any in my life till just recently. I was in the hospital in March and
operated on. So I ain't been doing too good since then. But I'd always
been in good health. I just thankful for that long a good health.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Where did you live when your father moved to Charlotte from Richmond?
Page 4
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, a little place—I forget the name of the little place—out from
Richmond. It's in that county. That's Mecklenburg county.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So you moved from one Mecklenburg to another.
ALICE P. EVITT:
We didn't know it. When I went to draw my social security, I asked my
niece's husband to write me a letter there so I could get when I was
born and all. He said, "They ain't no such thing." I said, "Let's back
it to the county seat of Richmond." He backed it there and it come back
"Mecklenburg county." He didn't know there was such as that. I didn't
then, but it was Mecklenburg county. And in 1914, they had taken census
there and they found—they didn' keep records back then like they do—they
found where I was born. That's where I got my birth certificate. I had
to have it to get my social security and all. Now, they give you a birth
certificate or help you get one, but back in them days they didn't give
you no birth certificate. But I had wrote everywhere and I had a lawyer
to write for me, and he didn't do me a bit of good. So I had him to
write for me right there and that's all I had to do. He sent me papers
and I filled them out and sent them to Raleigh. It only cost me four
dollars to get it. I done paid the lawyer and everything and didn't have
nothing. You never know, back in them days, how things back up there
went. That's where I got my birth certificate.
JIM LELOUDIS:
When you moved to Charlotte, where did you live? Did you come into this
mill area at first?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. My sisters and them worked and ever
Page 5
since I can
remember, we did. I had some older sisters. I was the youngest. The
first time I can remember comin' to Charlotte was we moved from Hardin
and was two or three days gettin' our stuff. I's small and we moved to
the Highland Park mill. I had a uncle lived there and we stayed at his
house till our stuff got there. It was two days on the wagons. We stayed
there till our stuff got there.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why was your family moving around like that? Do you know?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know. A lot of them want you to come and they give you the little
more money in the mill or something. My daddy was a sawmill man then,
and he didn't own [unknown] He worked up there, and we
moved up there and stayed with him awhile. Up there at Hardin there's
just the one mill and it's built on the river—runs on water. He'd run a
sawmill up there and we'd move up there. They'd get tired of that job, I
guess, and just move.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did he own that sawmill or just work there?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, he just worked for it. He hadn't bought any then. He just worked for
the man'd owned the cotton mill and all; he owned the saw mill, the mill
hill and everything. So they just had one store there, and they'd take
out of your wages—when you worked—they'd take out of your wages what you
owed at the store. If you didn't have enough to pay it, they'd take it
off and put on the envelope "balance due." My daddy told them they
couldn't take 'em out on my sisters'. He wouldn't allow it, and they
didn't. People
Page 6
started up there and said that frogs
sit on the river and hollered, "Balance due."
[laughter] They'd tell that around cause so many people
didn't draw a thing. They'd just take everything they had. But they
didn't take any out of none of our family. My daddy wouldn't go through
with that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Well, how did he manage to buy stuff at the store and all?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, they let him have it. He paid it every week. They paid it up.
JIM LELOUDIS:
He just paid cash rather than let them take it out.
ALICE P. EVITT:
He wouldn't let them take it out the tickets even. That's the only place
I'd ever knowed to do such a thing, but it's cause, I guess, he owned
the mill and owned the store and everything. But some of them people
there, they wouldn't draw a thing; they wouldn't have nothing.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What was life like in your family as a child? What do you remember about
your childhood?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, I had a good family. My daddy didn't make much when I was little,
but I can remember he'd always have a few pennies for us to carry to the
church on Sunday. In church, they'd give us a stick of candy—little kids
that knowed the most about the lesson—and we'd work hard to try to get
that stick of candy [laughter] . We'd work
hard try to get it. It was good. We had a cow. I milked the cow—when I
was little I could milk cow and churn and help my mother that way. We
always raised our own meat. They'd allow you to.
Page 7
We'd
always raise hogs and always kept a cow. I can't remember ever bein'
without somethin' to eat. A lot of them says they have, but I didn't.
I's just lucky, I guess. I never did remember bein' out of somethin' to
eat.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Would you carry your animals back and forth when you moved from town to
town?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Well, did each of the kids in the family have chores that were assigned
to them?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. You used the fireplace then. My little brother, he cut wood, and
I'd do a lot of milkin'. We'd both do the churnin'—rest each other's
arms a'churnin'. All the rest worked at the mill but me and him. My
older sister, though, she had—I reckon they didn't know what it was
then—it was probably something in one of her legs. She limped when she
walked. She never did work any. I stayed with her alot after she married
and helped her—one of us, me or my brother'd stay with her to help her
out. We'd stay and help her out. It was good times—better times than
now. I just loved the times back then. A lot of people says they don't
want to see them times no more, but I would. I loved 'em. They was good
times, and people was better in a way.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How's that so?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Everybody get sick, they'd go. Now, I was young and hadn't been married
long, and my brother, he married. Me and him and my mother and father
lived back of Davidson College, up at Morrison. There was somebody up in
the
Page 8
country, some lady's awful sick and didn't
have nobody to set up with her. We walked a mile and set up with that
lady. We never had met her, but we walked and set up with that lady.
Now, they won't cross the street and do that. But people would then.
They'd go if anybody's sick, but looks like now, everybody's for
theirselves. But I do anything for anybody I can.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did people help each other out like that a lot in the mill villages?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Um-hm. This was the nicest mill hill I ever lived on. If anybody'd done
anything wrong and you reported them, they had to move. Nicest people
lived here. They didn't have nobody that'd do anything they shouldn't do
or bother somebody else. They had to move.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did the management ever police [unknown] the place?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Bell Company. . . . The houses belonged to them then. This was awful good
mill hill to live on. It was nice here and it meant nicer people.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember types of people that were reported?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes, some of them drive right up here now; I know 'em. In that end house
across the street—right up there at that end house—I knowed them in '22.
The lady on the front line, I knowed her in '22. A lot of them I knowed
that way and it's like comin' back home.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What type things would people do that would get them thrown out of the
village?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd try to fuss or somethin' over kids or cause anybody any trouble.
They'd 'port 'em up. They'd
Page 9
tell 'em they got to
move. Everybody here was good people, nice people—as nice as they could
be. I lived in that other end house up there fourteen years, then I
lived four years on that road there down that last house, then I lived
right 'cross the street down there a long time; so, I stayed here a long
time.
JIM LELOUDIS:
We were talking about life in your family. Do you remember any games you
used to play as a child?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We'd play "ring-around-the-rosie" and tag and such as that. They didn't
have no games you could play in the house, not like you can now. They
play games in the houses now, but they didn't have them back then. At
Christmas, we'd get big old stick of candy. We'd be pleased to death
over it. Now, they don't appreciate what they get. They get too much. We
didn't get much and we appreciated it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What was Christmas like in your family?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Oh, it was good. We put up a little Christmas tree. We didn't have
‘lectric lights or nothin’, but we'd put it up and hang things on it and
give each other, if they had money to get presents, just like they do
now. You couldn't get high-priced stuff then like you can now, but we'd
always have a nice Christmas. Mama, she'd do a lot of cookin' and we
enjoyed it. They a lot of difference in now and then.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did people in the mill village ever get together and do things together
on Christmas or Thanksgiving?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They never did here, but before I was married when I lived in Concord, a
lot of the girls—I played organ
Page 10
a heap—and they'd
come in at night—the mill hill; no strangers, people we knowed—and I'd
play the organ and the fella lived right there, he'd pick the guitar and
they'd dance. But no outsiders didn't come in. They enjoyed it. I never
did dance, never did learn 'cause I'd always play the organ and I
couldn't get a chance [laughter] . We'd
enjoy that. A lot of times on Sunday, I'd play the organ. A crowd of
us'd get together and we'd sing.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Would that be in your house?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Un-huh. We had a organ and they'd always come to our house. All through
the week nearly every night they'd be in. Girls'd come in and we'd enjoy
it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember any of your favorite songs you used to play?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, I don't. I enjoyed 'em all.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember the names of any of them?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. We used to play a lot of them. But, I hadn't played since my mother
died. Every time I'd go home, they'd had the organ, she'd want me to
play, "The Old Rugged Cross," and I'd play it every time I'd go home.
After she died, I never could fool with it no more. That was my favorite
'cause it was hers. I'd play that every time I'd go home. After she
passed away, I couldn't play it 'cause I thought of her too much. Things
like that will bother you. We used to just play all kind of the old
songs. They sing a heap of the old songs yet round and about.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said several times that no strangers would come in. Did people. .. .
Page 11
ALICE P. EVITT:
Just on the mill hill workin' up where we did. They wasn't strangers.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were people concious of not letting strangers. . . .?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, I meant just at night, just us girls. People then couldn't do like
they do now. They's talked about. We never was allowed to do nothin'
back then, and you wore your dresses down to your ankles. I got a
picture of me with mine down to my ankles
[laughter] .
JIM LELOUDIS:
Some people told me about the boys in the neighborhood not allowing men
from another mill village to come in and court the women.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, they knowed them.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did that ever happen around here?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How would they keep those other fellas out of the mill village? What
would they do to keep them out?
ALICE P. EVITT:
You mean from comin' to your house? Well, if you knowed them good and
they was good people, you'd let them come in when they wanted to. You
didn't mind them visitin'. But, back then, they couldn't just anybody
come in like they do now. You didn't go out with people you didn't know.
We didn't; we never was allowed to. My daddy said a liar and a bad
foreman was dangerous. He would never allow us to [unknown] be with people that was talked about then. Wasn't very many back in
them days talked about 'cause they tried to do right. They's raised
right. But now, they's raised so much difference to what they are now.
Page 12
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were your parents real strict with you? Were they strict
disciplinarians?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, they was.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What did they do if you misbehaved?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd lay the hickory on me [laughter] . I
never will forget. They lived at North Charlotte. There was a girl—she
was talked about—but she worked in the mill there. She lived right below
us, but mama didn't allow us to be with her. She come by one day and
told me to—over North Charlotte—walk right up there. Right above the
house was some woods and some muscadines up there and get some I said,
"Mama, I'm goin' up there with—her name was Alice and mine too—get some
muscadines." She said, "No, you can't go." I just said it for fun after
she got done and says, "I'm gone!" We had old wooden toilets outdoors,
and I went out there and all at once, she janked that door open and
commenced on me with a hickory for sayin' that
[laughter] . She tore me up! We couldn't talk back to our
people that way—nothin' like they do now. I never will forget that.
Your people then, or my people—I don't know whether all of them did it or
not—they had to know a boy if you went with them. They had to know
somethin' about them. They wouldn't let you go out just with anybody. I
guess it was the best thing. That's why us older people can't see any
the others the way they do. Course I don't say a thing about it 'cause
they say, "Oh, you're just old-timey," and I says I's glad I was
old-timey then.
Page 13
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said you went to school until you were twelve. Did you go to school
in a school that was mostly mill children?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, when I went at Hardin it was and they was mostly. . . . I went over
there to that—that was the Calvine mill—that was a college. All kind
went there. Most of the places they was mill people. I went to North
Charlotte, they had a house there. They had it in a house. They didn't
have a school, and it was just mill children all that went there. When I
went over there—I reckon it was First Ward—I don't know. It was on Ninth
Street—Ninth and Brevard. It was a college and I went there, and there
was most everybody there. You had to be vaccinated to go, and me and my
brother, we were scared to death of vaccinate. They come there to
vaccinate them, and me and him went, but we were so afraid. They run out
of medicine and they couldn't vaccinate them. They'd come back to
vaccinate them and me and him let on like we'd been vaccinated and we
never did be vaccinated! Till today I ain't been.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Was that against smallpox?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I guess it was.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Who came around and did that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd come to school. I don't know who it was. Come to the schoolhouse
and vaccinate all the little kids. I know you've seen people with great
big scars. But me and him got out of it that way. When they come back,
our teacher—I guess she thought we was vaccinated—she didn't send us out
there where it was at. We were just thrilled to death. We
Page 14
come back, we just let on like we's vaccinated. We didn't
say nothin', but we acted like it. We fooled 'em that way [laughter] . We was scared of that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What were those schools like? What can you remember about them?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd whoop you then. They'd get hickories. I know they'd set me out,
and sometimes some other girl with us out there [unknown]
in the woods there. We'd cut big switches and keep them settin' at the
wall. Of course, I never did get a whoopin' at school, and if you done
anything at school you shouldn't—'sturbed anything—they'd make you stand
with your face in the corner sometimes for a half an hour; sometimes
make you set in the corner. But I never did have to do none of them. I
guess I's lucky I behaved. I could get catched with the rest of 'em
doin' all that—it learnt me to behave. I never did get a whoopin', but I
see'd a lot of them get a whoopin'. Then they'd have a rule like that,
hold your hand, and whoop you in the hand. Lot difference from what it
is now.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember any of the lessons you had to do for homework? the type
things they would give you to do?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We didn't do no homework. We just studied our lesson and write that up in
school. Had to get up in line and stand in line. One'd read, then
'nother one read, 'nother one read, and that's the only kind of work we
done. They'd give out spelling. We'd write that down in the school and
they'd take it up and see what you got on it. School was altogether
different of what it is now.
Page 15
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were there any other things you read, or any arithmetic problems you did?
Did they ever deal with mills or that type thing?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't remember. It's been so long. When nobody don't pay it no
attention, they forget about it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You were talking about goin' to church and tryin' to win the candy when
you were young. Do you remember any revivals, tent revivals, or things
like that coming into the mill villages when you were a child?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No. We'd have a Christmas play. What kids could sing, we'd get up there
and sing and some of 'em'd have programs. They'd act. They'd be have on
different old things. We enjoyed it. We always had a Christmas program
from our school. When we lived at Hardin, they'd always have a play up
there. We'd get up there and sing and then some of 'em'd get up there
and play them. It was good. I can remember once they had the cross. One
girl played that where they hung Jesus on the cross and all. That was
beautiful. That was way back in 1907 or 1908. But that was beautiful. I
can remember that real good.
JIM LELOUDIS:
The different churches you attended, did the people who ran the mill
belong to them or have anything to do with running them?
ALICE P. EVITT:
The churches? Well, the churches were run kind of like they are now. It
just seems like when I was right little, the Sunday School was
different. I'd git a card with a picture on it, and that was our lesson
on the back of the card. Now we get a book with our lesson in it. I go
to
Page 16
church regular now. I never missed church.
That's somethin' I've always done. If you grow up in it, you gonna keep
goin'.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Was religion real important in your family when you were a child?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, just so there was a church. I remember goin' to tent meetin' and
seein' my mother shout.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Really? Could you tell me about that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I was small, and I didn't know what shoutin' was. Here in Charlotte—I
don't remember where the tent was, but we lived in North Charlotte—we
walked over there and they'd go to shoutin'. I remember seein' my mother
prayin' and goin' on and it scared me. I's little and it scared me. I
didn't know what it was. After we left, she told me she's shoutin'. She
felt the Lord, she said and she was shoutin'. I was too little then to
know what was goin' on. She told me about it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did she go up to the front of the congregation with other people who . .
.?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Um-hm. That's all the shoutin' I'd see'd was in the tent. They had tent
meetin'. Tent'd move around and they'd have tent meetin'. That was like
they have revival now in the churches. But I never don't remember
whether havin' revival in the church back in then.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Would those tent meetings come to the mill villages or just . . .?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd just come from different places. The preacher'd come and he just
traveled with his tent from place to place. That's all he did.
Page 17
JIM LELOUDIS:
Would he set up somewhere in the mill village?
ALICE P. EVITT:
He'd set his tent up. People'd go and he'd have a tent full too. People
back then went to meetin's better than they do now.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said they didn't have those types of meetings in the church. Why do
you think that was?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know. It might have different denominations. Some now don't have
that in the church and some does. Just difference in the churches. You
take the Baptists and Methodists they don't do it in them churches. You
take these Church of God and such as them, they still have it. They just
don't believe in it I don't guess. Some preachers does though. We have a
preacher down here at the Methodist; he believes in it. The Methodist
I've been to them most all my life. Course I've belonged—I've been
different places to a Baptist. I live here now and I can walk down here.
We got a old preacher and he's a good preacher. You'd to to Methodist
you didn't have much to say in the 11:00 service, but he'll ask you,
"How many wants prayer, hold up your hand." If you want to come up or
anything, that goes on down here in this Methodist church. A body'd been
in another Methodist church come in here, they wouldn't believe it was a
Methodist because they have all that. We all stand up and read the Bible
in church, and that the only one I knowed that could do all that. It's
like old-timey then.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you ever go to any of those tent meetings as you got older?
Page 18
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, I didn't. Mostly after I got older, they quit comin' around. Change,
you know. Got to buildin' churches and people got to goin' to the
churches more. I've been to services in houses and everything. Anywhere
it's at, people would go. When I lived in North Charlotte, I was small.
There was a crowd come there to a house just a little piece from where I
lived and had service. I thought I'd go over there to that. I don't know
what they were, but they preached and the people there they'd just fall
in the floor. They'd pick 'em up on the bed. They went on so, the law
come out there and rum 'em out sometimes. I didn't go back no more after
they'd done all that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Who ran them out?
ALICE P. EVITT:
The law'd run 'em out. Like they's actin', they'd just fall over. They'd
have the beds full. Mother didn't let me go no more. Law come in there
and run them out.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why do you think the police came out? Did somebody call them?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know. They must of been disturbin' somebody and they must have
`ported them. I heard one man say he couldn't go to bed. His bed was
full every night. He couldn't go to bed [laughter]
.
JIM LELOUDIS:
That was a house of somebody that lived in the mill village?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Um-hm. They'd be a-shoutin' and they'd just black out like they's sleep.
I didn't know what to think of it. I just set and watched them. I didn't
take no
Page 19
hand in it 'cause I didn't know nothin'
about it. I didn't get to go back no more.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were those types of meetings pretty regular things? Did they come around
every spring?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Un-huh. Till the law run 'em out from there, it was about one night every
week at different houses. But I didn't go to them. I knew when they was
goin' to be. They'd tell you when they was goin' to be. They'd invite
people to come. People'd go—they'd have a house full.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember the names of any of the ministers that used to preach at
these?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I sure don't. I can't remember any of them.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you get any religious training within your own home? Did your parents
read to you from the Bible and things like that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, my mother and father couldn't read much. They could just a little
bit. They didn't have no education. Back then, people didn't get an
education. Of course, I could of. I don't lay it on my parents because
they didn't want me to go to work. They wanted me to go to school. All
of my sisters and brothers, seemed like we all wanted to work. We didn't
have to. But he said, if they wouldn't go to school they had to go to
work. They couldn't lay around and get to quit school.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said you went to work at twelve.
ALICE P. EVITT:
That was 1910.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you feel like you were grown then?
Page 20
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, I just felt like I wanted to work. I didn't want to go to
school.
JIM LELOUDIS:
When did you consider yourself to be grown?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I went to goin' with my first husband in 1913. I went with him three
years 'fore we married. I went with him till I was seventeen years
old.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So you started courting at about fourteen then.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. But they lived right in front of us. Mother and father knew them
good. They was awful nice people and he was. We went together three
years.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What type things did you do while you were courting?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We'd go to a movie or something. I had never been to a movie till I
start. . . . [laughter]
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did he take you to your first one?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. The old streetcars run then. We'd go to the movies. That's about
all I had to go to [laughter] . Way back
then, my preacher in Concord was preacher Brady. He's the man that
married us. He was a Methodist preacher there. That was 1915.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So you were living in Concord at that time. He was living across the
street. Did you have any children after you were married?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, we never did have any children. But we raised a lot of children.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How do you mean that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I had a sister and she married a man. He was bad to drink and she had
some children. She'd come on. At first, she married a man—he was a good
man—she had three
Page 21
children and he was just as good.
He wanted me and my husband to take them children 'fore he died, 'cause
he knowed back in them days, she wasn't able to take care of them. I
raised them three. After that, she married a feller, and he turned out
to be an old drunk. She had three by him, and she just quit him and
stayed with me most of the time. We took care and raised them. So we
raised a bunch of kids. My daddy had a stroke. I kept him. He had a
stroke four years was in a wheelchair. I kept my daddy. He had a stroke
in the late 30's, and he died in '43. I kept him. I worked all the time
in the mill, but I hired somebody to take care of him till I'd come
back. Then they'd went on these here eight hours, and I'd hire somebody
take care of him till I'd come home, then I'd take care of him.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you hire someone within the village or a Black woman from
outside?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Mostly I had my niece's daughters. She wasn't a-workin' and she'd come
stay here. I'd pay her to stay with him. At last, just before he died,
it got so this war broke out in '42, and I couldn't get nobody nowhere
to stay with him. My sister lived right over from me. I lived on
Albemarle Road then. We'd bought some land out there and built us a home
there. She just lived right at me. She didn't work. She took him and
kept him, and he died. Of course, I'd be with him every day. When I'd
come home, I'd go right over there.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were you still working in the mill then?
Page 22
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. My husband, he wasn't doin' no good. He was kinda sick, and I
couldn't quit and let him do the work. After my daddy died, he did get
plumb down and went in the hospital and had cancer on the liver. He
didn't be able to work no more. That's why I couldn't quit and just stay
right with him. I would of if I could of 'cause that's one thing I'd
always do—look out after my mother and father. All my sisters and
brothers was the same way. We was all crazy about them. I'm just
thankful. You take them now, they don't care nothin' about you.
I got three that I raised—mostly raised, didn't work to keep them all the
time—but I fed them all the time. They ain't been here to see me in four
or five years—live right here in Charlotte. I been in the hospital. I
stayed in there from March 3 till April 8. Come home and had to go back
and they still ain't been to see me. That's the way some of them'll do
you. I said, "Well, if they felt that way okay. If they want to come,
okay; if they don't, okay." But I had put in a lot of hard days' work to
take care of them and feed 'em. 'Fore they lived with me, I'd buy the
groceries and send them. At Easter, I'd fix them Easter baskets and take
them.
JIM LELOUDIS:
It must have really been something to work in the mill and do your
housework and raise six children the same time. How did you do it? How
did you manage it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I did though. I had to get up every mornin' at 4:30. My husband was good
to help me. Them kids was good. They'd mop for me. 'Fore my daddy had a
stroke, he stayed with me. He'd boil beans or bake cornbread—we loved
Page 23
cornbread a lot—he'd do a lot of help me with my
cookin'. We just got along. Always say where they was a will, they're a
way, and it seemed like it did.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did your husband ever cook or clean house and things like that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
My first one didn't, my second one did. He was awful good to me.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What was a typical day like for you when you had the children to take
care of and had to work? You said you got up at 4:30.
ALICE P. EVITT:
I had to go to work at 6:00. They had to go to school. They went down
here to the school. I'd keep their things ready for 'em. They were big
enough. They knowed what to wear and how to clean up and go nice. Miss
Medley lived up there in front of me. When I'd come home, she'd tell me
how nice they'd been and how they acted and all. She was a good
Christian woman. I knowed what she told me was true. I'd tell 'em not to
go in nobody else's yard and not bother nobody. They wouldn't. They was
good to mindin'. They—but these last ones. I was talking about their
daddy bein' a drunk. I fed 'em so much. They don't even come about you
after you been so good to them.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said the woman across the street helped look after them while you
weren't home.
ALICE P. EVITT:
When they'd come home from school, she. . . .
JIM LELOUDIS:
When you got home in the afternoon or in the early evening, what did you
do when you got home through the night?
Page 24
I guess you
had to cook dinner as soon as you got home, didn't you?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. They'd generally have somethin'—my daddy'd cook ‘em somethin’. I'd
sometimes bake bread and all. I'd clean house, and I worked all the
time. We had a big garden up there, and we had to plant with an old push
plough then. My daddy—he hadn't had the stroke then—he'd push it part'd
the time. We'd get after him about it `cause he was too old to get out
there and do that. But he would. My husband'd get out there and push it.
We had awful gardens. But had to can everything, and I'd can a-heap when
I'd go home. You didn't have freezer then like you do now, and I canned
a lot.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did women in the neighborhood ever get together to can and things like
that, or did you do it pretty much on your own?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Most of them just done it on their own. Had to do it on an old wood
stove. After kerosene stoves come in, I'd get one, but I kept my low
wood stove and I'd do my cannin' on it. Seemed like on a wood stove you
could cook better on it and can better. I just liked `em better. My
older sister, she didn't die till '66, and she still had her wood stove.
She'd get 'em from Roebuck—order them—they wasn't here then. She'd order
her a new one—get 'em from Roebuck—big old range. She still had 'em. She
wouldn't have oil; those were electric stoves—I mean gas stoves. They'd
get her a gas stove. She didn't like that.
There sure is a lot of difference in now and then.
Page 25
People now wouldn't do what we had to do. If you give 'em as much as you
made then in a day—a kid now—to do a little somethin' for you, they'd
look at you like they wanted to knock you down or somethin' now. They
want more money than you made in a whole day. Course, stuff was cheap
then. You didn't have to pay much for nothin'. Stuff was cheap. My
sister—when I stayed with her in Dallas—she sent her little boy out to
the store with a quarter to get a quart—a pound I believe it was—of
pinto beans. He'd get a quarter's worth and I never seen as much beans
in my life. She said, "Lord, what am I goin' do with all these beans!"
He's [unknown] She sent him one day and he got a quarter's
worth of fat back meat. He had a piece that big for a quarter. Now they
won't look at you for a quarter.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What kinds of things did you can? did you put up?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I can beans, ‘maters, and a lot of blackberries. I'd make a lot of
preserves. We picked wild strawberries. They'd make the best preserves.
We'd go off and pick strawberries and make preserves out of them, then
we'd can our blackberries. We had cabbage—a lot of it—make a lot of
cabbage slaw. Stew it up and keep it—like we made it back then. I'd come
home every evening and do that and can tomaters. After I'd come home
every evening, I'd do all my cannin’. I canned a lot of stuff. One year
I canned a couple of jars of blackberries—picked them and canned them.
We didn't use that many, but all the time somebody comin' in, some kids
would be eatin' everything . . .
Page 26
JIM LELOUDIS:
Can we close that a little bit and knock out a little bit of the . .
.
ALICE P. EVITT:
It will get too hot.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Knock our air out too.
ALICE P. EVITT:
That man over there—he must be cuttin' my grass.
JIM LELOUDIS:
It sounds like he's in the front yard. What types of things would you fix
at dinner time? What were your typical meals like?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We'd boil beans and stuff, and sometimes we'd fry—steak wasn't high
then—we'd fry a little steak or somethin'—some kind of meat. Had
somethin' bought. We always loved bought stuff. My husband, he loved
Irish potater dumplin's and kraut dumplin's. We'd make dumplin's and all
such as that. I never did like them, but I got so now I like dumplin's
pretty well. He loved to get a ham bone and make dumplin's—ham bone
dumplin's. We always had plenty meat. We raised our own meat. We always
had plenty. We sold a lot of hams and things. A lot of lawyers up
here—when we lived out on Albemarle Road—they'd come down there and buy
that ham meat from us. Seemed it was better. We didn't have ours salted
like they do now. We wouldn't make it too salty. Now you can get it and
wash it, and then it's too salty.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said you moved out on Albemarle Road. Were you still workin' at the
cotton mills at that time?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. We drove backwards and forwards. We worked out here and we'd get
transferred to Calvine Mill—belonged to this company. They'd transfer us
over there so
Page 27
we wouldn't have to come across
town.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So you were driving all the way back and forth over here every day.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Ten miles from town. We was out Willow Grove.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So you had a good drive to get all the way over here.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Sure did. So we stayed over here and drove back and forth over here about
three weeks and they transferred us over there so we wouldn't have to
come across town. In the evening when I got off, it was so hard to get
across town. I'd have to come and hit snow—sometimes big snows—we'd have
a time gettin' to work. Didn't have windshield wipers back then. You'd
have to stick your head out to see to drive in the snow.
JIM LELOUDIS:
When was this that you were doin' this commuting? Do you remember about
what year that was?
ALICE P. EVITT:
It was in the 30's.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What made you decide to move way on the other side of town?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We just got a good bargain and thirty acres of land. Bought it and build
us a home out there. We liked it out there. My sister lived right at us
too. We liked it out there. So after he died, I had to quit drivin'. I
had low blood and I would pass out, and I quit drivin'. I had to ride
the Albemarle bus to work, and it was unhandy. My sister, she come and
her two kids and lived with me. She worked, so I just sold and bought me
one uptown. You couldn't rent a house nowhere durin' the war. I tried
and I couldn't. So I just sold and bought me one, and we'd
Page 28
both get on the bus and go to work. I'd have to leave out
there at 12:00 and go to work at 3:00. I'd get off at 11:00 and go to
the bus station. I'd have to stay there and get home at 1:00. So I just
sold and bought me a house—set up there out that time of night . . .
JIM LELOUDIS:
I was just interested how you decided to go out. You said you put up meat
while you were out there. Did you put up meat while you were living in
the mill village?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you kill your own hogs?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, had them killed.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You had them killed, or did it yourself?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We got a man to come and kill them. My husband wouldn't kill them. He had
another fellow kill them. We had a gang of chickens—sold a lot of
eggs.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Where would you sell them—in the village?
ALICE P. EVITT:
People on the village would buy them. This man up yonder in the house
here on that road right there, I did buy eggs from him. He's got short
of eggs now. Now he's got chickens.
Some people don't like them days, but them was good old days to me. If
you got anything, you appreciated it because you didn't have
everything.
JIM LELOUDIS:
It really sounds like a very different life.
ALICE P. EVITT:
It was. It was a good life. You'd go to the store, you couldn't carry
five dollars worth of groceries hardly in your arms. Now, I can carry
twenty [laughter] .
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said you raised your sister's six children
Page 29
but
you didn't have any. Did you decide not to have any children?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, I just didn't have any. But I love children. My husband loved them.
He was just good to them as to his own.
JIM LELOUDIS:
I also want to talk about your work in the mill some. When we began, you
said you went in at twelve, but that you were going in the mill before
that.
ALICE P. EVITT:
I went in there and helped my sisters and learned how to put up ends on
spinnin'. That's why the first day I went to work, I could run two
sides—12½¢ a side, 25¢ a day. I run them awhile and then I took three.
You just had to build yourself up. I got to where I could run some
places—all the mills ain't alike, but machines that don't run as
good—some places I could run sixteen sides. Of course it kept you goin'
to go around to all them sides. In some places, I couldn't run but
twelve. I run twelve at Clinton. That's the most they run there. I made
a $1.44 a day on them twelve. That's a lot of walkin'. Them spinnin'
frames—you know anything about a cotton mill?
JIM LELOUDIS:
Yeah, I've been through one.
ALICE P. EVITT:
You know how a spinnin' frame is. You'd walk around twelve of them and
keep them and clean them, and you've got a job. Out here, I'd run four
speeders, and they'd put a spin on five. When I quit out here, we was
runnin' five. That's a hard job because a hard end would come through.
It could just tear down everything if you don't get to it and stop it.
If you don't keep them goin', you don't make nothin'. The clock's on the
end of the frame. When they stopped,
Page 30
you not makin'
anything. When I quit out here, I was makin' nineteen dollars a week.
That wasn't much. They make much as that in a day now. That's what I was
makin'. I was runnin' by the hank. I was runnin' frames.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why did you go up and visit your sister? Did you go to learn the job or
to visit?
ALICE P. EVITT:
All my sisters were at home then and a-workin'. They'd let you go in
there seven, eight years old. I'd go in there where they's at. My mother
worked. She spooled. I never did learn spoolin'. I learnt to spinnin'.
I'd go in there where they's at and I learned to put up ends. That's the
reason I could take two sides the first day I went to work.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How did you get that first job?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, they's scarce of hands back then. You could get a job anywhere.
They used to move us to get my two sisters to work still? They used to
pay our movin' bill to get us from mill to mill here in Charlotte.
JIM LELOUDIS:
In the Hoskins chain?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We didn't move over here back then. I just moved here since I got
married. They'd move us from Highland Park and get us back. Then we went
to the Calvine. We lived there when I was small. They'd pay us to come
back. They'd pay our movin' bill to get us back.
JIM LELOUDIS:
They competed for help, then, didn't they?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes, they needed help bad. You could get a job anywhere.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Would they pay you a little more if you'd come
Page 31
back?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd just pay you what they'd been a-payin'. They'd pay your movin'
bill to get you back. You'd naturally go back.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why would people go back if they weren't going to make anymore money?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know. Maybe they'd just like it better, or they'd start talkin'
and get them back, and they'd go back.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How would they? Did they come by and visit you?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd come to the house. We lived at Hardin. Mr. Carpenter owned that
whole place, the mill, and everything there. He had a son, Earl
Carpenter. Then there was a feller up there at High Shoals. He'd slip up
there and hire they hands, and they'd slip there and hire his. This Earl
caught him one evening down there in a buggy beside the road and shot
him—killed him. He accused him of comin' to hire hands.
JIM LELOUDIS:
He killed him?
ALICE P. EVITT:
He killed him over there. His daddy sent him off. They never did try him.
He slipped and sent him off. Nobody didn't know where he was at, so they
never did try him.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember any of those people comin' to your house and try to get
your family to move?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes, they'd come in and talk and try to get us to come by.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What would they tell you?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd just say they'd liked our work and all. They'd love for us to come
back. They'd pay our movin' bill and everything. But we always left it
up to mother about
Page 32
movin'. She'd agree if we wanted
to. We always kind of agreed together. We'd go back. Sometimes they'd
make one of us mad in the mill, and we'd move on account of that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What type things did they do to make you mad?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Right after I went to work—I was young . . . spinnin' there at the
Highland Park mill—I worked at night a little bit. They got me to work
at night. They had a parade here the twentieth of May. They had that big
parade here when I was young. Of course, young people, young as I was,
was goin' to go to that parade. I did and I didn't get to sleep none
that day much. That night I went to work, and I asked 'em to let me off.
They wouldn't do it, and I got so sleepy in the night, I couldn't hold
my eyes open. They wouldn't let me off, and I just quit and went home
[laughter] , and we moved.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You moved because of that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes. I just quit and went home anyway because I hadn't had no sleep. I
couldn't make it. You take people like that, twelve, thirteen years old,
they goin' to go to such as that. I wouldn't of missed the parade for
nothin'.
I knew when we lived at Hardin, my older sister—they'd have a big "to do"
and shoot fireworks on the fourth of July in Gastonia—they had a big
wagon with big sides up on 'em with steps. They'd sit on it like they
ride them trucks and cars now. She'd ride that thing, and we'd go to
Gastonia. She'd ride in the parade on that big thing. I's always used to
that. I enjoyed all that. I liked to see it. So I was goin' to see it if
I had to quit [laughter] .
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember any other times that you or people
Page 33
in your family quit? What happened that made them quit?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Back then, the boss man would get on you for nothing. Out to Highland
Park, they was awful bad about that. My daddy was about to get in
trouble—'bout to whoop one of them bosses about gettin' on my sister so
much. He'd get on her she'd go to the bathroom. He'd holler and go on at
her that way, and he didn't allow men to do like that. We quit then. I
wasn't workin'. They quit. He was about to get in trouble. He was about
to whoop him, or try to whoop him. They'd do all them spinners that way.
After I went to work in there, they knowed my daddy, they never did
holler at me or nothing like that. But they would then when it was just.
. . . They'd be right mad at them, hollerin' at them. Back then, the
bosses, they just thought they could boss you around and make you do as
they say do. They would them that would listen to them, but we never did
listen to them, cause my daddy told us not to. So, he knowed we wasn't
goin' to do nothin' wrong, but he wanted us to do our work right. They
was just mean to people back them days. I never had them be mean to me
that way. When I wanted off and couldn't get off, that wasn't bein'
mean, they just needed me.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What type of things would they fuss at you about?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know what they would do. Maybe your work'd be runnin' bad and you
couldn't keep it up good. You'd be workin' as hard as you could, and it
would get all messed up. Some rollers choked up on it and you couldn't
help yourself. It wasn't your fault, and they'd just raise cane with you
about
Page 34
it. People doin' all they could do,
that's all they could do. They thought they could do more than they
could do. They'd get on 'em and holler at them. You could hear them all
over the plant—much fussin's that made—you could hear them holler at
people. I never had one to holler at me like that. I guess they would
of, but I never did. But I sure did hear 'em holler at t'other people.
Of course, they don't do that now, but they did then.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did they have real strict rules? You said they tried to run your sister
out of the rest room.
ALICE P. EVITT:
A lot of them go in there and they'd talk. Their work'd be goin' bad.
They'd go to the door and holler at 'em make 'em come out of there.
That's all I knowed they'd do because they never did holler at me. But I
heard my sister and them tell about 'em hollerin' at them. I heared 'em
holler at other people.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Could you talk to people you were workin' near . . .
ALICE P. EVITT:
Oh yes, if your work was caught up, you could go on and do what you want
to do around. They didn't care.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you leave the mill?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, you couldn't leave the mill. You could go around and talk, or sit
down. They had what they'd call cotton boxes at the end of your frame.
You could sit down on them and rest a little bit. Just so you kept up
your job.
JIM LELOUDIS:
When did you eat your lunch when you were in the mill?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, they'd give us forty-five minutes for dinner. We'd go home. They'd
give us from 12:00 to 12:45.
Page 35
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you buy your lunch there or bring it with you?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, they didn't have nothin' there to buy. You had to go home and
eat.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did they ever have carts they would roll through and sell stuff?
ALICE P. EVITT:
That was back in them days. They started them when they went on this here
eight hours a day—they got that. You couldn't buy nothin' in the mill.
Sometimes if you were close to a store, they'd go to the store. If
somebody'd go to the store, they'd ask you if you wanted anything.
They'd bring you somethin' if you'd tell 'em to bring you somethin'.
Those airplanes sure makes a fuss, don't they?
JIM LELOUDIS:
They sure do. You must be right under a landing pass.
ALICE P. EVITT:
We hear them. They come right across here.
JIM LELOUDIS:
It sounds like people didn't get along too good with the supervisors. Did
they ever kind of get together and decide how fast they would work?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No.
JIM LELOUDIS:
. . . or to try to go against the supervisor's instructions or things
like that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Not as I know of. If they did, I didn't know. There's a lot of difference
now.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you ever remember people getting hurt in the mill, or nearly hurt?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, I knowed of them to slip on the floor and get hurt. I got a scar on
my arm where I fell out here in this mill. I was stooped over doffin' my
frame down that
Page 36
way, and I fell. There was a casin'
off of my speeder—metal, big old casin'—and the corner of it cut my arm.
I got cut out here. That's when I was runnin' speeders.
JIM LELOUDIS:
I was thinking of a story a woman told me about another woman getting her
skirt caught in the belt.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Oh, I'd get my apron tore off of me in the speeder room—when I was
learnin' to run speeders. I'd get my apron tore off of me two or three
times a week. They'd wind me up, and I was just lucky I managed to stop
'em and didn't get my arms in them. Them fliers would break your
bones.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did it scare you?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, it would scare me. Sure would. Sometimes I'd be a-cleanin' my gear
and get my brush hung in there and tear down the whole frame ends [laughter] . Back then they didn't wear pants
like they do now. Your apron—them big fliers flyin' around that
way—they'd grab you and just wind it plumb up. I always managed to get
it stopped. I know one lady—I didn't see her get it done—but she said
she wore wigs and she'd get her hair caught and it pulled her whole
scalp out—every bit of her hair. She had to wear. . . .
JIM LELOUDIS:
It pulled. . . .
ALICE P. EVITT:
Pulled her hair all out—every bit of it. She said pulled the scalp off
that way. I don't know what she meant that way.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did she have to wear a wig after that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes, she wore a wig. People back then, they wore loose clothes, and
they'd get caught. Them speeder rooms was bad to catch you. If they'd
wore pants like they
Page 37
do now, they'd saved a
lot.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How did you get that job of running speeder?
ALICE P. EVITT:
My husband run speeders, and he wanted me to learn. I just kept on and on
till I learned, and they give me a job. I's spinnin' at the Gibson mill
in Concord, and he worked at the Buffalo mill. They needed somebody down
there just to mark ropin'. So they sent for me and I went. I marked
ropin' and finished learnin' it till I get so I could run it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you work with him from then on?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We both worked in the card room.
JIM LELOUDIS:
It must have been kind of nice to be able to work together like that.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Work close together? Seemed like everywhere he was at, he'd want me
there. If he'd go anywhere in the car, he'd want me to go along. I
appreciated it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Is that why he wanted you to learn to run a speeder, so you could be with
him?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I thought it was good of him to be like that. I never had no trouble with
a lot of fuss and go on, but we never did.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What was it like in the mill? I've never been in one that was running.
What did it smell like? What did it look like?
ALICE P. EVITT:
It just make a lot of noise. That's why I never did go to the weave room.
I worked all but the weave room. It makes so much fuss and clatter, I
never did work in there.
Page 38
JIM LELOUDIS:
You told me you hated it.
ALICE P. EVITT:
I worked everywhere but there. Everything run and makin' fuss. You have
to talk loud to people. A lot of people learn to talk loud, they don't
never bring it down. They just, where they're at, they talk loud. Out
here, when you worked out here, ever who worked side of you, you worked
side hand. You help each other. But they didn't do that nowhere else.
But out here, we worked together. We didn't stop for dinner. The feller
worked next to me, I'd run his frame, so he'd go home. Then he'd run
mine till I could come home and get dinner. We'd always pick a time when
we didn't have no doffin' or busy job on us. We had to doff and creel,
and we couldn't do that and run all them frames. We'd work it together
and work out each other's right time to go.
JIM LELOUDIS:
When was that when they started that system here?
ALICE P. EVITT:
That was goin' on here when I was here back in '22. Went on till they
changed and stopped.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were you ever able to—I notice the windows are still in this mill; they
haven't bricked them up—were you able to open those windows.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes, they open like a door. I can look at that out there and think how
many times I run speeders right there at that window. How many times
I've leant over at that window to cooled off and looked out. It was so
nice out there. They had flowers and everything in the yard. It was
beautiful. Makes you feel bad to see it tore up so bad now.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So they had it landscaped and all?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They had big old snowball bushes and roses and
Page 39
everything. Every house on the mill hill had flowers. They had shrubbery
in front of it—hedges; had colored people to keep it up and keep it
clean. We didn't have to clean it. The company cut it and put the
flowers around and all. It was beautiful here. Look at it now.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So they hired the black men to come in and take care of it.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Look at it now. Makes you feel bad after being so pretty—goin' to the bad
like that. This always was a clean mill here—had pretty flowers.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Was it real hot in the mill?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Oh, it was awful hot. You'd come out of there, your clothes was plumb
wet. Awful hot. Over to Johnston—I worked over there some—they had air
conditioning, and it helped a lot. Didn't have it too cool, but it
helped a lot. Out here, they didn't have anything. All the windows that
was open was right where you was workin'. You'd open one. That didn't
let much in. All that stuff a-runnin' machinery makin' heat. It was bad.
Terrible hot out here.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did the supervisors ever fuss at you for opening any windows?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Un-uh. No, they didn't get on you out here about those. They was mighty
good.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How about other places?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I never did know of them gettin' on you about raisin' the windows.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you ever remember any attempts at this mill or any others you worked
at to organize a union?
Page 40
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, I was on a strike out here.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were you? Out here? When was that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
That was back in the 30's.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Was that 1934? The general textile strike?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We didn't stay out long. We went back to work—didn't have no trouble or
nothin'.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Tell me about that strike. That sounds interesting.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Well, they struck. They said if anybody come to work, they was goin' to
throw them out, but nobody didn't go. They'd go out there everyday. Just
hang around and walk around and talk's all we done. Nobody didn't try to
come in. There's a meetin' up here, and they'd serve hot dogs and things
at the meetin'. Just had a good time. They finally, though, went back to
work. They didn't have any trouble back then. They went back to work.
They'd go down at the church, they'd give us somethin' to eat. Give out
stuff—the union did—put potaters, beans, stuff like that that you use to
cook. We got some groceries down there.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How did you get involved with the union?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I was workin' in there. When they all struck, I come out too. I didn't
want to be throwed out [laughter] .
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did the organizers ever come around and talk to you?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I belonged to the union.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Oh, you did?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What made you decide to join?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Everybody else did out here and I did too. So
Page 41
I
joined. I didn't have much to do with the strike. I didn't hang around
out there much.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You didn't go on the picket line?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I'd go out there some and walk around and talk to them and come back
home. I didn't stay out there like they did. I didn't know if there'd be
any trouble or not, and I didn't want to be in it if there was.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why did the strike end?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They all decided to go back to work, and they went back to work. Just
like young'uns [laughter] .
JIM LELOUDIS:
What were they upset about? Why did they walk out?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They wanted a raise.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did they get it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
But they went back to work.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why didn't they hold out till they got it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know. I guess they all just got tired of it and went back to
work. The union wasn't too strong back then, so they went back to
work.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you attend any of the union meetings?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, I been to the meetings.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What would go on there? What would they tell you? What would you do?
ALICE P. EVITT:
A lot of things. You had to keep it secret and everything. They'd tell
you lots of things to do, but didn't half of them do it. They didn't pay
'em no attention. They had a union, but it wasn't organized right or
something. I don't know what happened. It just didn't go right.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember any of the things they would talk
Page 42
to
you about?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes. They'd talk to you about when you struck. Stay out till you get your
raise and don't let nobody in—don't let 'em go in over you and such as
that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did they ever call the police in or anything like that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Un-uh. That's been a long time. When it first started out. . . .
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did the management negotiate with the workers at all?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We didn't see them. They didn't come out there. We went back to work,
they just treat them like nothin' ever happened. Just all that was in
the strike would come out there. None of them didn't try to get back to
work. I reckon there would have been trouble if they would of.
JIM LELOUDIS:
The management never talked to you about wages? They just kind of held
out too?
ALICE P. EVITT:
So they just decided to go back to work and went back to work. I was
glad. I don't like to be in that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why didn't you like it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I was afraid if they'd keep on, maybe they'd be trouble. I don't believe
in trouble. If I can't do somethin' for somebody, I sure don't want to
do nobody no harm. I always been that way, and I didn't want in no mess.
I just never did believe in causin' trouble. That did cause a lot of
trouble, such as that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What type of trouble?
ALICE P. EVITT:
People who'd come to go to work a lot of places,
Page 43
and
they'd fight them. They'd get in fights and everything. I didn't want to
be messed up in all of that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were there fights here?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, they didn't have a bit of trouble here. They was lucky. Had-a, I
wouldn't a been in it. I'd just left and gone. I didn't stay out there
much anyway.
JIM LELOUDIS:
I want to talk just a little bit more about your work. Do you remember
ever dreaming about your work?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Dreamin'? Yeah, I dreamt a lot about it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What type things did you dream about?
ALICE P. EVITT:
You dream sometimes that you was a-workin' and your work was all a mess.
You was just workin' your head off tryin' to get it straightened out,
and couldn't catch up with it. I'd just be a-workin' my head off tryin'
to catch up with my work. I'd wake up—be so worried I wake up. I think
everybody dreams about their hard work. I have since I quit. I've
dreamed about workin' in the mill again.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What do you dream about?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I dream that I'm in there workin'. I'm just as happy as you please [laughter] . I wish I was at one and could
work. Course, at my age I couldn't, but I'd enjoy it. I really would. I
just love to work on somethin' or another.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How about jokes? Did people ever tell a lot of jokes in the mill?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember any of them?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Now I don't remember none. It's some old dirty ones they'd say. They'd do
anything in the mill. They didn't
Page 44
care what they'd
say. Yeah, they's all the time gettin' a joke on you. On April Fool Day,
that's when they'd get you too [laughter]
.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What kinds of pranks would they pull on one another?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They'd do that a lot of times. Sometimes, they'd get under the spinnin'
frame and reach under there and get a-hold of somebody's dress and jerk
'em. Make 'em think the machine'd had 'em. They'd do that. Try to scare
them. But they was good. They didn't mean no harm—havin' fun. Sometimes
there at Concord, back then, they'd play Black Jack—take little rocks.
We'd carry them there. They had a little hall out in there where the
bobbins was. We'd get our spinnin', get all our ends up, and all our
stuff done on the frame. We'd go out there and play. We'd carry little
rocks in there, and we'd sit out there and play that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Was that when you were young?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, that's before I was married. We'd set in that hall. Then we'd have
to jump up and run and catch up with our work, and go back and play a
little more. They'd get together and sing in there.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Sing in the mill?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. Get together some of them and sing.
JIM LELOUDIS:
That must have been something to hear the machines roaring and the people
singing too.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Everybody seemed to be happy.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember the songs that they sang?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I sure don't.
JIM LELOUDIS:
That must have really been something.
ALICE P. EVITT:
That was back in 1914. I sure don't remember.
Page 45
Been
so long.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did people ever tell jokes about the machines?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did they ever get attached to their machines. Kind of feel like, "That's
my machine, and nobody else can use it."
ALICE P. EVITT:
Everybody had theirs. When they was out, somebody run it. They'd go back,
they'd get the same job. They belonged to them.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did people get mad if they didn't get their machines back?
ALICE P. EVITT:
If they'd take their springs from 'em, they'd get mad at them—the sides
or anything—they'd get mad and take them back. They's not supposed to
take 'em. Whatever you run, that's yours long as you stay there. Except
they had some that back twist—run backwards like. Couldn't nobody run it
but three of us—me and two more was the only ones could run it. You'd
grab the bobbin, it'd knock the end of your fingers off nearly—run
backwards. We could run that. We didn't care if they did take that, but
they wouldn't do it. They couldn't get nobody to run it. We got paid
more than any of the rest of 'em on that, 'cause nobody couldn't run
it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What would happen if you took somebody's machine? If you refused to give
it back?
ALICE P. EVITT:
The boss man won't let them. He'd take them off. They could go work on
the others or go home or whatever they wanted to. He wouldn't let them
take them. See, we had a boss stayed right there—a section hand—right
there all the time. They couldn't do it.
Page 46
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did people ever compete to see who could produce more?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah. They'd put the clocks on spinnin' frames. When they'd stop 'em to
doff 'em—they had doffers in there. Had to take that yarn off and put
you some empty bobbins on—while your clock was stopped, you wasn't
makin' nothin'. They'd stand there and holler, and make them doffers
hurry all they could. Get it started up, ‘cause you a-losin’ when it
ain't runnin'. That clock stopped. Just like when I worked in the card
room, they put clocks on them. They they put 'em on the spinnin' down
there.
JIM LELOUDIS:
When is it they put those clocks in? Do you remember about when that
was?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They always had them on the speeders, but they put them on the spinnin'
way back in '13 or '14. I won't say which. They put it on some spinnin'
out there. I know it was before I's married. I was married in '15. I
moved to Concord in '12. They put them clocks on there.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you ever remember them coming around doing time studies to see how
fast you were doing with a stop watch?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, but they'd come by and time your frame to see how it was doin'. Put a
time clock on it. They'd do that on the frame see how it was doin'.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Do you remember the "speed-up" and "stretch-out" in the late 20's?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, they stretched out on the speeders. Out here, they used to run
three out here. When I left, they was runnin' six. That worked you to
death. I was glad to get over to the Calvine where they's run four over
there. But
Page 47
that was a job.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How did people respond to that when they started asking you to run
more?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They just had to take it, or go on and quit. So they'd take them.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did people ever try to resist it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No. People back then, they tried to work with the boss, and the boss
tried to work with them. That's the reason they wouldn't let 'em take
you off and give it to somebody else and put you on another. You went on
one and run it and that was yours. You worked with them, and they worked
with you.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So it was kind of a trade-off between being allowed to run your machine
and that willingness to work a little more for that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yeah, they would work more. . . .
JIM LELOUDIS:
One last thing, do you ever remember being called a "lint head"? Did
people ever call you that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Call me what?
JIM LELOUDIS:
A "lint head."
ALICE P. EVITT:
Un-uh. But I heared 'em call other people that. They may have called me
that to my back. I won't say that. But to my face, they never did. But I
heard people call that. I said, "Well, lint heads was the best people
there." They was. The people in the mill seemed like the best people
there was. You'd get along with them all. Course, they're good and bad
everywhere. But seems like they had more good people than they did bad
ones.
Page 48
When they tried them people from Gastonia away back when they was in them
strikes, John Carpenter—what was he up there. I knowed him. Used to live
close to him—anyway, he called them old "lint heads" in court up here. I
went up there to hear that trial.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you go to that trial?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I went to part of it. He called them old "lint heads." Bullwinker—we used
to live close to him. His sister used to be my school teacher—he called
them old "lint heads." That's the reason people didn't like him.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What did you think of being called that? How did it make you feel?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I never did have them call it to my face. I don't know what I would have
done if they called it to my face. I'd just told them what I thought, I
guess. I'd told them I'd druther be a lint head than to be like they
are.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you feel like there was a real split between people who worked in the
mills and people in town?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Some places they are. They think cotton mill people wasn't no good. I
declare, they're the best I've ever been around.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Was that true of Charlotte do you think?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Everywhere you go they'll find people that way. They think cause you work
in the cotton mill, they don't think much of them. But that shows you
they're willin' to work for what they get. They ain't a-lookin' for
somethin' for nothin'. They're tryin' to make their own way. I couldn't
see a thing wrong with workin' in a cotton mill.
Page 49
Now, they about shut them all down, and they'll be no cloth here.
They'll have to get it from other countries. Gonna mess it up and
everything.
JIM LELOUDIS:
I'm really interested in your going to that trial.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
JIM LELOUDIS:
What made you decide to go?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I just wanted to hear what was said and what was done.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What did you think about all that? How did you feel about it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I didn't understand all of it, but I thought it was dirty, them gettin'
up there and a-callin' them lint heads. I thought it was dirty. I
respect that people in account wouldn't do such a thing. I thought hard
of them for that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you feel that the people on trial were guilty?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, not all of it. Some of it, they was, and some they wasn't. There's
two sides to everything. I wasn't on either one side. I just wanted to
see how it went. People interested in somethin', they want to hear and
see which way it goes, they say. They got a dirty deal in some ways—they
way they talked about them and all. I don't believe I could have took it
if I had been bein' tried, and they had called certain things about me
that way in court. I don't believe I could have took it. I believe I
would have met them out somewhere and got 'em told. I think right's
right and wrong's wrong.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why were you so interested in that trial?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I just wanted to know how that union worked
Page 50
They was
cotton mill people like I was, and I just wanted to hear it. Me and my
husband went up there and heared part of it. We didn't hear it all. We
heared some of it. I knowed John Carpenter. He lived at Dallas, and I
lived back where he lived. I knowed him from I's a kid. Major
Bullwinker, too. I knowed him. Lived right there. When I lived up there,
he used to go off with the boys and take them off on a trip. My
brother-in-law, he'd go with them and cook for them. They'd go to a
movie and see
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you feel like justice was done in those trials?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, I didn't.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Why not?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Because the way they'd call them things. I don't think they ought to do
that out in public that way. I don't feel like people ought to do people
like that. I don't know what went on up there—just had their words for
it. I didn't side either way. That was up to them. I didn't think
justice done with them callin' them names and all. I didn't think they'd
be allowed to do that. But they did, and they let them do it. So I quit
the union. I never did go in it no more. I quit it.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You quit it after the trial?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, I quit it after this strike out here. I just quit foolin' with it. Me
and my husband both quit. You just can't go by everything you hear. You
gotta see yourself a lot of times.
JIM LELOUDIS:
I just wanted to ask you about a few more things about life in the mill
village. What type things did people do in their leisure? How did you
entertain yourself after work?
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ALICE P. EVITT:
Everybody had a radio or something. They'd play that. Play records—talk
machine they'd call it then. We'd have a crowd to come in—just right
around us—play the records, and they'd all enjoy them records. When I
lived in the last house down there, I had one. This people lived on the
front rows—boys and girls and all—they'd come in and play them records
and enjoy. Didn't have television or nothing. Didn't have radio part of
the time. It's come in then later. We used to have an old talk machine
with an old big horn—called it "mornin' glory horn"—big old horn about.
. . .
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you listen to WBT here? Is that the radio station you listened
to?
ALICE P. EVITT:
When I got the radio we did, yeah.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you have favorite shows or favorite entertainers on there that you
remember?
ALICE P. EVITT:
We'd go to ball games a heap. He'd go there and sit there till midnight
and look at ball games if they'd tie up, then get up at 4:30 and go to
work. That's what we used to do! Grady Cole, then, was gettin' to put on
the radio.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Broadcasting the games?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Um-hm. That's when I seen and knowed him from way back then in the 20's.
He got killed the other day in a wreck. A man hit him from behind and
killed him. We used to go to the ball game all the time. We'd enjoy
that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were these ball teams that were organized in the mill, or the Charlotte
teams?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, the Charlotte. . . .
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JIM LELOUDIS:
The Charlotte Hornets?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Un-huh. We went when New York and different ones would come through here.
We'd go over there and see them. Everybody'd go. I didn't know much
about ball games then. I didn't know nothin' about and I couldn't see no
sense in it. My husband—we had a car—and he'd take a whole load of these
from here. He'd take them. Some women'd, they'd want to go and some of
the little girls. He'd take them over there to the ball game. He took
Mrs. Askew, and one night she said, "Why don't you go with us?" I said,
"I can't see no sense in that." I went, and she called everything as
they done it and learnt me what it was. From then on, I was worse to go
than they was [laughter] . I didn't
understand it, and you didn't enjoy it. After somebody took pain enough
to learn me, I loved it. We'd go at night and then get up and go to
work. I'd a-done it lots of times. I couldn't do that now. But we
enjoyed them games.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did the mill ever sponsor any baseball or softball teams? They didn't
have those here.
ALICE P. EVITT:
We didn't have none.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you ever have quilting parties?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, I never had time. But I have quilted some. I just didn't never have
time. I used to crochet a heap. That's what the matter with my eyes
now—old lamp and an old lantern. Sat and crocheted—me and mama-we'd sit
there with that old light a-burnin' and crochet, but I've hurt my eyes
now. Had my glasses changed about a month or two ago and it didn't do a
bit of good. I've just hurt my eyes. Strain on
Page 53
you
when you set by lamp or lantern. Back then, they didn't know what
electric lights was in a home.
JIM LELOUDIS:
The mill didn't have a ball team. Did they provide you with any other
services like a visiting nurse or a medical clinic or anything like
that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Not as I know of. Not where I worked, they didn't.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You said they kept the yards up. Did they ever come by and inspect the
houses to make sure you were keeping them clean or things like that?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, they didn't in the houses. Just around the houses where they'd keep
it so neat and clean.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How did you go about getting a house in the mill village?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They had houses for the spinnin' room and houses for the card room. I
come and got my husband and me a job in the card room, and he didn't
have a card room house. I said, "I'll get me a job in the spinnin' room
and get me a spinnin' room house. Then he can work in the card room, and
I'll work in the spinnin' room." Before I had time to get it, the card
room boss stopped me and said, "Don't you get no job in the spinnin'
room. We got one open now." It was the last house down on that road in
front of here. So I didn't have to go to the spinnin' room.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Were they located in different places within the village?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes. The card room had some on this row, and the spinnin' room had them
on the front row.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Was there any difference in the houses?
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ALICE P. EVITT:
No, they all just alike. But the card room had so many, and the spinnin'
room had so many, and the weave room had so many.
JIM LELOUDIS:
All the carders would live in one place, and all the weavers would live
in one area?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, they just mixed up.
JIM LELOUDIS:
There were just so many houses alloted to each.
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes, so many houses to each room, and they just had them scattered
around. I lived in this end house up here. It was a card room house.
This one next to it, it belonged to the weave room. Weave room people
lived in it. They wasn't just in one bunch. They's just scattered and
mixed 'em all up.
JIM LELOUDIS:
One of the big things we haven't talked about yet is the Depression. What
do you remember about the Depression, how it affected people out
here?
ALICE P. EVITT:
It affected them right smart. I think it affected people everywhere
mostly. I've never had to go hungry. I'm thankful for that. I've always
had a little something to go on, and I never did pay much attention to
such as that.
JIM LELOUDIS:
What did people do to survive? How did you make it through it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know. We just got along good. They'd give us stuff at the church.
We'd go down there and they'd give us food. Once a week they'd give you
food down there and help you.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Where would that food come from?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know.
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JIM LELOUDIS:
Did the mill owners get it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I don't know who'd get it. To be honest with you, I don't know. It could
have come from the city or welfare or whatever you call it. It could of
come from there. I don't know whether they had any welfare or anything
there then or not, I don't know, but anyway we got it. We'd get food
down there. Seemed like we always managed to get a little something.
Everybody around here always raised a garden.
JIM LELOUDIS:
So you made it by growing your own food. Did the mill here ever
close?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Sometimes, maybe stand a week's vacation or something like that. That's
the only time I ever knowed it to close. It run with steam back then.
Later on, it went on electric.
JIM LELOUDIS:
It must have been some place in there with all those belts flying. Did
you ever feel it was a dangerous place?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Sometimes you had to watch them belts runnin' up there. If they happened
to break and hit you, they'd knock you down. They'd hit you so hard
they'd kill you, wouldn't they? I never knowed them to hit one, but I
imagine it would. It was just a flyin'. It'd break and hit you, it'd
slap you so hard, I don't guess you'd ever remember anymore.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Did you ever see one break?
ALICE P. EVITT:
Yes, I've had them break on my work. Had them break overhead and on my
speeders. All out here, they low and run under. They didn't come over
your head. But the other places, they all go over your head. I was
always scared of them belts breakin' and hittin' you.
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JIM LELOUDIS:
I have this book here that has these machines in it. I was wondering if
you might recognize your machine.
ALICE P. EVITT:
That's a winder.
JIM LELOUDIS:
That's one isn't it?
ALICE P. EVITT:
I can't see good to tell you the truth. No, on a speeder, it goes behind.
I don't know what that is.
JIM LELOUDIS:
It might be a different kind.
ALICE P. EVITT:
It might be since I quit.
JIM LELOUDIS:
How did the machinery change while you were working? Do you remember
major changes in the types of machines or how they ran?
ALICE P. EVITT:
They always did about the same thing. Spinners and speeders, that's what
they always done. Cards and everything been the same thing.
JIM LELOUDIS:
You don't remember any major changes in the card machine?
ALICE P. EVITT:
No, I don't. But they had two kinds of speeders. Some had big fliers and
some had little fliers. These out here had little fliers. They got some
just have one carriage that just goes up and down on the bobbins. Then
they got some that's split in the middle—one end goes up and one end
down. But they always had them that way. All of them ain't got them like
that. I don't know if they ever did put them in or not.
JIM LELOUDIS:
Well, that about covers most of the questions I had.