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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Johnnie Jones, August 27, 1976. Interview H-0273. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Starting work at a young age

Jones insisted on working with his father at Pomona Terracotta Company, despite his father's objections that he was too young. He did odd jobs around the mill, including assisting in the terra-cotta making process, eventually working his way up to a maintenance position.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Johnnie Jones, August 27, 1976. Interview H-0273. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

BRENT GLASS:
Did you go to work with your Dad much?
JOHNNIE JONES:
No. When I first started to work, I belive I was thirteen years old. See, I quit school after school was out. I'd quit school and go work 'til school'd start again; then I'd go back. Never asked for a job; I ain't never asked nobody for a job, just go ahead over there and go to work. Every morning my Daddy would send me back home and say I was too little to work. Well I'd go over there and mess around, and frequently I'd go on to work. "What are you doing here?" I'd tell him, "I'm working," and that's all there was to it.
BRENT GLASS:
Really?
JOHNNIE JONES:
Yes.
BRENT GLASS:
What kinds of jobs would you do?
JOHNNIE JONES:
Well, I'd done some of everything there. I fired the kiln, I fired the boilers, I worked in dry pan (that's where they grind that stuff up and make pipe—I worked there), I made sewer pipe, I would set pipe: I had done everything there. And the last thing, I worked up to a maintenance man.
BRENT GLASS:
What do you do there?
JOHNNIE JONES:
Just keep things fixed up; break-downs, get them fixed up.