Balancing work and family
Christine Galliher explains that she left the textile mills in 1946 shortly after the birth of her second child. Christine had been at home during the early 1930s when her first child was born, but she describes how she balanced the demands of childcare and work after she returned to the mills in 1935. By the time of she had her second child, however, Christine explains here and elsewhere in the interview that it was increasingly difficult to balance both, hence her decision to retire from mill work.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Christine and Dave Galliher, August 8, 1979. Interview H-0314. 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
- JACQUELYN HALL:
-
How come you quit in 1946?
- CHRISTINE GALLIHER:
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I had just had this boy, and a boy is different from a girl, and he's so
demanding.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
-
Who had been taking care of him while you worked, right after he was
born?
- CHRISTINE GALLIHER:
-
His sister took care of him in the summertime. And my mother, my
grandmother. But he was so demanding. In the summertime, though, she
[daughter] looked after him; she was so much older than he was. And when
she was little, I'd pick her up at school when I'd get off. By that
time, we got off at three o'clock. And they did start a shift that you'd
come off at two o'clock. But I would pick her up at three, and we'd go
to the movies. Of course, I'd be beat to death from beating on them
machines. And that way, I'd get rested.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
-
You'd rest at the movie?
- CHRISTINE GALLIHER:
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Yes, and she'd enjoy the movies and getting to go somewhere with me. And
then we'd stop at the store and get our food and come on home and cook
it.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
-
That sounds nice.
- CHRISTINE GALLIHER:
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Yes, it come out real well with her. But now him, I couldn't have done
that. He's just so much different from her.
