[TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
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- PATTY DILLEY:
I wanted to ask you some questions about Conover in general. I've lived here quite a while, but …
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Do you live here in Conover?
- PATTY DILLEY:
Yes. I live over behind Mackie's Motel.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Who are you close to?
- PATTY DILLEY:
There's some Hurleys that live out there.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Do you know the Spencers that live right there on the corner as you turn
in there by the motel office?
- PATTY DILLEY:
Yes. I don't know them personally, but I know of them, like when I was a
little kid running around.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
We rabbit hunt together; we used to.
- PATTY DILLEY:
It's hard to see changes in a community.
How do you think Conover's changed over the years?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, wonderful.
- PATTY DILLEY:
You think it's great?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes. I do.
- PATTY DILLEY:
It's gotten a lot bigger?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
I think so.
- PATTY DILLEY:
What kind of good things have happened to this area?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
They've improved the roads and things down here, and it looks like they
try to do everything they can afford to do.° And as far as the town as a whole, I think they's doing
wonderful. That's the way I feel about it. Of course, everybody don't
have the same idea about it. But still you don't know it all. Maybe
there's some sides of the town that they've omitted doing work. I don't
know about that. But it's usually that way in all towns; you don't get
them all pleased.
- PATTY DILLEY:
How do you think this community around here has changed over the last
twenty years or so, like the good roads? Do you see a change in any of
the people?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Some I do, and then, like we was talking a while ago, and some of them I
don't. And it's the younger group that try to get something for nothing.
You see more of that now everywhere.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Why do you think people think that way now?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
They've just got everything handed to them mostly on a silver platter,
and they just don't care is the only way I can work it out. And they
don't want to work. That's just the way I feel about it.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Has this community gotten bigger over the years?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, yes.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Are there a lot of people that move out, or do most of them just stay
around?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
It would be more coming in here if they had a place for them to come.
We've got a new settlement right over there, and it's full. You can go
right that road there and turn and go on down that way and go out, and
they just completed here a couple of weeks ago hard-surfacing the road
out there.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Are those brick houses single dwellings?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Some of them has panel stuff on, and then they are bricked up. And there
are some nice homes out there.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I was out there with a friend of mine that worked on construction one
year, and we went out there rock-hunting one time.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
The Hedrick boy?
- PATTY DILLEY:
Yes.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
His daddy's the one that built them.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I bet so. I went with Don or Ken, one of those. They found a place where
they could find these real shiny rocks, so we were out there looking
around. And I knew it was out here, but it was about four or five years
ago, and I hadn't been out here since then. How about the schools around
here? How do you think the schools have changed?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
I guess the way it is, it's for the better. Like I said a while ago, some
will like it and some won't. You mean the integration business?
- PATTY DILLEY:
Yes.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
I think as a whole it's all right. But you know, with everything you go
at, everybody isn't going to be pleased.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Around here, were they for the integration, or were they against it?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
I'd say there was more for it than there was against it.
- PATTY DILLEY:
What year do you think all the kids around here started going to the
Conover Elementary up here, the big brick building?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
I don't remember. I'm not sure whether they all went the first year or
not.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Was there any reaction from the white community up there? Did they oppose
integration, or was it peaceful?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Not as I can recall. But it was probably some against it, but if they did
you wouldn't know it. I'd say that on both sides.
- PATTY DILLEY:
In some communities it seems like they had a lot of violence and fighting
about it.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
That started up at Hickory one time, like they couldn't get nothing over.
But it looks like they've kind of got it stopped now, especially at
Hickory High.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I'm not so sure. It's a big school, and they've got a lot of nice things
that we didn't have at Newton-Conover, but I don't think …
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
And they've got a lot of dope up there, too.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I don't think I'd like to have gone up there. I don't like a school so
big.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
No.
- PATTY DILLEY:
What kind of things did you do when you got off work, if you went to work
early and got off in the afternoon?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Sometimes we'd pitch horseshoes or play ball or go fishing. I like to
fish and stuff like that.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did any of the places you ever worked at, like at the furniture plant at
Trendline, did they have a company softball team or baseball team?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes. Softball. And a golf team. They still have it.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did you ever play on any of them?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
No. I was down in the machine room, and that was up in the upholstering
division.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Oh, the upholstering division had them.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Right. But of course, if you'd wanted to go out, you could have gone. But
they usually had all they could get on it anyway, after all of them picked out of the upholsterers up there in the
finishing room what was there.
- PATTY DILLEY:
When you worked at Conover Furniture, did they have their…
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
No. That didn't exist then.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I guess your wife did a lot of the household chores and things.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes, just about all of it.
- PATTY DILLEY:
What kind of things did you do around the house? Did you ever help
her?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
I did all the painting on the inside and the outside. And if there was
anything to be moved or something like that, I'd do that.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did you all ever have a garden?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, yes.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Was it big enough to can things from and keep things for the winter?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes.
- PATTY DILLEY:
At any of the places you ever worked at, did you ever live in any kind of
company housing?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
No. Never did.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I understand that up here at Conover Furniture they had some kind of
company housing for maybe some of the white workers? Do you remember
that?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Where is that at?
- PATTY DILLEY:
I'm not sure where it's at, but your brother mentioned it. But he didn't
know where it was either. He said at one time Mr. Brady owned …
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, yes, they did. A lot of those houses right there behind what they
call the graded school, might all of them down that line there, he …
- PATTY DILLEY:
Let me get out a map. I want to see if you can show me where it is,
because I wasn't exactly sure. I think they've torn down a whole lot of
that.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
You know where you go out to Brown's Oil?
- PATTY DILLEY:
Yes, Brown Oil Company.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
All down that line there.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Here's Conover Furniture right here. And then you say where the school
would be. The school would be right here. So all down this line
here?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
All down that line here. Well, just about where a house sits down
thataway now is where they had one. And some of them houses, I think, is
the same ones, only just remodelled them a little bit. You know where
Mrs. Drum lives over there, next to Floyd Brown?
- PATTY DILLEY:
No.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
You know, the Drum's Funeral Home's widow. She lives next to Brown there.
All down that street there were those houses.° And then you go on down further, come on down thisaway, and
on down below Brown's Oil Company on the right there, there's a bunch in
there that they built them.
- PATTY DILLEY:
It's hard to tell now, because either they're so redone that they look
completely different on the outside …
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, they remodelled them.
- PATTY DILLEY:
There's about three of them that really look like they might have
been.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes. Now them other ones, if I'm not mistaken, where the brick homes are
there, they were tore completely down now, I think. Ralph Simmons used
to live in one there. And Frank Gilbert used to live in one there.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Now those two people worked at Conover Furniture.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
That's right. Rob Herman.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I'm trying to get names, too, of people. Do you remember some names of
some other people that worked there at Conover Furniture?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Marion Heffner. He used to live in one of them homes down through there.
And Rob Setzer. And I used to work there with G.W. Moelman; called him
"Goosh." He's in California now. That's Beck Moelman's brother. And I
worked there with the Simmons's, Cliff Simmons. And Cliff Brady; that
was Mr. Brady's boy. And Walter Brady, his boy that worked in the
office.
- PATTY DILLEY:
So Cliff Brady worked out there with you all? And then Walter Brady
worked in the office?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, yes, them was Mr. Brady's boys.
- PATTY DILLEY:
What kind of job did Cliff Brady have there?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
He was supposed to be working out in the plant, but he was just from place to place.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Like a supervisor?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
No. He was supposed to be working, but now you know …
- PATTY DILLEY:
[Laughter] He didn't. Since his father
owned it, he didn't have to work too hard.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
If you'd want to find him, you couldn't find him. He'd be out "on the
hill" in the barroom, standing talking.
- PATTY DILLEY:
[Laughter] Oh, that's funny. But he could
get away with it.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, yes.
- PATTY DILLEY:
If anybody else tried that, could they get away with it? [Laughter]
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
No, there wouldn't be no way.
- PATTY DILLEY:
What job did Cliff Simmons have there?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
He could run most any kind of machine. You know that picker stick you was
talking about a while ago? When they were green they'd cut them there,
and he was the hacking man. He'd hack them outside or in the warehouse
down there.
- PATTY DILLEY:
How about G.W. Moelman? What kind of job did he have?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
He run the head machine what made that little round to put on those
screws I was telling you about a while ago. And then Rob Setzer, he was
the one who kept the bits and things sharp.
- PATTY DILLEY:
How about Marion Heffner?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
He run a rip saw. He's the one that cut those picker sticks.
- PATTY DILLEY:
So these were mainly the ones that worked in Hickory Handle?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Right.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did they keep on working there?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Some of them did.
- PATTY DILLEY:
How about Rob Herman?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
No, he didn't. I don't remember now what he did do after he left there.
But his brother was a foreman there, Cal Herman. He was the
superintendent. You know, Mr. Brady married their sister.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I didn't know that.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
You know where Southern Furniture is? Right on down below, it's a machine
shop right down there below Southern Furniture. Mr. Brady and them used
to run it down there. Of course, I wasn't with them then, but that's
where it really originated.
- PATTY DILLEY:
They ran the Hickory Handle down there below Southern Furniture?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
That was started by the Hermans.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Do you know when they moved the plant up?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
No, I can't recall that.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Was there a building there before they moved there?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, yes. Him and Mr. Shuford was the ones that started it out, A.W.
Shuford.
- PATTY DILLEY:
It's funny how everybody seems related in the plant, All of the
supervisors and then the people in the plant itself are all related and
friends. It makes it a good place to work that way.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
That's right.
- PATTY DILLEY:
You know a lot of people. When you brought home all the money, were you
the one in your family that decided how to use the money?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
We'd usually get together on it. If she had an idea that we thought we
should work to more than the other, why, we did that.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did you all ever have any extra money that you all were able to save, or
did most of it go?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Along then, it was pretty hard to save. There wasn't much you could
do.
- PATTY DILLEY:
So most of it went into buying the essentials.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes. It sure did.
- PATTY DILLEY:
What were your priorities for your household? Was it maybe food
first?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes, food came first. And then clothing and stuff like …
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did you all have your own house, or were you all renting?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
We had our own house.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did most people have their own house around here?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Some, and some didn't, along then.
- PATTY DILLEY:
So a lot of people rented.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Oh, yes.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Who did they rent from? Just different people?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes. Donald Bumgardner, he still has some out there. Now he was about the
leading one down through here.
- PATTY DILLEY:
What kind of appliances did you all have around in the house when you
were a young married couple? Did you all have many appliances?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
A good many, yes. A washing machine and stuff like that. A freezer.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Do you know about when you got those?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Not right offhand, no.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did you have to save money for them?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
You would usually buy them on installment. You'd get enough to make the
down payment. You could do that any way you wanted to. You could pay it
through the week or by the month, but the best way is to pay it by the
week, so much a week.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Do you think your wife had a lot more free time after she got some of
those things?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
It took a lot off her about this washing business and all that, the
washing machine and stuff like that. Yes.
- PATTY DILLEY:
So she had some more free time.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes.
- PATTY DILLEY:
So you thought they made her life a little bit easier?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
I would think so, in a way, yes.
- PATTY DILLEY:
When you all bought groceries and stuff for your house, where did you buy
those?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Herman's Grocery here in Conover.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Was that in the main town?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes. The Hermans run it, Clint Herman and Mel.
- PATTY DILLEY:
So everybody in town bought their groceries there?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Just about everybody.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I think that's all I want to ask you today, but I might want to come back
tomorrow and ask you some more questions about the different kinds of
jobs you did and how you felt about all your different kinds of work, and what kind of work you liked best. But it
gets pretty tiring, just answering questions.
[Laughter]
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
[Laughter]
- PATTY DILLEY:
I know it does. So it might be better; you might be able to think more on
it.
[text deleted]
- PATTY DILLEY:
Do you have any more to add? Is there any sort of questions I've missed,
or, talking about your life, that you'd like to add any kind of story or
something that happened to change your life a lot?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
After you're married, if you're going to try to do what's right, you have
to kind of think about different things and get a little closer. Yes,
I've thought about that.
- PATTY DILLEY:
When you moved out of the house and started travelling around, when you
came back to Conover did you move back in with your parents or did you
have your own place to stay in?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
At first when I got married, I did.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Did your parents always have children around the house, when they died?
Or was there always somebody living with them?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes. One of my brothers was there with them.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I just wondered, because some people will live by themselves, and then
when they get sick they'll move in with their kids. But that wasn't the
case, because their kids were still living there at home.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
I'm going to be off all next week, and maybe the next week, and then
maybe we can get together on that.
- PATTY DILLEY:
Okay. That might be even better then. I think I'd like to go talk to
Bobby Baker. Where does he live around here?
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
If you go down that road, if you turn back towards, it's the second house
on the right.
- PATTY DILLEY:
I'll have to catch him after work.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
Yes, he works at Broyhill's.
[text deleted]
- PATTY DILLEY:
I think he'd be interesting to talk to, too. Get your whole family.
- OSCAR DEARMONT BAKER:
[Laughter] I've got something here I'll
show you. [Shows a certificate that CUTI gave him for helping out at
some of the classes.]
END OF INTERVIEW
1. He points across the street.
2. His hand imitates the motion of a "wave."
3. Trendline's factory is situated within the
black community.
4. Brady.
5. In the black community.
6. These are not the "company" houses of Brady,
but were houses built by Bolick, of Conover Chair, when he expanded into
the construction business.