Yes, it's a big house down right here on the left-hand side of the
street, as you go down. And so as soon as we come back Monday, we just
went right on up there because we'd done bought our furniture and all
and had it moved in. We went to Sears and bought some furniture before
we ever married and had it moved in, and so whenever we come back from
Greenville Sunday night, we just went right on up there to our home. And
then Monday morning we went right on back to work just like usual. And I
worked down there then until the mill shut down in 1969. I believe it
was April. And I went to work down there in 1938.
But as far as my child life, when I was coming up I was brought up
strict. In other words, if my daddy told me what my chores [unclear] was after I come from school, I
had certain things to do like getting the wood in to cook dinner with
the next day, and getting the kindling in to start the fire the next
morning, and bringing wood in for the fireplace and all and for the
grate. We didn't even have a heater. We cooked on an iron wood stove,
and we didn't burn a thing but wood. And we'd burn it in a big open
fireplace. And so I had to get everything up thataway that had to be
done the next morning before I went to school, and have my lessons
studied and everything, before I could go out to play after supper. I'd
say, "Papa, can I go up here and play a while, until bedtime?" He'd say,
"Well, you can go up there and play until it begins to get dark. I don't
mean dark, now; I mean when it begins to get dark, you come home. I
don't want to have to call you." I told him all right. And so when it
would begin to get dark, I wouldn't care what kind of game we was
playing or anything else, I'd just tell them I had to go, I couldn't
stay any longer. They said, "Aw, you can stay a while longer, Carl. It's
not dark yet." I'd say, "Well, my daddy told me not to stay till dark,
and it's a-gettin' dark." And so I'd leave and go
home, and if I hadn't fully gotten my lessons studied for school the
next day, I'd finish them. Then I'd get the Bible down and read some of
it.
And we kept boarders back then, too, and we had a fellow boarding with us
there that had come there and had a job and they didn't have no house
for him, a fellow by the name of Lloyd. And he noticed me every night,
whenever I'd get that Bible and start to reading it. He said, "Mr.
Thompson, you're going to have a minister when he gets grown." And Papa
said, "Well, I wisht he would be." And he said, "Well, I believe he
will. Looks like he loves reading that Bible." I said, "Well, I do. I
love to read the Bible. I ain't much of a reader, but I love to read the
Bible." But I'd read pretty good, to be just in the second or third
grade level. I could read pretty good. We didn't go to church too often
there in Fort Mill. We'd go once in a while. But every Sunday afternoon,
they would have a prayer meeting at one of the neighbors' houses. They
would let the neighbors know it the first of the week and say, "We're
having a prayer meeting at my house Sunday afternoon at two o'clock, and
we want you to come." And so Papa would always go. And every Sunday,
whenever he'd start, he'd say, "Carl, you want to go with me?" and I
always wanted to go. I'd say, "Yeah, I want to go, Papa." He said,
"Well, come on." And so me and him would go on to prayer meeting. My
stepmother would never go. But me and him would always go. And both my
sisters had done married, and my other brother was about four or five
years older than I was, and he didn't care anything about it. And so he
was off playing with some of the older boys. And so me and Papa would
go, and I can see my daddy now. Whenever they would go to have prayer,
he would get up out of his chair. And I'd always sit in a chair right
beside of him, and I'd sit there and wouldn't even move or nothing, and
wouldn't say nothing. And when they'd have prayer,
well, it's just like I could see him now, just getting up. He would get
up out of his chair and just turn right around and just kneel right down
and put his arms in the chair like that and his face down thataway, and
he would start to praying. And I don't remember ever hearing him pray a
prayer but what he would pray for his children and ask the Lord to take
care of them and nourish them. And so I reckon that's where I learnt a
lot about church work and all, was just through him, by the way of going
with him to them prayer meetings. And then after we moved to Rock Hill,
there was a Baptist church right down there, the West White Street
Baptist Church, just about three or four blocks from our home. We
started going to that little Baptist church, and we all joined, me and
my daddy and my stepmother. Of course, I didn't join for a long time. I
went for about four or five years or maybe longer than that before I
ever joined. But my daddy and my stepmother joined a good long while
before I did. But they was holding a revival meeting there one week, and
during that revival meeting the Lord spoke to me and told me to go up
and give an account of my sins and be saved. And so I didn't do it. Like
a lot of others, I said, "Not tonight. Wait till some other time. I'll
wait till some other time." And so I wouldn't do it. And I went on home
after the service was over. But it beared on my mind for the rest of
that night and all day the next day, too. And so the next night I went
back again, and I rejected that night. The Lord spoke to me again, and I
said, "No, Lord, not tonight. Maybe some other time." And I rejected him
again, and I went home. And the next day I was so restless all that day,
it just beared upon my mind. And I was so restless during the whole time
I was working, why, there was more of that on my mind than my job was.
So Wednesday night I went back again. I said, "Well, it ain't going to keep me away from the church." And so the
Lord called me again, and so as soon as He spoke to me that night, I got
right up with tears in my eyes, and I didn't go up and give the preacher
my hand like they do now, and say anything to him at all. I just went
right on up there and fell down on my knees right in front of the
church, and I started praying. And whenever I got through praying, I got
up wiping the tears out of my eyes, and I got up smiling. And the
preacher said, "Praise the Lord." And I said, "Thank the Lord. I am
saved. All my sins has been forgiven, and I've let Christ come into my
heart tonight. I'm a different creature than what I was whenever I come
in here." And then I begin to help carry on the work of the church and
all and done everything I could do towards what a Christian could do.
And when that revival was over, he went to Clover, South Carolina, and
opened up a meeting over there, and me and three or four of the other
boys would get in a car and go over there to that meeting over there.
And we went to what they called the Businessman's Evangelistic Club
there in town. Every Sunday afternoon they had meetings up there, and
we'd go up there and take part in it. And then we would go to different
places, a group of us boys, and some of them was as much as thirty or
thirty-five years old. I was about twenty-two years old then. And we'd
go to different places and sing on Sunday evenings. There'd always be
somebody that would go along that could play a piano, and we'd go to
different places thataway, and we'd sing for maybe two or three hours
Sunday evening. And then we'd go back and go back to church then that
night. And I sung in the choir. And a few times they called on me to
have a prayer service, and I'd carry on the prayer service every week
thataway on Wednesday nights, usually from seven or seven-thirty until
about eight-thirty or nine o'clock. And sometimes I was in charge of
that. And then after I come over here and went to
work, after me and her married then, we started going to the
Presbyterian Church up here. Preacher Younts
[unclear] was the pastor, and we went up there untill he
resigned. And whenever he resigned and they got another preacher, it was
altogether a different church. He wasn't nothing like the preacher that
Preacher Younts was. He wasn't friendly, and he didn't visit like
Preacher Younts did. He wasn't nothing like Preacher Younts, so we left
there then and went to the Whiting Avenue Baptist, and we joined there.
And so we've been at the Whiting Avenue Baptist ever since. We've been
there, I reckon, about fifteen years. They sold these houses in 1953,
and we bought this one and moved in it, and we've been living here in
this house now ever since 1953. It was in July of 1953; that's been
about twenty-six years ago. So I reckon that's just about the history of
mine.