Melton Ballard and James Ballard Interview

 (tone)

JUDITH HELFAND: Mr. Ballard, I want you to tell me about your grandfather and how, in a short way, OK. It doesn't have to be a long story, just a short story, but with --

GEORGE STONEY: Just keep going. You don't have to stop.

MELTON BALLARD: My grandfather, now, he was raised here in Etowah County. And he -- he was a miner. And when this mill started to build, go out and build, he got this job helping build these smokestacks there and they built two smokestacks. And he helped in this project. And those brick, he had helped to 00:01:00carry 'em up and -- and whatever they had for him to do, well, he helped to build those stacks. Uh, now, this was about, about the year of nineteen hundred and one. And then after the -- well, they build, that mill was built, uh, my father went to work at this mill. And worked there 35 years until they discharged him in nineteen and thirty-four, I believe.

STONEY: OK, what happened to your father after he got discharged?

MELTON BALLARD: Well, after he got discharged, he --

STONEY: Just say, after my father got discharged.

MELTON BALLARD: After my father got discharged, he didn't do anything except just pick up a little job here and yon there. Nothing regular.

STONEY: How do you feel about that mill now? Tell the story of the smokestacks.

MELTON BALLARD: Well, I would like to have seen 'em keep one smokestack. And I believe I'm not by myself. There's a lot of people that'd liked to see it. And really, they didn't see, didn't see it that way. They wanted it 00:03:00all moved so they could build a shopping center there.

STONEY: How do you feel when you go to that shopping center?

MELTON BALLARD: I still feel like that that mill is still there somewhere, which we know it's not. We'd walk around in there when we're buying groceries on this, about on the spot where my dad walked around and worked. It --

STONEY: What's it make you feel like?

MELTON BALLARD: Well, it -- it gives me a -- a pretty bad feeling in a way, to know that he worked there. So he helped to send me and my sister to school, and 00:04:00make a living for his family. So they, the company decided to do away with it, which put a lot of people out of work. A lot of people suffered on account of at one time it was 3,000 people worked there.

STONEY: Now, one other thing, could you tell me the story again just as with all the memories you can about that lamp?

MELTON BALLARD: That lamp has been our home since I was about eight year old. 00:05:00It was my mother's lamp. And me and my sister, we used that at night to, to get our homework. It wasn't no bright light, but we had to make out with it. We managed to make pretty good grades. And we didn't get no electricity in our home till 1924. And we still keep the lamp in case the power goes off.

STONEY: Do you have any other things like that that you keep around?

HELFAND: From the mill village?

MELTON BALLARD: Naw, I can't recall offhand.

STONEY: OK.

HELFAND: Can we stop for a second?

STONEY: Yeah.

CREW: Hold on a second, we're in the middle of a shot.

STONEY: Sorry.

(break in video)

STONEY: What'd he think about all of that then?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah, he --

STONEY: My father.

MELTON BALLARD: My father, when he got discharged, had made me very bitter. (birds)

CREW: I'm going to stop just a moment, please.

HELFAND: They don't know that you all ever did this, they just don't know. A lot of folks have been ashamed to talk about it. So, (break in video) union man and a union leader, and what he did after he lost his job.

STONEY: And how you felt about it? Okay, Danny?

CREW: Rolling.

CREW: I'm hearing people outside.

MELTON BALLARD: Are you ready?

STONEY: Yes.

HELFAND: Sure.

MELTON BALLARD: We were, well, the whole family was very bitter about him losing his job because he had --

STONEY: I'm sorry, you have to start, my father.

MELTON BALLARD: My father lost his job on account of -- well, they didn't tell him so, but anyhow, because he had joined the union and he was a leader. And they discharged him. And he had worked there a good many years. And he was very bitter about it and our whole family was. And he was a man that believed in the right thing and he thought he was doing right to join the union. But, uh, which would give a working man the right to, they had the right to organize. And that was a law that was passed, signed by the President of the United 00:08:00States. So, Dad, my dad, he went into it with, with everything he had because he -- he believed in it. He would talk every day, Dad would talk every day to people trying to get people to -- to see that it would be good for us to have a union plant. And of course, he did, Dad gained some friends there and, of course, I'm -- I'm sure he lost some. We had so many people that was not 00:09:00for the union. That's about all I can say right now.

STONEY: OK. Good.

(off-mic conversation)

STONEY: OK, bring in the -- I know, I'm sorry.

HELFAND: Can we, if I can, I can really tell them, I mean, one more time, I think it's important.

STONEY: OK, all right, but you know, those little background noises, I don't think they're going to be--

(break in video)

(tone)

HELFAND: Was it just, do you feel like you got everything off your mouth that you wanted to?

(break in video)

STONEY: OK.

MELTON BALLARD: Well, my father was very bitter when he -- after he was discharged. The family was very bitter. And his friends and neighbors that had known him all these years, and knew how he was about being a leader and how he 00:10:00believed in things, he was right. They were bitter. Because he was abandoned. Whatever he believed in, he believed in going all the way. He didn't believe in doing a half-way job. So he fully believed in organized labor. And Dad was a leader and he -- he let everybody know that, how he felt towards the union. And he continuously, as long as he was, as long as he was there, he continued to speak to people that -- about the union. To non-union people, he'd try to get them to see where it would benefit them to belong to the union. And have -- a 00:11:00plant where people could say that this is a union plant and we get, uh, working hours is -- is sufficient for us. Our wages are all right. So at the -- it really hurt me when they let him go, to think about all the years that he had worked there. He done nothing wrong, he just joined the union and was one of the leaders.

STONEY: What did he do afterwards?

MELTON BALLARD: Nothing much. He didn't --

STONEY: Just say, after the -- after the --

MELTON BALLARD: After -- after he got discharged, he didn't have anything 00:12:00really to do. Pick up little jobs here and yon. That's about all I know then.

HELFAND: Can you stop for a sec?

(break in video)

STONEY: Even though he wasn't working in the mills, he was still working for the union?

MELTON BALLARD: Oh, yeah. Yeah, he never did let up. He continued.

STONEY: Hold it, hold it just a minute. All right, start with my father.

MELTON BALLARD: My father never did let up, he continued to talk in favor of the union even a year after he was discharged. Uh, because like I had said in the beginning, he believed, when he believed in something, he went all the way. He didn't, he didn't go halfway.

HELFAND: Did they have meetings at your house?

MELTON BALLARD: No.

HELFAND: Did he bring Mr. Holland and Mr. Sewell over to your place?

MELTON BALLARD: No. No, no.

HELFAND: You know, that story you were telling me before about Mr. Cousins? It gave me such a good feeling, a good sense of that picket line and the strength that some of these union activists musta had to be able to tell the leader, the overseer of the union, I had -- (break in video)

MELTON BALLARD: Yes. Those people were, they were very strong for the union. They didn't -- they let you know that they were for the union. And they were (clears throat) -- anybody that come around the picket line were, they -- they would find out right quick that these people were strictly union people. And 00:14:00you couldn't, you couldn't talk about the union, talk against the union. It just wouldn't work. The people, though, they -- like I have said, they -- they wanted a plant that was organized to the right hours, number of hours in a day. They wanted eight hours a day and get away from a 12 hours a day. And they, they were so strong that they believed that the union would let 'em have those things. And that's why, and one of the reasons they just so -- they really stayed with it to let people know how they felt about an organized plant. 00:15:00They had -- it's been some time, it's been several, a good many years, but we all remember how strong those people were that were union people. They -- they let you know right quick that they believed that a working man had that right. And they let you know that they were gonna stay right with it until they got it, regardless of what it took. That's about all I can say about it.

STONEY: I think we better -- yea.

HELFAND: Can we -- OK, can we just get the dream, George? Please, the dream, OK.

STONEY: OK. I think we did it once before.

HELFAND: OK, can you just start it with one day on the picket line, Mr. Cousins was walking by --

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

HELFAND: -- that great story. But mention the picket line so we know where we are.

MELTON BALLARD: One day on the picket line, Mr. Cousins was going in to the plant, had started into the plant, and he spoke to one of the men on the picket line. The man says, "Mr. Cousins, by the way I had a dream about you last night." "Oh?" he said, "is that so?" He said, "Yeah. And I dreamt that, that you, uh, passed away and it was six pall bearers a-carrying you. And you looked up and you said, 'How many pall bearers have I got?'" I says, "You got six." He says, "Well, take two of 'em off and cut the other four's wages." And then Mr. Cousins, he just went on into the plant and he didn't have no more to say. That dream had just seemed to floor him. I mean, 00:17:00he seemed to be stunned by that man having that dream.

STONEY: OK.

HELFAND: OK.

STONEY: Now, let's see if -- I'd like to see--

CREW: Slow zoom in.

STONEY: Let's see if we can bring in his, his grand, and his great, great-grandchild, is it?

CREW: Why don't we get some room tone before we do all that.

STONEY: OK, all right. All right, good.

CREW: That'd be a real good idea.

STONEY: Just everybody be very quiet for about 30 seconds.

CREW: We're getting this 15 second shot here.

(tone)

CREW: We rolling?

CREW: Going to bars. It's all yours.

CREW: OK, this is room tone for the interview that was just done and for the piece that will be used after this, a part of this interview.

(room tone)

CREW: OK.

STONEY: OK, the kitchen. OK. That's going to knock your lights, I'm afraid. This one.

(off-mic conversation)

F1: Go over and stand next to Grandpa, huh?

MELTON BALLARD: Hey, baby. He just woke up?

F1: Well, he took a little nap. OK, stand right here. Want me to pull this chair out and sit in the lap.

GRANDCHILD: No. No.

F1: Just one minute. Sit right there.

MELTON BALLARD: That's to help for a few minutes.

STONEY: Who's that on your lap?

MELTON BALLARD: That's [Ehlich Ballard?].

GRANDCHILD: They tricked us. (slapping noise)

STONEY: Did you talk to him? Could you talk to your grandson?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

GRANDCHILD: Dah, dah, dah, dah.

MELTON BALLARD: Are you a sweet boy? Ehlich, are you a sweet boy? Did you have a good nap? Did you went to sleep? What do you got there?

GRANDCHILD: My candy!

MELTON BALLARD: He's like a wiggle-worm.

STONEY: OK, let him go.

F1: Take one.

STONEY: OK, that's fine.

(break in audio)

JAMES BALLARD: Where?

STONEY: Over here on the ground.

F2: What are they doin'? (laughter) (airplane)

(off-mic conversation) (traffic)

JAMES BALLARD: What kind of hours they work back then?

MELTON BALLARD: Twelve hours.

JAMES BALLARD: Twelve hour shifts, four or five days.

(off-mic conversation)

JAMES BALLARD: I imagine getting some of those folks that I work with to work in a place like that, (laughter) they wouldn't want to do it.

STONEY: Yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: It was that drugstore over there, the one at the end, was that built in with the mill? You know, the old Snell Road drugstore, wasn't it Snell Road? Not Snell Road, what was the name of it?

MELTON BALLARD: Curtis Drug Store.

JAMES BALLARD: Right there with the cotton mill?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: Was that part of the mill, did they own it?

MELTON BALLARD: I don't remember. But that drugstore was there.

JAMES BALLARD: That drugstore was there when I started to high school but this --

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: Just I've gotten it, I'm gonna say they own it, but, you know, it's got that big brick home, that old 100-year old home, that on Samson Avenue, what -- what's his name? What are those people's names? Ann, what was the drug man's name out of the city that owned all the drugstores?

ANN: [McNair?].

JAMES BALLARD: McNair.

MELTON BALLARD: McNair.

JAMES BALLARD: Right.

MELTON BALLARD: Wallace McNair?

JAMES BALLARD: Yeah.

MELTON BALLARD: Wallace McNair.

JAMES BALLARD: He's the one that owned it then, or some of that family?

MELTON BALLARD: Some of that family.

JAMES BALLARD: They filled that lake up around there, too.

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: You know, they found that thing full of snakes underneath that building after they tore that thing down.

MELTON BALLARD: Huh.

JAMES BALLARD: There was water moccasins all under that building just like spaghetti.

STONEY: Did you know the story about your grandfather building the smokestacks?

JAMES BALLARD: No, I've never heard that.

STONEY: Get your -- get your father to tell about that.

MELTON BALLARD: That was my grandfather, [Bolin?].

JAMES BALLARD: My grandmother's daddy. That's what you're talking about?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah. Yeah, he --

JAMES BALLARD: What, the big stacks there at the plant?

MELTON BALLARD: He helped to build the smokestacks. There were two, two smokestacks.

JAMES BALLARD: He didn't work in the mill though, did he?

MELTON BALLARD: No. No, he come out of the mines. Come out of the mines and worked --

GRANDCHILD: Mama.

MELTON BALLARD: -- on that job when they was building the mill.

JAMES BALLARD: Well, I've heard you tell about the bugs, big bugs or something going across the floor while they's working?

MELTON BALLARD: Oh, them?

JAMES BALLARD: They were like a big piece of cotton going across the floor and there'll be a bug under it.

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah. And those roach bugs were the biggest things you ever seen in your life.

JAMES BALLARD: Did it get in the mill houses?

MELTON BALLARD: No, not too much. But they'd be in that wheat -- in the wheat room and get under some cotton and go across the floor.

JAMES BALLARD: Pop never owned a car, did he?

MELTON BALLARD: No.

JAMES BALLARD: Did he -- and could he drive?

MELTON BALLARD: No.

JAMES BALLARD: Never learned to drive.

MELTON BALLARD: No.

JAMES BALLARD: When's the first car, when y'all moved to the mountain?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah. When I was 12 year old, the first -- first car I ever drove.

JAMES BALLARD: You shoulda gone to that car show we had in here couple Sundays ago, you've probably seen some uptown.

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah, 19 -- 1924 model, I believe it was, I drove.

JAMES BALLARD: Ford?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah. A new one.

JAMES BALLARD: What's a new car cost, five, six hundred dollars?

MELTON BALLARD: I think they paid five seventy-five for the thing.

JAMES BALLARD: That'd make a good payment now on a car.

STONEY: OK, Judy?

HELFAND: Yeah.

(break in video)

JAMES BALLARD: I've been to some -- I look to see how many Ballards are there, you know.

HELFAND: E. Ballard's on the bottom there.

MELTON BALLARD: E. Ballard, that's Papa. Ernest Eugene.

STONEY: Want to read it out, please?

JAMES BALLARD: E. Ballard, worked at the Watt Mill for 20 years. Applied for his job twice when strike was called off at the request of President Roosevelt. Was not reinstated on job. [Croft Coley?], new employee, had been placed on his 00:25:00job. We appeal to your honorable body for reinstatement of this employee on his former job for future protection under the provisions of the National Industry -- Industrial Recovery Act and for an adjustment also in the matter of wages lost because of the [Dwight?] mandamus in violation of the law, in this case, of discrimination. It's a pity they didn't have discrimination laws back then, isn't it? Really, that's something. I'd like to have a copy of that. You have to really beat the bushes to look, look in the phone books for find names, are you related to this one or that one or whatever. Did you recognize any of these other names in here? Are there other names in from Gadsden?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah. Yeah, they're all here. They didn't say they were going to get a copy of that.

HELFAND: OK. They're all from Gadsden. And so all the people --

JAMES BALLARD: Oh, OK.

HELFAND: -- all the union employees that were let go after the strike came to light.

JAMES BALLARD: The reason I asked this, Bus -- Busby name, isn't it, you know, the Busbys, you know, uh, what is some Busbys. But back then they must had some in high school back then in the '50s?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: A lot of the same names are still there. A lot of the old families still there, uh, you know.

MELTON BALLARD: That's true.

JAMES BALLARD: So, the high school he went to is now a junior high school. It's been there for I don't know how many years and third and fourth generations are still, still playing football, they musta had some high schooling. A lot of 'em never leaved the mill, but they stayed right there.

HELFAND: Part of what we're trying to do as I understand, the legacy of this strike and to see if folks know about it and if your parents have told you about it.

JAMES BALLARD: Yeah, well, he's told -- I mean, I heard him tell about the, uh, labor problems than that, uh, they had some people try to come from Sand Mountain to take their jobs while they were on strike. I mean, they, you know, they, uh, they said they had a little old fight and some gunfire was exchanged, you know, because they were trying to take their jobs. Of course, on what 00:27:00he's told me, they didn't -- they didn't make a lot of money back then. I mean, how much did you make a week, how much Papa make a week?

MELTON BALLARD: He made nine dollars and eighty-seven cents. I made eight dollars and ten cents.

JAMES BALLARD: Not in there?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: In there. That was after you worked, you worked in the school for a while, while you were going to school.

MELTON BALLARD: Oh, yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: But you went to work at – what, how old were you when went to work in the cotton mill?

MELTON BALLARD: I don't know, it must have been around 16, I guess.

JAMES BALLARD: You worked there till you went to [Acto Furnace?]?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: Did you work in a weight room, too?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: Did -- did -- did my mother work in it, Momma, she worked in there? Or her sister, some of them worked in there?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah, she worked in the weave shop.

JAMES BALLARD: OK. Now, I don't know a lot, any more about the labor problems than what he's told me. I don't think, you know, they don't, they have, had a problem and had the people try to take their jobs. Of course, most of what he's told us about how they lived, you know, what they made and the mill houses. Have you seen the mill houses?

HELFAND: Well, ask your Daddy a question? Don't talk about him in the third person.

JAMES BALLARD: No, but I reckon all those old houses have that, the slate roofs, that what it is, slate?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

JAMES BALLARD: They got -- the roofs on those houses been there since probably in the '30s and they'll be there another hundred years probably.

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah, that's right.

JAMES BALLARD: I tried to buy one of those old houses been remodeled back -- before I bought this house up here on the mountain. And the guy put siding on the house over those shingles that was there. And they -- they ruined some good fire equipment trying to get the nails in that, in that wood on the side of that house. I mean, it's solid. But had, he had -- did it have polish -- did they have pine floors, is that what they had? 'Cause this house had pine floors 00:29:00they had sanded down and refinished like hardwood.

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah. I know.

JAMES BALLARD: It'd a taken a bulldozer to get through that, the wall of that house. (traffic)

MELTON BALLARD: I know those floors were real hard.

JAMES BALLARD: What, the -- they had plumbing, but they didn't have sewers, right?

MELTON BALLARD: That's right. They -- we had one hydrant out there in the yard with a big handle, a wheel on it turning. And we didn't, we didn't have no, no bathroom at all. In other words, they --

JAMES BALLARD: Sat in the back alley?

MELTON BALLARD: And, uh, the toilets were out there, oh, I guess, 150 feet from the house.

JAMES BALLARD: That's a pretty good little run. From the back alley in the back?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

JAMES BALLARD: Well, did my Mom, she worked in there when, when you were little or just before you were born, or what?

MELTON BALLARD: No, she never did work in there.

JAMES BALLARD: Oh, she never did work in there. Did any of, any of Grandpa's brothers work in there?

MELTON BALLARD: Oh, yeah. He had a brother that was a loom fixer.

JAMES BALLARD: Which one was that?

MELTON BALLARD: Lived in that house right up there.

JAMES BALLARD: Off of [Jeeter?]?

MELTON BALLARD: Yeah.

STONEY: Here are two documents we found with your --