Leonard and Mattie Knight Interview 3

(prolonged beep)

JUDITH HELFAND: That's interesting.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Did you ever see (inaudible due to beeping) Mill Village?

(beep ends)

LEONARD KNIGHT: Nah, her name was Thornburgh.

GEORGE STONEY: Lucille Thornburgh.

MATTIE KNIGHT: She didn't come and talk to me, but she did to them.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, so --

MATTIE KNIGHT: She talked to my sister, Bessie, but she never did to me.

GEORGE STONEY: Alright, tell us about Thorn-- Lucille Thornburgh talking with you.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well now, Lucille never did talk, uh, to me nor momma I don't think. I don't remember, you see, but she was a friend to --

MATTIE KNIGHT: To my sister, two years older than me. They was good buddies till Lucille got in with union, and she tried to get Bessie then to work in the union with her. And my sister wouldn't do it. So I, I hadn't heard tell of Lucille in years, until she's back here about four years ago, and, uh, she's giving the story to the paper here.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you-- did you recognize her?

MATTIE KNIGHT: Oh yeah, I recognized her. Because I worked with her at App-- uh, [Brookside?].

STONEY: Alright, tell us about how you felt about Mill Villages.

LEONARD KNIGHT: (inaudible) about the Mill Villages, uh, talking about living in the Mill Village. Well, the way me and momma's always lived, where we had plenty of room to move around, and a garden, you get a job in the mill and they got these little mill houses. They're little three room shotgun houses. There's about ten foot between them. And it's just maybe about half a mile down the road. Just one house right after another. Well now that's just, that's just jammed up. That's just too much to, of course there's not enough freedom in, um, in a house like that. Not to suit me. Now there's a 00:02:00lot of people that pure loves it, because they, they know the people that's on each side of them, they know all the people that's close to them. They've got friends, they've got company all the time. It gives them, uh, well, it gives them something to do, visiting. But momma and I never was social like that, we never was people to get out and make a lot of friends. We never did have too much of a social life, only what we made for ourselves. And we just didn't like, uh, the idea of living that close to no one, because we had our own ideas of what we wanted to do and how we wanted to spend our time. And we didn't want it to spend it a'talking with a bunch of cotton mill people that knowed nothing except cotton mill. We wanted to find something else to talk about.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Well if you lived in the Mill Village, anyway, they-- if you laid out from work they got on to you.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well sure, you didn't pay your rent.

MATTIE KNIGHT: They, uh, they wanted you to be there every day and, uh, I just didn't want that.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Uh, listen. Did you ever hear of, uh, of, uh, the people that, talked to the people that rent those houses? They get them, they get them, uh, well it's cheap. They get them so unreasonable cheap that they almost have to live there. And if you take, uh, um, a man with two or three children in a three room shotgun house, it's pretty crowded. Well, if he gets, if he, if he's just the one man, that's a'working in the mill, and he's off two days, the mill has deducting his house rent from his paycheck. He just don't have that much to live on. And, uh, but they is a awful lot of people that are 00:04:00almost forced to live in those mill houses. Because it, uh, back during that time now, uh, time I'm talking about, back in the early '30s, back, uh, when, uh, times could have been as compared to now, theirs was real hard. And if he, uh, if he's one man with five in the family, even if he worked every day of the week, it pushed him to have enough to live on, and live reasonable.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Lynchburg, Virginia; they had mill houses.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Uh, the only, the only ones that we, we actually seen, you know, uh, are in [Yorktown?]. I believe, uh, it was in Birmingham, wasn't it? Or was it, uh --

MATTIE KNIGHT: No, it's in Anniston, one, one little town that's in Alabama. And then, uh, uh, well that's one of the (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Lynchburg, they had one that we --

LEONARD KNIGHT: The one that we looked at was in Alabama. And, uh, I say looked at; it was one when we signed up to go to work they wanted to know if we wanted a mill house. And, uh, of course, uh, we did go look at them. That's why I know there's three rooms shotgun. We looked at them, and there was about ten feet between them, and, uh, that just wasn't for us.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about your car. Did, did you have, uh, did you own a car to drive around to all these different places?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Sure.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about your car. What kind of car did you have.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well, there, uh, well, then, let's see. We had a '28 Ford, wasn't it? I don't remember if we had a Ford or the big, big Buick. But we had a, (inaudible), that's one of the, that's one of the things I say we 00:06:00learned to live after Roosevelt came in and made this change. We got to where we couldn't buy a car. Well, we had a 1918 Ford. We made a sk-- it was a touring car. We turned it over and tore the top off of it. And, and just left it off and made --

MATTIE KNIGHT: Your brother did, we didn't.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- made a skeeter out of it. And you know what a skeeter is? You take everything off and you sit on the gas tank, and (laughing) you scoot.

MATTIE KNIGHT: We didn't ride on it. We give it to my brother.

LEONARD KNIGHT: We give it to Charlie. But, uh, well at least we made enough money we could afford to buy a car. Me and momma's owned a car for, well, I would say from, I know from, uh, '28, no, I think first in '31.

MATTIE KNIGHT: We had thirty --

LEONARD KNIGHT: We had, we didn't have no car until after we was married. I had an old skeeter.

MATTIE KNIGHT: We had '32.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Our first car that me and momma bought, we bought in '32. And that was, um, --

MATTIE KNIGHT: Ford, A Model.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Ford, A Model. Twen-- 1929, '28 or '29. You know they had the A Model and the B Model. Now we had the A Model, that's the first car we bought. But if we had a car, uh, and, uh, we didn't, uh, manage to save a whole lot, but we always had enough money that if we wanted to go anywhere we had a car to go. And, uh, we had no, we had no problems going places. Just, uh, it doesn't worry us at all. Course, lot of, lot of people that talk about, uh, well how can you do this, how can you do that. Well hell, we just got up and done it. We didn't harass nobody about how to, we just done it. 00:08:00We wanted to go somewhere, if we got tired of this mill, goodbye Susie, we just picked up and left.

MATTIE KNIGHT: We lived in California three different times.

LEONARD KNIGHT: You know, at one time-- now you think this is a story. At one time, right over here in [Middlesboro?], they got a little mill over there. They run, um, plastic stuff, and stuff for suspenders. You know me and momma worked at Brookside one shift, and drove over there and worked another shift?

MATTIE KNIGHT: Just, uh, just, uh, work on that material and never did go back after our pay.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well, it's still, uh, we weren't two weeks over there, and we never did collect a dime. It's still over there. (chuckles)

MATTIE KNIGHT: We just wanted to see the material and, uh, work on it.

GEORGE STONEY: What did, what about your children?

MATTIE KNIGHT: We never had any.

LEONARD KNIGHT: We got no children. We got no children. Well, we take our dog 00:09:00with us. We had a dog, we'd take him with us. But, uh, we didn't have no children. Well, see, that's why we had the advantage. Two of us working, and, uh, we could work over here, same as we worked over at Brookside and work two or three months. We'd put back just a little bit each week. Don't matter what come up, we'd put that amount back. Now if we heard that some, somebody, somebody come in Brookside and get to telling us about a good mill so-and-so, and what kind of cloth they is making, well, maybe we'd get setting around talking about it. Not say nothing. Just get in the car and go. Not even quit the mill. Come back and collect our pay after we got back.

MATTIE KNIGHT: We left Cherokee once, first time we went to California, we left Cherokee. Got of from work Saturday morning, we left with, uh, California. We 00:10:00come back in a year later, we went back into to work on-- got in here on Friday, and we went back to work Monday night just like we hadn't been gone. Went in, the boss he looked us and just grinned, and he said "Got somebody on your job." Says "You work the spare tonight?" Told him yes. So before quitting time next morning he says, "Now you know you'll have to go by the office and sign up" after we'd done work!

LEONARD KNIGHT: (laughing) When --

MATTIE KNIGHT: He laughed, he says "Where on Earth have y'all been?" And I told him we'd been to Oakland, California.

LEONARD KNIGHT: And, uh, you see that's the kind of --

MATTIE KNIGHT: We could always work like that.

LEONARD KNIGHT: That's the kind of people that worked at Cherokee. They wasn't nosy about your business. If you was a good worker, they had a job for you. And, uh, you couldn't be --

MATTIE KNIGHT: You know on the second night I went, he give me my old set of looms back.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Put her right back on the job she had.

GEORGE STONEY: Great, OK.

HELFAND: OK. I, you know, what about Foots Weaver? He must have worked with you in your --

MATTIE KNIGHT: Who?

HELFAND: Foots Weaver?

LEONARD KNIGHT: You know, that name's familiar. Fitz, Fitzwater?

HELFAND: Foots Weaver.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Well I know a lots of Weavers, but I never did --

(break in video)

LEONARD KNIGHT: The boss.

(sound of a door latch)

LEONARD KNIGHT: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

STONEY: Alright.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Fitzwater, wasn't it?

MATTIE KNIGHT: No, yeah.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Fitzgerald.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Fitzgerald.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Fitzgerald. Are you talking about Fitzgerald?

MATTIE KNIGHT: No, she said Weaver.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Foots Weaver, but --

HELFAND: You want the picture?

M1: (inaudible conversation in the background)

LEONARD KNIGHT: Where do we not-- we know that name.

HELFAND: OK.

MATTIE KNIGHT: I don't know.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Where did you get the name Foots Weaver, that's

HELFAND: Foots Weaver. He, he worked in the mill with you.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Well, we worked in so many mills.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Did he work at Cherokee?

HELFAND: Mm-hmm.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Yeah, that's what I seem to think he --

(break in video)

(sirens in background)

M1: Let's get Brookside Outlet Center --

JAMIE STONEY: Guys, it's behind you.

M1: OK. My headphones are cutting out.

JAMIE STONEY: Speed.

CREW: We're out here at the Brookside Outlet Center. It is even said that Elvis has shopped here, so y'all come on down, we got the best bargains anywhere in the state, and anywhere in Knoxville. Y'all come on down. I 00:12:00don't know, I've lost it.

GEORGE STONEY: Right behind.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: Jamie? All right. Could you tell us where you worked? Where we are and where you worked?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well, right now we are in front, in the parking lot of Brookside Mills. Now behind me would be the cloth room. And this one over here --

MATTIE KNIGHT: Number one.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- number one weave room. Now, over the two store is, that's the number two weave room. Momma and I both worked on the second floor of number two weave room --

MATTIE KNIGHT: I've worked in every one of them.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- and, uh, our boss was Fitzpatrick was his name. I worked on corduroy, and, uh, what was your run then, denim?

MATTIE KNIGHT: No, ginghams.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Gingham. Uh, the Brookside Mills are run several types and kinds of cloth. Uh, Brookside, uh, well they had the velvet, they had the corduroy, they had the chambray like this blue shirt, and they had the denim, and they had, um, gauze, and, um, they had the poplin, they had broadcloth. Just about anything that you could name. Brookside run it.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us what happened to this mill.

LEONARD KNIGHT: And this mill, in my opinion, which could be a very poor opinion but it's still my opinion-- this mill was shut down by the union. The unions --

MATTIE KNIGHT: Well the union bankrupts it.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- kept asking, the unions kept asking for more and more and 00:14:00more. A bigger percentage of the product, until the mill just could not afford to pay what they was asking. So rather than, uh, squabble with them, in my opinion the mill just shut it down and moved its stuff out.

GEORGE STONEY: Where'd they move to?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Uh, --

MATTIE KNIGHT: Acapulco, Mexico.

LEONARD KNIGHT: I think they went to Acapulco, Mexico.

MATTIE KNIGHT: I know they did.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Now, uh, we had some friends that went with them.

MATTIE KNIGHT: My boss went with them.

LEONARD KNIGHT: And, uh, the man that momma worked for, he went with them. They even asked me and momma to go. But, uh, there was just too far at stake and we stayed at home. We just stayed here at home. But, uh, the mill itself, they done the biggest disservice to this town that it could have been done. There 00:15:00was just a lot of people do nothing but textile, that made their living here, that lived around here in this neighborhood, they, uh, they had stores, schools, good schools for the kids to go to. When the mill was shut down, and they lost this payroll money, this tax money, then this neighborhood over here it, uh, I don't say it's shot, but it lacks a whole lot being what it was at one time.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, now could you take us around to the other side of the mill so we'll see where you worked there?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well, if you'll follow us, we'll just go around to where we used to work. We'll go to the backside of the mill.

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

LEONARD KNIGHT: And we'll see you there.

M1: Judy, would you close the hatch on the, uh, van?

MATTIE KNIGHT: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

M1: Jamie, hold on a second, OK bud? What are we going to do with the tripod, is it going to --

LEONARD KNIGHT: (inaudible conversation in the background)

JAMIE STONEY: So what part were you just pointing to?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Huh?

JAMIE STONEY: Which part were you pointing to?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well, this part, you come right over, right towards this door. That part was called the kitchen. There was a weave room. Um, my brother-in-law, Frank Davis, he worked there for a time. He was a loom fixer. And, uh, he worked there in the kitchen all the time.

CREW: Why was it called a kitchen?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well, because it was --

MATTIE KNIGHT: It was just off to itself.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- it was off to itself, and it's, uh, down on the ground floor. And, uh, as I can remember --

MATTIE KNIGHT: It was usually colder in there.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- it, the first time that they ever had these here machines, you know that you can get peanuts and candy and things, that's where it was put. And it, uh, I don't know, they just, uh, nicknamed it the kitchen. They just, uh, --

GEORGE STONEY: Let's go around.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- that's where the change has been made. They've got that locked up. They've got different stuff and, uh, you can't go through there. (sound of walking, birds chirping in background) When we used to, to go the back of the mill we went right straight through there. This right here, of 00:17:00course, you know, is the boiler room.

MATTIE KNIGHT: He has to walk faster than I do.

GEORGE STONEY: We can cut at ten, that's fine.

(break in video)

LEONARD KNIGHT: This, uh, this place I'm looking at now, on this side of the mill, this was the loading dock where the cotton come in, where the, um-- it's what's called an opening room. When the cotton comes in, they open the bails and run it through the cordon, down into the spinning. That's, uh, they've still got the old loading platform there. It's looks kind of bad, but all junked up. It's a pity too, because this old mill here is put so many good dollars here in Knoxville. It's, it's a shame that anybody--union or anybody--would come in and just, uh, tie it down and put so many people out of work. It's a shame that they done it. It, it's just something that, ah, I 00:18:00don't know that-- makes you look back on poverty and wonder what'll happen.

MATTIE KNIGHT: That woman's paid off all, every one of her debts. She's in the paper, they had the, the-- the payroll woman. She still collects rent from the (inaudlble.) They had the whole column, the whole section in the newspaper about four years ago where she had paid off every debt Brookside ever owed.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, Jamie?

MATTIE KNIGHT: Upstairs, there in that part is the last job I worked over here. That part.

JAMIE STONEY: Point it out again, please?

MATTIE KNIGHT: Right up the stairs, there.

JAMIE STONEY: Winding room?

MATTIE KNIGHT: Yeah, after they had done moved the looms to Mexico, and then I worked up there in the winding room. They's making the thread and then 00:19:00sending the thread to Mexico. Shipping it down there.

LEONARD KNIGHT: (faint shouting in background, inaudible)

MATTIE KNIGHT: I got lost in it.

LEONARD KNIGHT: (inaublible)

MATTIE KNIGHT: It's a bigger mill than this. (conversation becomes distant, inaudible behind noises of bangs and items being moved behind the mill)

JAMIE STONEY: You need to pick up their dialogue.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Well, we could do anything, reasonably good job -- (dialogue 00:20:00fades out behind background noise)

(sound of someone walking through grass)

(break in video)

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- used to think that was the damnedest thing on this Earth. Stand, stand back here at the fence and look up yonder. You know I seen people working up on the top of that thing. I wouldn't have done it for a million dollars a hour. It's, I just wouldn't done it. That's, that's really something when you get up on that thing. You get back in there, see how big 00:21:00that old mill is? You know, I, I was just telling them --

MATTIE KNIGHT: They sure let it run down.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- you know, they's times that I have dreamed (sound of airplane in the background) about

GEORGE STONEY: (inaudible) we're going to have to do that again.

(break in video)

MATTIE KNIGHT: Yeah, I worked here, years and years ago.

STONEY: They were working here. We're getting them to describe what it's like when they worked here. We're just going to go off the end, just a moment. OK, let's move on.

(sound of walking)

LEONARD KNIGHT: (inaudible)

M2: No, afraid not.

(scraping noise)

LEONARD KNIGHT: (inaudible)

M2: OK.

(break in video)

LEONARD KNIGHT: That's the reason I asked him if he'd ever heard of it. Damn, look at that. Got it all boarded up.

LEONARD KNIGHT: You know, looking at this mill from the front, from the street, you would never dream it was this big.

MATTIE KNIGHT: (inaudible)

LEONARD KNIGHT: It's a tremendous, big mill. It's a big, big thing. It's three floors, they had every unit, every operation of cotton, from the bail to the shirt that you put on your back. Yeah, well, they do that in most big mills. That was your old water reservoir, in there.

MATTIE KNIGHT: And I worked in all four of the weave shops here.

LEONARD KNIGHT: He's, uh, he's going to walk you all the way to the top.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Yep.

LEONARD KNIGHT: He'll be over on the expressway, directly. (laughter)

(dialogue between LEONARD KNIGHT and MATTIE KNIGHT, inaudible behind the background noise)

(break in video)

LEONARD KNIGHT: That there's the old water. That's the old water reservoir, there. Way up yonder is the hot corner. That corner in the weave room used to be called the hot corner. Sun come in there in the evening and bake your --

MATTIE KNIGHT: See in the mills you were allowed to have the window open, or no air in there at all.

LEONARD KNIGHT: They claimed the air would kill the humidity, and you had to have the humidity to hold the yarn together. If it got too dry, the yarn would fuzz off, make dust.

MATTIE KNIGHT: But it didn't, we found out better. We went to New Orleans, the mill was down right on the river. And we all opened the windows up, and they run just as good.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you turn around, both of you, and I want you to tell that story about dreaming about being in the mills. OK?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Yeah, uh, well, you know, this old mill, it is a big place. There's a lots of rooms, lots of departments, lots of work. Momma and I have worked here, and we worked in a lot of different places. She's worked in the wind room, and I've worked in a spinning room. And even after we left here, 00:25:00there's been times that I wake up in the night, and I'd be dreaming about being, working here. And I was lost in the mill, I couldn't find my way back to my job. I'd have ask somebody how the hell you get over to the kitchen, or over to number two weave room. At that time I was working in number two weave room, and my brother-in-law was working in the kitchen. I'd go down, and we'd have a sandwich, and when I'd start back I'd get lost before I got there, and I'd have to ask somebody how I could get back there.

GEORGE STONEY: You were saying that some people that worked in one part of the building never went to the others.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Yeah, oh yeah. They's --

MATTIE KNIGHT: Oh there's plenty of them, --

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- they's weavers that learned to weave right here. Say they learned to weave in number two weave room. On one kind of cloth, ginghams or 00:26:00chambray or corduroy, whatever. You know they worked there for thirty long years, and probably would never be in another room in the mill. Never know anything except just right there on that job. How many looms are run, what they're making, what it's made for, and that was about it. They just, uh, just tied up in that one department. And just, somehow that didn't suit me much, I liked to move about.

GEORGE STONEY: What about -- how does it make you feel when you look at this old mill now?

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well, to tell you the truth, it makes me feel sad. Uh, it, uh, uh, there's no such thing as progress in our time today when you look back on a mill like this, that had to payroll, that made so many people a good living, and that people that really enjoyed working here, and, uh, all of the good that come out of this old mill, to stand here and look to back of me, and look at the 00:27:00way it's boarded up and the glass is broke out. I tell you, it's just, uh, a sad, sad feeling to think that the old things, the old way of life, is just gone. There's no more textile, there's no more for the older weavers. There's just not nothing left except sit down and live on social security.

MATTIE KNIGHT: We first went to Pennsylvania, uh, we worked for boss up there, uh, and he board with us up there that was our boss here.

LEONARD KNIGHT: That's, uh, by God but that was back in '67 and '68. So, uh --

MATTIE KNIGHT: He was our boss back here in Brookside.

LEONARD KNIGHT: -- he was our boss here. We went, uh, Pennsylvania, and he worked with us there.

CREW: OK, cut. I think we got it.

CREW: OK.

(break in audio)

CREW: Actually, let's-- no, the other way.

CREW: L- l, look over here. Look, look over here.

CREW: Turn, uh, just turn around, this way.

CREW: Yeah.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Oh.

CREW: Turn around a little bit more, that's it, yeah.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Yeah.

M1: Now let's-- Just-- I want, what I want you to do-- What I want you to do is just listen. I'm going to point it in different directions, OK?

(background noises increase)

CREW: Bah bah bah.

M1: Th-- th-- this is, this is, uh, this is what they call a shotgun microphone.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Oh, oh yeah. You know, I kinda wondered about that. I, uh, I seen the-- the police have such things as that.

CREW: No, the police doesn't.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Paul's got one like that.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Well now I—

(break in video)

JAMIE STONEY: If you guys want to start heading back, I'll catch up.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Well, that's (inaudible) today.

LEONARD KNIGHT: Yeah, that's for fact.

MATTIE KNIGHT: I wish you never seen the glass broke out.

LEONARD KNIGHT: I wonder why people come in and break the glass. Maybe it's just where there's stands, I don't know. But, but it looks senseless for people to destroy something.

MATTIE KNIGHT: Now when I worked here you never seen the glass broke out.

LEONARD KNIGHT: If one got broke out they'd put it in before you could notice it. Well, it's been a --

(break in video)

(loud background noise)

JAMIE STONEY: The fear of getting run over.

(tires on gravel)

CREW: Steve, why do you got to take the pictures for?