Angie Rossner and Aunt Doris Interviews

[Silence]

[Silence]

GEORGE STONEY: OK, go, Angie.

ANGIE ROSSNER: Well, I worked night shift. It's 11:00 to 7:00. I take my little girl over to her grandmother's and she keeps her while I work. I mean, I come home and I sleep maybe three or four hours at the most and I get up and take a shower, clean up. I fix me something to eat and I call my little girl and then I try to get to work on Sunday night -- I try to get to work about 15 or 20 after 10:00 because we have start up [line?].

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about what this does to your relationship with your husband.

ROSSNER: Well, John works first shift. It kind of makes it rough we don't see 00:02:00each other very much. He works first shift and sometimes with things being rough like that, he'll work 12 hours. That'll put him working until 7:00 at night. So, sometimes I have to go in at 7:00, so we barely see each other at all. It puts a strain on if you've got to have a good strong relationship to make it sometime.

JAMIE STONEY: How does your daughter take it?

ROSSNER: Well, she's lucky. She's probably luckier than some of the others. She's with her grandmother which she adores. She's been with her -- she's watched her all of her life while I was working. But she gets homesick and she wants to see me and that's why I make sure every night that I work, I make sure I call home and tell her bye and that I love her and everything before she goes to bed and she's pretty well happy.

GEORGE STONEY: So she understands the situation?

ROSSNER: Pretty much so. I guess about as much as any seven-year-old can understand. (break in video)

ROSSNER: It'll be all right, I think. What's the number up there? (break in video) That play? Cinderella? How many times does that make? Huh? First time. Ya ain't never seen Cinderella before? You gonna spend the night up there tonight? You are? You having a good time? Well, I just wanted to call and see what yous doing. Because [Ma-maw?] said you was up there. Yeah, yeah, 00:04:00I called down there. I love you. Bye, sweetie.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, good. Now let's get -- let's fake a call because I don't think that's the normal. (break in video)

ROSSNER: Hey, sweetie. What are you doing? How many times have you seen Cinderella? How's Ma-maw doing? Well, she told me her side was hurting her right now, so you're gonna have to watch after her for a while. Well, I love you, too. Bye-bye. Really, our conversations are very short.

GEORGE STONEY: That's fine. I'm going to try it one more time, Angie, because you looked over here before we got through the shot, but the conversation is excellent. It's just exactly what we wanted. When you -- 00:05:00what you do it -- I'll put the socks over here so that when you put down the phone you reach there and start putting on your socks.

ROSSNER: OK.

GEORGE STONEY: OK?

HELFAND: Does she ever ask you what you're doing?

ROSSNER: "Whatcha doing," as I'm getting ready for work.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, that you can just say, too.

ROSSNER: (inaudible)

JAMIE STONEY: Any time.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. OK, Jamie. Move a little faster.

ROSSNER: Hey, sweetie. What are you doing? Watching Cinderella? How many times have you watched Cinderella? How's Ma-maw doing? She had told me her side was hurting? You be good for her. I'm getting ready to go to work. Yeah, I'll be leaving in a little bit. I miss you, too. I love you, too, and 00:06:00you be a good girl. And say your prayers tonight. I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, that's it. Thank you, Jennie.

[Silence]

JAMIE STONEY: Any time.

GEORGE STONEY: Action.

ROSSNER: I just called Kristin.

M1: How she doing?

ROSSNER: Well, she's having a good time. Looks like Christie's going to be spending the night with her.

(break in video)

JAMIE STONEY: [Ready?] here.

GEORGE STONEY: Action.

ROSSNER: I called Kristin.

M1: How's she doing?

ROSSNER: She's OK. She's having a good time. She's got Christie over there playing with her and I guess they're going to spend the night together.

M1: Well, your grandma -- our grandma's going to have some fun then.

ROSSNER: Yeah, well, she said her side was hurting her. You know, she had cancer and her side gets to be hurting her pretty bad sometimes, but she don't want to give up Kristin.

M1: (inaudible)

ROSSNER: She enjoys having her over there. I don't know how she puts up with the pain and two little girls acting like little girls.

M1: She's a tough woman.

ROSSNER: Yeah.

M1: So what are they up to?

ROSSNER: Sometimes I think Kristin is the only thing that keeps her going now. Sometimes I don't think she'd make it if it weren't for her. I've got to go to the union hall in the morning.

M1: For what?

ROSSNER: To meet Do. We've got to go through those [grievance?] names and see who we're going to put on the list for second steps.

M1: (inaudible)

ROSSNER: The what?

ROSSNER: (inaudible)

M1: (inaudible)

ROSSNER: (inaudible) Did you call him?

M1: Yeah, I did. [I?] was sleeping.

ROSSNER: I meant to talk to him about his wife. Tell him to go ahead and get (inaudible). I sure don't want to go in there and have to put up with what I've had to put up with (inaudible) often telling me I wasn't supposed to 00:10:00get off.

M1: Poor communications.

ROSSNER: You know, I've never known management to have anything but poor communications.

M1: (inaudible) ready to go to work tonight, ain't you?

ROSSNER: No, I'm tired.

M1: Yeah.

ROSSNER: Those three hours don't -- don't do very much for me. Three hours sleep and then have to go in there and put up with all that.

M1: You know I was supposed to go to court August the 10th by workmen's comp.

ROSSNER: You ever get in touch with him?

M1: (inaudible) say he's supposed to call me tomorrow. And I [thought?] you'd be at work so you -- you know, write down information that I give you because I know [I was supposed?] to be doing that.

ROSSNER: We're supposed to go to that Chattahoochee --

M1: Labor council?

ROSSNER: Yeah, labor council.

M1: (inaudible) and I think (inaudible).

(break in video)

(break in video)

ROSSNER: It sounds kind of crazy probably but because of the way I was treated and especially my older sister because I adore her. She was like my second mother really. Even though she's six years -- only six years older than me, she was always grown up all her life and she always took care of me like I was hers. And the way she was tortured on the school bus, walking to school, at school, I mean, it broke my heart. It nearly killed me the way they done her. We didn't have any, you know, much to wear. Daddy couldn't afford to go out and buy for us and like I said, I wore a lot of hand-me-downs and Laurie was always at her weight and her size and everything, neighborhood women would give her their hand-me-downs. And this one particular incident, I was telling Judy about it, Laurie was -- had got some dresses from some of the neighborhood ladies and they were -- there was one particular dress that was in good 00:13:00condition, it was red and white stripes, and I was in -- I'd say I was in third grade and she was, I don't know, she was in high school, I guess, and they were -- she had rode the school bus to school and they were really taunting her, started calling her the red and white striped elephant. And that just -- that was one thing that stood out in my mind, the biggest any -- I cried. She was hurt but she wouldn't let it show. But I cried. I cried all the way home. And my heart just went out to her. I just wanted to protect her from stuff like that. People are -- children are cruel. Grownups are cruel. I mean, we've been -- we've been given a hard time by grown folks, especially when we lived in [Wentworth?], Georgia. It was bad up there. Grown people would say just about as bad things as the children would. I said probably the kids got it from their parents, you know talking like that. But we had a big 00:14:00family. Daddy worked on a hog farm whenever I was six years old making $25 – (break in video)(inaudible) I [took?] the number down, but it's $30 for the (inaudible). I'd like to get it because I'm hoping he's got -- he was raised with uncles and everything that's the same age he is. So someday I'd like for us to go over there and see him if we could ever get to where we could afford it, which will probably be never. (laughs) He's unusual. I don't think I would have ever remarried if it hadn't been -- (break in video)

ROSSNER: You can hear the river, can't you? I didn't even realize you could smell the fish. Smell them real good. Watch this car. Make them figure that 00:15:00out now.

JAMIE STONEY: Yeah, right. Some year somebody's going to kick me in the head. That's all.

ROSSNER: Now, well -- I usually -- I've got a pretty good rapport with the guards around here, so maybe they won't beat you up. Throw you out, maybe, but not beat you up. We're here.

(break in video)

(inaudible)

ROSSNER: I wish?

M2: You want to go in?

JAMIE STONEY: Sure, whatever you [normally?] do.

ROSSNER: Well, I usually don't get here until about 25 or 30 after.

JAMIE STONEY: Oh, OK.

ROSSNER: You want me to just walk to the door then?

M2: Just walk through the door, go inside, and then come back.

ROSSNER: OK.

M2: Just talk to us a little bit.

(inaudible)

(break in video)

GEORGE STONEY: This is going to be the winner. Yeah.

JAMIE STONEY: Speed.

GEORGE STONEY: Go.

ROSSNER: Where'd you get these tomatoes, Aunt Doris? They're mighty pretty.

DORIS: Well, the neighbor gave them to me, Angela.

ROSSNER: Sure are pretty. I wish my garden did so well. Had little bitty green ones about that size. Before they started doing this movie I didn't know anything about the -- the history of the union. I didn't know anything about a strike back in 1934. That's the reason I wanted you to tell me about it. I come to you to find out.

DORIS: Well, they were trying to form a union in some of the local mills and they -- the owners of the mills naturally didn't want the unions and so they had the strikes and they had the fights about it and they, uh, the union people and the mill owners were at [enmity?] about it and so they had quite a squabble 00:19:00about it and one of the local mills, the Bibb Mill, and I was young but I can vaguely remember it being in the papers and I had relatives living in Bibb City and we were quite concerned about the situation at the time and we lived in the country then and couldn't wait to get the newspaper to see what was happening up here in Columbus.

ROSSNER: You were real young, weren't you?

DORIS: Yes, I was about 13 or 14 years old when that happened. When I went to work in the mill then I was a little older. You had to be at least, I think, 16 00:20:00or 17 and I think I was about 19 the first time I worked in the mill.

ROSSNER: I read some awful stuff about that strike.

DORIS: Well, there was some awful things happened about it. The -- quite some fights and there were reports about it and pictures made of some of it.

ROSSNER: And there was something that I was reading where they were having a meeting on the streets, I believed, in Bibb City and there were some people shot and killed.

DORIS: Well, I heard about the -- some real bad things there. The mill people, I think, had some guns or something or -- but I don't remember really all that well, but I'm sure other people remember about that.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you remember the National Guard being around? Tell us about that -- Georgia guard.

DORIS: I don't remember. I think I vaguely remember reading that they were called in. But I'm not sure if that -- about that, but I know there was quite a stir about it.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell about when you first learned to read when you were in the country.

DORIS: Well, we were in the Depression and I started reading quite young. I started, I think, at about seven or eight years of age reading and we didn't -- couldn't afford to take magazines and newspapers and I would go around and pick up cans and sweep people's yards just to get the magazines so that I'd have something to read so that I could keep up with what was going on in the world around me. And I can remember when the King of England was about to 00:22:00abdicate his throne to marry Wallie Warfield Simpson and I couldn't hardly wait to get somewhere where I could get some news about that, so I'd go pick up the cans or sweep yards or do anything I could to keep up with that. It was in the papers and in the magazines, the Saturday evening post and everything and I was -- I really liked Wallie Warfield Simpson the way she looked, her independence and I was wondering would he abdicate or not and I just couldn't hardly wait to get some news about that.

GEORGE STONEY: When did you first know about unions?

DORIS: Well, a union then, there was a lot in the papers about unions in various parts of the country along about the time that that was happening in the 19 -- 00:23:00early 1930s and every now and then I had studied in history about this trade union starting in England and Ireland and places like that, so I kept thinking it was a good thing, you know, for the common person, so every time I saw something about a union I'd just naturally read it whether it was in this country or that country or where. But in New York City and other places they were trying to form unions in various parts of these places and it was interesting to me and I'd kind of watch and see if, you know, how the outcome came, if they got a union in this place or a union in there.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, tell about your husband in unions.

DORIS: Well, my husband worked at (inaudible) cotton gin and he was a union member for a -- all the time he was out there and he had worked in the cotton mill that was non-union. Of course that mill is union now, but he worked -- 00:24:00when he got a union job he stayed with the union until he died in 1971.

ROSSNER: What was it you told us, Aunt Doris, about Uncle Cecil getting in all that trouble because --

DORIS: Well, he would -- couldn't stand it for someone to call him an ugly name and he would fight and twice I think he got laid off a little bit for that right there and how the unions helped him get back on each time and he'd be penalized and he'd go back to work.

GEORGE STONEY: But you were talking, when we were talking before, about -- you were saying that you never -- I want you to repeat this -- that you never were against your husband paying union dues the way a lot of wives were even though you weren't in the union.

DORIS: No, I was not. I was not opposed to him paying his union dues. I let him manage that himself and he paid his union dues and I didn't kick about it, and he used to try and tell me not to buy shirts for the boys, you know. He said if they don't have a union label in them, leave them there. And I had five of them, you know, to buy shirts for and it was -- I could have picked up some from [Madry?] and places like that a lot cheaper, but he said, no, you buy the union label.

GEORGE STONEY: Where do you think he got his dedication to the unions?

DORIS: I don't know where he got his dedication to the union, but he was dedicated. He went to union meetings and he stayed with the union.

GEORGE STONEY: How did that affect you?

DORIS: Well, it -- to me that was the way that he chose. He chose to be union and I went along with him and it -- you know, the union-made garments were a 00:26:00little more expensive than the ones that you could buy from out of these places where they made them -- they didn't get a salary for making them. But, in this country where they were union made, it made them a little more expensive. A lot of people were opposed to that and they said, well, I don't care what my husband says, I'm going to buy these shirts, you know, because they're less expensive.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, just tell us, you moved from the country -- you want to tell the story -- you were born in the country but you moved into town and why you moved into town and then how --