Nell Shadinger, Florence Shadinger, and Grace Shadinger Interview 4



GEORGE STONEY: Grace could you give her this picture? Grace, tell us the story that picture inspired in you the other day. Sit down and tell that story.

GRACE SHADINGER: I can't call any names.

STONEY: You don't have to.

NELL SHADINGER: You don't have to call any names, you can just tell that story about amen.

GRACE SHADINGER: Well

NELL SHADINGER: Thank goodness.

GRACE SHADINGER: Well, how did I start?

STONEY: You said when you first moved into the village you didn't have flush toilets.

GRACE SHADINGER: Yeah, you'll have to tell it. I'm not going to be able to talk. Sorry.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well, when we moved to Newnan we had outdoor toilets.

NELL SHADINGER: Johns.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well, either way. They just went -- the ceiling just -- and the petition between just went two-thirds up -- way up and we could see over if we had mind to climb. And I was a tomboy, but I didn't try. (laughs) And you know who this is? (inaudible) I was told this man was very religious and someone was in the other side and said they heard a clunk and he said, "Thank you, Lord. One more time. Lord. Thank you." It -- there -- (inaudible). When we moved to Newnan, I was very young, in -- just going into the second grade. Well, I didn't mind leaving the farm. I was too young to know. Everything was okay with me as 00:02:00long as Mama and Daddy was there. But when we started to school they told me I couldn't go uptown to school, that I had to go to Murray Street School, which is on the mill village. Well, I don't know, maybe we were, but I felt like we didn't have the best treatment because we were from the mill village. That was the way we saw it. Now I don't know how they felt about it, but that's the way -- and when I got about 14-1/2, 15 years old, I went into the mill, which was very hard work. I had to talk it over with my mother and daddy to see if they would let me drop out of school and go to work. And I did. It was hard. It was very hard, but they were lovely people. We felt loved in there. It was there. 00:03:00That was our world over there at mill -- Newnan Cotton Mill Number 1. And our neighbors was same way. It was all one big family. We worked hard, but yet I -- we felt this love. We'd get together, young people would, and we'd play games. Of course, Mama and Daddy didn't let us play under the street light. By the time that they went to bed and they seen that we were in bed, too. They wanted us -- to know where we were. And we could hear 'em still out under the street light laughing and, ah, having a good time. But we didn't mind. And I've made lifetime friends there. Ah, I worked in the spinning room, which I was (inaudible.) and I 00:04:00guess they were pretty good to me. I had overseers that, ah, sometime would give me a pat on the back for what I did do, and these girls know that because (inaudible). And, ah, I --

STONEY: Tell us about how much you got paid.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well, I worked for six dollars and a quarter a week. And then I got raised to $9.90, wasn't it? And --

GRACE SHADINGER: How about 10 cents an hour?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well, they can figure that out. Ah, then if I would take on more than a regular job, by the time I married I was making $10 or something and we thought we had a lot, you know, on that. And somebody else talk. I'm 00:05:00sweating. (laughter) It's hot in here really.

JUDITH HELFAND: Hey Grace, Grace, why you so nervous? What's wrong?

NELL SHADINGER: Well, when I went to work I was 14 and I thought, "Well, this is just something great." I went to work and I made six dollars and a quarter a week. We worked 12 hours a day for five days a week. We got up and went to work at 6 o'clock on Saturday till 12 --

GRACE SHADINGER: Eleven.

NELL SHADINGER: -- o'clock, wasn't it? No. It was 12, I thought, 12 o'clock Saturday. And that's where that extra quarter come in, of that six dollars and a quarter come in. But I thought I was rich with making six dollars and a quarter. We didn't know any other life, didn't know anything different. And then that summer I went back to school. Then the following year I got married and moved to East Newnan. Then there, I had to wait till I was 16, four months till I was 16, 00:06:00where I could go to work there in that mill. And I went to work there and I think here it was nine dollars and something an hour. Then finally I got up --

HELFAND: An hour?

NELLS SHADINGER: I mean, no, not an hour; a week, a week. I made a mistake there. And then later we got a -- a little bit better on it. What Pearl said, ten dollars and something a week. We thought that was big money. And that's about all I can --

HELFAND: Do you think Grace could read that piece of paper about the birds?

GRACE SHADINGER: No.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well –-

NELL SHADINGER: (inaudible)

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Let me have it.

NELL SHADINGER: Okay. I have it. To show you what we paid back then for doctors, you know, what we paid for doctors to be born, you know, when it's up into the thousand dollars now? Okay. My oldest sister, we paid Dr. Fitz $5 to be born. And my second sister was Dr. West and seven dollars-and-a-half to be born.

HELFAND: What year?

NELL SHADINGER: In 19-and-11. And, ah, and Grace, in 19-and-14, was $10 to Dr. Barkley. In 1916, my brother was born and we paid $10 for him to be born, but I was really costly myself because when I came along, in 1919, they paid $15 for me to be born.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: (inaudible)

(crosstalk inaubidle)

LAUGHTER

STONEY: Grace, do you think it was worth it?

GRACE SHADINGER: Worth it? Well, I'll tell you, my -- my brother can't boast that he's worth more than me.

NELL SHADINGER: But I can.

GRACE SHADINGER: Because I can boast on I was more expensive than you and Dorothy.

NELL SHADINGER: Okay. We got here --

STONEY: Well, Grace, when did you start working in the mill?

GRACE SHADINGER: Oh, I don't know. When I's 14-1/2, something like that. And that's all I know.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I went to work in '25. Ah, not long after that, I married. I married in '30 and then had the son and then Roosevelt come in and that was great for us. Anybody that worked in a mill knew, you know, it was better for us, 8 a hour instead of 11 hours a day. We was in at 6, had an hour, off 00:09:00an hour for lunch, went home and off at 6, which was 11 hours a day. And our salary went up and, ah, finally after years and years they kept easing our salary up just a little bit. And then I finally got to a dollar an hour. I think, "This is it. We don't have to wont for anything if I can make that much in one hour, a dollar." And, ah, now -- so, ah, it's your turn.

LAUGHTER

GRACE SHADINGER: I don't have a turn.

NELL SHADINGER: She just won't talk.

M1: Hold on just a moment.

HELFAND: Ok.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well, I'm older than they are. (inaudible) is not as good. 00:10:00Well, first on the farm in a two-room house and they was five of us -- six of us then. Ah, I think Grace and Dorothy slept at the top of the bed. I slept at the foot and, ah, so -- well, anyway, I worked in the field. Grace and (inaudible) wasn't born on the farm, but Grace and William were too young. I don't he can remember, but I'd go pick cotton hours a day. I'd get real tired, but I never was a quitter, and still not. And, ah, I'd beg Daddy, "Let's quit." He said, "No. When you get your bags full, well, we'll go." I was younger than Dorothy.

HELFAND: And that made him sick?

GRACE SHADINGER: Well, he was just learning to walk.

HELFAND: How could learning to walk make him sick?

GRACE SHADINGER: We brought it out of the field. Just made him--

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Probably it was sour.

GRACE SHADINGER: No. They'd just gone to the field and cut it. They'd just brought it out of the field and give it --

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I'm talking about overripe.

GRACE SHADINGER: No, it wouldn't be overripe, I wouldn't think.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: How do you know?

GRACE SHADINGER: Well, Mama would have said so.

HELFAND: And so you had two above you and two below you?

GRACE SHADINGER: Uh huh. I'm right in the middle, caught right in the middle, you know.

STONEY: Now what happened when you moved into the mill village? Why did you think you moved into the mill village?

NELL SHADINGER: Our house burned --

FLORENCE SHADINGER: We didn't have a place to go. Daddy come over and went to work there and we stayed with my grandmother in Carrollton two weeks. And then, ah, Daddy sent the money for us to come and we got on a train. Now that was like going to, oh, France, England, anywhere. I'd say, "Are we still in Georgia?" And train would go about 4 or 5 miles, you know. But, anyway, I don't know. This is 00:12:00how ignorant I was in the second grade, and I was anxious to get here. And, ah, my brother, whenever he seen Daddy coming from work, we had to change his diaper right quick! (laughter) And it did -- I don't know. We got a house at, ah --

NELL SHADINGER: 22 (inaudible).

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Yes, and, ah, we lived there a long time, several years. We all got down with the flu at one time. Everbody was working. And, ah, so our doctor came and gave us all -- I don't know why -- a different pill. We had the same thing. Now this is country. And, ah, so you come up there -- Grace cried. (inaudible) have to take anything. And I's at the foot of the bed, sick, and I'd 00:13:00say, "Grace, honey, if you won't cry -- I can't stand it -- just under the cover, slip the extra pill to me. I'll take it." And I did. Grace was up playing before I was able to get outta bed. And, ah, so it was -- it was close living, but I was happy. I hope the rest of 'em was. It didn't matter. You know, we was that poor because we never had much anyway in the country. Daddy sharecropped with his own daddy and, ah, but Mama and Daddy made it worthwhile.

STONEY: What's the size of the house that you had in the mill village and how did you sleep?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well, we just slept -- when we first got (inaudible), we slept on the side of the house. All the furniture was -- see, we didn't have any 00:14:00furniture. But we all slept in the same room.

GRACE SHADINGER: Because it burned.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Huh?

GRACE SHADINGER: It had burned.

NELL SHADINGER: Our house had burned up.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Yeah.

STONEY: But when you moved into the mill village, how many rooms did you have and how many people slept in the house?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Seven, and, ah, but we --

STONEY: Start over and say, now when we moved into the mill village we had a four room house and there were seven of us and so on.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well, we all stayed on one side of the house. There was nothing in the other side of the house. Well, we moved next door and then we gradually got a little more furniture. Well, ah, my older sister and me slept together and my brother, (inaudible), slept in the room with, ah, Mama and Daddy. And I don't know where Grace was -- squashed in there somewhere. 00:15:00(laughter) (inaudible) But then --

GRACE SHADINGER: At the toes.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Well, you's supposed to be in the middle, and, ah, then Grace and me went sleeping together and we -- it was that way until I married. We got along fine in the bed. Only thing, Grace would have rash. (laughs) She'd scratch (inaudible) her fingernails. I bit my fingernails to -- but she had longer fingernails and she'd go out with her friends and then she'd come in. She'd giggle and she's think of a stinking little something that went on while she's out across the street with her friends. And then that rash would come back and she'd start that and giggle. Grace, are you mad at me? (laughter) Well, it's 00:16:00reality and, ah, it did -- but we were -- we got along fine. We did, you know.

STONEY: Tell us about working in the mills.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Oh, I don't even like to think about it. If it wasn't for the people you loved so much in there -- it was hard and the overseers was always nice to me. But it was hard, hard work. You were running. You didn't sit down and, ah, you's going -- these ends would break and you'd have to find this end on the bobbin and then it was coming through on steel rollers because they had another roller on top. Well, you'd get it and you'd have to get that end back up on it with the -- through the bobbin and that made the yarn. (telephone) Well --

GRACE SHADINGER: Praise the Lord.

NELL SHADINGER: Praise the Lord.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: And then the hardest part for me, when this end come down, (inaudible) and it rolled over. It was so hard to get off, I had corns all on my hand trying to rub that off. And, let's see -- and then finally I helped (inaudible) and helped the fixer a little because I -- I guess I'd been there long enough to know we take it down and rehaul it and put it back together, clean it -- clean it up. There was a lot of (inaudible) used around these rollers and, ah -- my dad worked in the card room. My mother worked in the winding room.

STONEY: Ok Florence.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I spinned and we quilled in robing that would come from the card room. It was card -- the frames. And then this robin' would run out and we had to keep up with that and you had to keep up with the ends making the yarn, too. You were very busy. You had about 10 sides, you know, to keep up with all the way from one end of the loom to the other one. And then there were freight frames at the lower end of Mill Number 1. And I don't know how it was (inaudible). First, it was yarn about that long. The tooth was taken out of the gear. It would skip and then this cotton like it was, come through on that skiff just like the robin' was on top, coming through down to make the yarn. And it 00:19:00was that way all the way through. (inaudible) and skip and that's when it would make the cotton-like on a Q-Tip. And they made material out of this and, ah --

STONEY: Tell us about how you hands felt.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Yeah. Oh, you had corn all over your hand. You didn't dare hold your boyfriend's hands, you know. (giggles) All those corns sticking out there. And we had corns on our feet if our shoes weren't just right. And they were cheap shoes that we had to wear. We were grateful to have that. But I have one corn in one lifetime on my toe and I say, "God, if you cure this, I will buy better shoes." (laughter) And it was -- it was -- it was rough. And your 00:20:00fingernails always broke, broke off and somebody was always getting hurt, not real serious, but you couldn't have run it without band-aids. The mill would have had to shut down. And, ah, they told us that. And I don't know. I don't guess you'd ever want to know about the rug yarn at Number 2 Mill?

STONEY: No, we don't need to know about the rug yarn. But now did it ever get any better in the mills?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: After Roosevelt come in, we run 8 hours instead of 11. And that was much better. Then our salaries were raised and it was just good times for us. And I remember the first time Newnan cotton mill gave us a bonus. Mine 00:21:00was thirty-six dollars and something. The reason I remember so well. Me and my husband still owed on our furniture and I sent that to Reynolds Furniture Company in Newnan and paid off that debt, 'cause that -- we had had a lot of sickness with our son when he was a baby. And, ah, ah -- y'all help me.

NELL SHADINGER: You're doing very well.

STONEY: When -- do you remember the big picnic they had on July the 4th?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Oh, yeah. It was cold that we had to wrap up. You want to hear that story?

STONEY: Would you tell about that?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Yeah. It was July the 4th and we had it out about Freeman Memorial Methodist Church at East Newnan. And we all went. My son was still real small and we carried him in our arm and, ah, both mills come together there. And 00:22:00that's the first thing, I guess, they ever, you know, did for us in the way of entertainment that I can remember. But then we did, I remember, during the centennial here in Newnan, General(?) Cotton Mill (inaudible) made different type of rainbow color cotton. And they made a huge rainbow out of it and they had some of the prettiest girls in the mill right on the float. And we won first prize.

STONEY: Now do -- back to that July the 4th meeting --

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Yeah?

STONEY: -- do you remember a speech that Mr. Freeman made?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I don't remember what he said, but he -- he made a pretty good -- it was encouraging, I remember that.

STONEY: Now, according to -- he made a report to the Washington administration saying that, ah, he had told you people that you knew that you were organizing in the mill and warning you that you shouldn't do it. Do you remember that?

GRACE SHADINGER: Did you go?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I believe he might have, but I don't remember, you know, his speaking too much. But I think he was right. It didn't do us any good.

STONEY: Could you talk about the effort to have a union here?

FLORENCE: I remember my daddy didn't go and didn't believe in a strike and he -- he didn't. That, I know.

GRACE SHADINGER: But he did join.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Yeah, he joined --

GRACE SHADINGER: But he didn't believe in a strike.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: He didn't believe in a strike ever. He thought it might help 00:24:00us a little bit, you know, to know that they had. Maybe it was -- he felt maybe it was above to the company to think that they might strike, but, in his wildest dreams, did he ever think that they'd do it. And I remember it well. I don't know whether any of us was inside the mill. I wasn't. Was you?

GRACE SHADINGER: No.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I know they held up sticks or something and made -- the ones that was working, they closed down and let 'em come out. They had to walk under that. And I don't imagine that was pleasing to anybody. Huh?

GRACE SHADINGER: They were out-of-towners. Those people were from out of town.

NELL SHADINGER: The people that was doing that was from out of town.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Uh uh. People was at work inside the mill when they pulled that strike, wasn't it?

NELL SHADINGER: No, it was -- that was outside where the union was -- (inaudible) and anybody that worked inside of the mill there had those sticks up, but y'all had to walk under those --

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I wasn't at work that day. I hadn't gone back to work. My baby was going -- I stayed at home with him and, ah --

STONEY: Now did you see any of the troops coming?

NELL SHADINGER: I did.

GRACE: Yeah, we both --

NELL SHADINGER: The first thing I remembered, I was looking and I saw uniforms, you know. And I knew right off, you know, it was servicemen. And they backed up in this truck, great big old size, and they went up there and told 'em and they got the ones that was out of town and put 'em in that, ah, truck. And they told 'em they were going. And then they got part of 'em that did work in the mill to put them in there, but they drove to H.B. Kell's, and do you know where H.B. Kell's store is? At that time it was a wholesale place that was just across the 00:26:00railroad. And what they did there, the ones that was working in the mill there at that mill, they put them all out and told 'em to go home and not go back to that place. But the ones that did not work at that mill, they took them on to Fort McPherson. I believe that's where they took 'em to.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Yeah, they did carry -- I was -- I'd gone after my brother and, ah -- uh uhm. Strike that. Roy had gone after somebody I cared about very much, and, ah, so I was still waiting there. I'd done heard they had called Fort Mac to send help. Was Talmadge mayor -- I mean governor, then governor? They had called Governor Talmadge and he said he would send from Fort Mac down to Newnan Cotton Mill Number 1 to pick 'em up where if anybody was (inaudible) go to in 00:27:00and go to work, they could. And, ah, they told 'em that after they got of the ones that was picketing at the gate. Anybody wanted to come in, to come in and go to work if you wanted to work. And a lot of 'em went in. I didn't because I had my hands full with my son and, ah, but I guess my husband did. He did work there at that time.

STONEY: And what about your father?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: He was in Carrollton.

GRACE SHADINGER: No.

NELL SHADINGER: Uh uh. He was at home.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Oh, yeah, that's when (inaudible). He asked 'em not to do that, you know. He asked them, "Don't -- do not strike. It's not right to do it and not nice, anyhow. Don't do it." Well, you know, they wanted to do it because it was just one person against it. And he cried so, my mother asked him to go to 00:28:00Carrollton to her people and stay with them till it'as over. Well, they left there and went to Carrollton and a few days after that it was told, you know -- I guess he was over there -- it looked strange, but they went to Carrollton and did they organize or strike? I think they struck. I'm not sure. And, ah --

GRACE SHADINGER: Well, Daddy wasn't in that bunch. Daddy didn't organize.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I said that.

NELL SHADINGER: No, he wasn't in that.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: I said that.

NELL SHADINGER: They said my brother went over there, but my brother was not. He didn't even go to Carrollton.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: Yes, he did.

NELL SHADINGER: I don't think he did.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: (inaudible)

NELL SHADINGER: Well, they know more than I do. I don't know if he did.

STONEY: So what happened?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: So Daddy come back and then it was rumored that Daddy went over there and pulled that strike -- strike. Daddy didn't pull it here in 00:29:00Newnan. He didn't want to have anything to do with it, but, you know, a place like that a lot of rumors get out. Well, Mama and Daddy lived there in that house I don't know how long and they asked 'em to vacate. I think they give a day or did they?

GRACE SHADINGER: I don't recall.

FLORENCE SHADINGER: But, anyway, they moved, but Daddy was always broken-hearted about it, you know, thinking that he did it, but he was so against it at the time. He never joined another union and Mama --

STONEY: Where did they move? Where did you move to?

FLORENCE SHADINGER: To Raymond, Georgia. Mama run a rooming house for Central Georgia Railroad men.