Maddie Rainwater, Maurine Rainwater, and Mildred Rainwater Interview 2



MILDRED RAINWATER: You know, went all around the school house –

GEORGE STONEY: I want you to tell me about that school because it was separate. Ok. Tell me about the school.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, it was within walking distance of all us children.

GEORGE STONEY: Yes, start saying, "the school was in –"

MILDRED RAINWATER: -- and started school there in the first grade and then we went up to -– through the seventh – seventh grade, you just had seven grades and I don't know –- what else do you want to know? We had a recess, you know, about ten o'clock. Then, we'd have lunch and then we'd have another 00:01:00time to play in the afternoons and we'd get out at three o'clock.

GEORGE STONEY: I want you to start over and say, "well, the –- we had a school in East Newnan, but it only went up to the seventh grade and then we had to go to high school and walk two and a half miles.

MILDRED RAINWATER: That's right.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok, well could you say that?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Uh, we had a school in East Newnan that went up through the seventh grade and after you got out of seventh grade you had to go to Newnan to high school and we always had to wor -– walk two and a half miles to school, then, to the high school. And, is that all you want me to say?

GEORGE STONEY: But you were telling about having fun.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, we had lots of fun at -– you know. You talking about the recess that we had?

GEORGE STONEY: No, as young girls.

JUDITH HELFAND: In the mill.

GEORGE STONEY: In the mill.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh yeah, at the mill. Oh yes, we had a lot of fun at the plant. We, uh -– they let us go out and buy a drink -- cold drink at the store 00:02:00and whatever we wanted to eat, and come back and eat it and sit down and eat and then we'd have to get up and go to work, you know. Back on the job and that would be kind of a recess for us and then at lunch, we'd all go home for lunch and stay out –

MATTIE RAINWATER: and then we'd dip snuff.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I didn't dip any snuff. Some of them might have, but I didn't.

MATTIE RAINWATER: Get 'em a toothbrush and rub the teeth and put the snuff in their mouth.

MILDRED RAINWATER: That's one thing I didn't do.

MATTIE RAINWATER: They'd put a spittoon down at the end and –

MILDRED RAINWATER: They did have cuspidors you know in the plant at times, you know, after a certain length of time, but they used the floor to start with, but soon put the cuspidors in there.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you remember any of the songs you sang? Did you sing in the mill?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, yes. We'd sing, but I can't –

MAURINE RAINWATER: In the first of October, they used to have the sacred harp 00:03:00singing at Newnan and Mildred used to sing that.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, that -- He wants to know in the mill, though.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Oh

MILDRED RAINWATER: --about singing in the mill. We just sing any kind of song we knew, you know. Church song I guess, but that's all I can remember singing is church songs.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you still have the sacred harp sings around here?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Uh, no they don't, not that I know of. They used to have it at the courthouse, but they'd come from all around in neighboring cities, you know, and sing but they don't have it any more.

HELFLAND: Well, it sounds like you enjoyed having this break time for lunch.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yeah, after we went to high school we just had break time at lunch time, you know, in the middle of the day.

HELFLAND: In the middle? You had a break time?

MILDRED RAINWATER: That's right

HELFLAND: So, could you tell me more about that and then compare it to later on when you went to eight hours.

MATTIE RAINWATER: I can't remember that point in time.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We talking about at work, now?

MATTIE RAINWATER: I thought we had to work 'til –

MILDRED RAINWATER: We did have break time, Mattie. Lunch time to start with. We went home for lunch. I'd run home. I'd just run like a deer and we'd run home to eat lunch, eat it real fast and then come back in an hour's time.

GEORGE STONEY: When did you start working straight eight hours without a break?

MILDRED RAINWATER: When Roosevelt took over as president.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell us about that?

MILDRED RAINWATER: We were mighty happy about that. We'd start work at eight o'clock and we'd have a little lunch break you know and then we'd work 'til four and, uh, we had –- you know it was not as hard of work. We didn't have to work hard to make production and we got more pay.

MATTIE RAINWATER: Well, I used to work 'til eleven o'clock on Saturday and 00:05:00I'm gonna tell y'all this, I worked hard that morning and they let us off at eleven o'clock. I went on home and my mother, she always expected me to come in talking, and tell her something that we did, but I was so tired and so I was sitting there. Now, mama didn't cuss, she just did this. There was a man carrying somebody a lunch over there.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, Mattie, don't tell that.

MATTIE RAINWATER: I'm gonna tell it. They don't have to put it in there you can spoil it out. She says, "well, he's gonna walk as big as Mr. Anybody if he does [tear that down my ass]." And I thought, "Lord of Mercy, I've never heard her say that before in my life." She says, "Now, your ma didn't mean nothing by that." Said, "you just look so sad and I just want 00:06:00to make you smile." But the man was –- he had his market basket and I mean he was going. He had to get there.

MILDRED RAINWATER: He had a jar of coffee in his hip pocket, you know. Mama just wanted to say something like that to make her laugh.

MATTIE RAINWATER: But she said it. She thought that was funny.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you people – uh, you were working so long, but did you ever do anything like quilting or sewing that kind of thing?

MATTIE RAINWATER: After Supper

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yes, we did.

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about that.

MAURINE RAINWATER: We didn't have tissues like we have today. We had handkerchiefs and on –- we'd use them on the weekend and Monday night, that's what we did, we washed all our handkerchiefs out and ironed them and I was stockings. We'd wash them what we could wear on the weekends and we'd get all them washed on Monday nights. That was other job on Monday night: to do 00:07:00that and wash handkerchiefs and our stockings.

MILDRED RAINWATER: But we did quilt, when we got home. Mama would have a quilt in the frames and we did help quilt. We usually had a room we could leave it up -– you know -– just not have to hang it up, we'd leave it propped up on the chairs and we quilted alright.

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about your singing. I'm interested in the sacred harp stuff.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well –- uh, there's just a crowd of people would gather -– you know, and different ones sing different -– uh, notes I guess you would call it. What do you call that, different – uh, some sang alto and some sang soprano and -– and treble, just any kind of voice that you might -– could sing. And –- and we would get up and direct the singing, have that big 00:08:00book in our hand. It was a large book -- you know, larger than most song books and we would direct it and everybody would take their parts and sing and it was real pretty. They didn't have music, they just sound the chords -— you know? Somebody, knew music real well, would sound the chord.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you sing any of that, now?

MILDRED RAINWATER: I'm afraid that I couldn't. Hah. No, I wouldn't try now.

MATTIE RAINWATER: Well, she sings in the choir, now.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I sing in the choir, but I don't sing the notes-- you know, like I did back then. We're having a concert Sunday night. I'm in the concert.

HELFLAND: Was the room where you worked loud?

MILDRED RAINWATER: What?

HELFLAND: I imagine the room where you were looking in the mill was pretty loud.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, yes. It was so loud it was almost deafening. I think that's why my hearing is bad like it is, because of – it hurts, those loud 00:09:00noises, the machinery.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, when [Mt. Vernon] taken over, they did fit us in earplugs and so we had to wear those during the time we worked for them.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I never did wear any earplugs. So, I think that's why my hearing is like it is.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you ever have any trouble with breathing or did anybody have that kind of trouble?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yes, asthma, where there's a lot of lint.

MAURINE RAINWATER: But, we never did have any trouble, I don't think.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We didn't have no trouble, but a lot of people did.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you know about people who have had that kind of trouble?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, I can't remember any of their names right now. No, I 00:10:00can't remember the names, but they did have it –- have that trouble. I can't remember the names.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh – when we were in North Carolina, they had something called the Brown Lung Association that tried to get help for people that had trouble.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We never did have anything like that.

GEORGE STONEY: Nothing like that? Okay, Judy?

HELFLAND: Um – last week, you were telling us something about Etta Mae and her father, about the Zimmermans.

MILDRED RAINWATER: About Mr. Zimmerman?

HELFLAND: Will you tell me –- tell us about the Zimmermans?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, it was a large family, the Zimmermans. Just like there were of us, you know. Mr. Zimmerman, he never did work at the plant, that I remember, but he would plow, you know, the fields around the village and he would plow – he always wore a collar and tie and he'd go bare foot, you know, when he was plowing and that's all –- what I remember about him.

MATTIE RAINWATER: He liked to read.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yeah, he read lots -– with the Tom Watson -– He read the Tom Watson paper and he'd go the depot, we had a little shelter up there at the railroad track that you could stand there and catch the train. You'd have to wave it down with a handkerchief, you know, and –- uh, he –- he would let the train go by you know and him still reading the paper. He'd be going to town and then he'd wonder, "well, where is the train," you know and he'd discover that it had gone on.

HELFLAND: You told us, he used to come and read at your house.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, he did. He read at our home. He'd come to read after supper, you know, the Tom Watson paper, and –- uh, we'd –- uh, all get sleepy and we had to get up at six o'clock to go to work and -– and he didn't work, you know. We'd all go to bed and leave him reading the paper and he'd discover we'd all gone to bed and then he'd get up and go home, but he'd come to pay us a visit and read the paper, you know, to us. We 00:12:00didn't have a daily paper, he just got that one through the mail, I think, and he enjoyed it so much he read it to everyone that come along.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about the Tom Watson paper.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I never did know too much about the paper. I know it must have been very interesting or he wouldn't have read it, like he did. He read that paper religiously and I don't know what was in it. I can't remember.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you remember any of the things in it?

MAURINE RAINWATER: No, I don't remember anything about it. I remember him reading the paper, lots, but I never did know –- uh anything about it.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I guess it was years of government news and any kind of news that's in the paper today. It was probably in that paper, but it didn't happen as often as it does now. You know —- I mean what was happening then, it just happened once a year or once every six months, but now it happens every 00:13:00day, you know.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you remember the Tom Watson paper? What was in it?

MATTIE RAINWATER: Well, not really. It had a lot of, maybe, recipes in it or how to do things, you know, improve things, but that's about all I remember.

GEORGE STONEY: You don't remember its politics.

RAINWATER SISTERS [TOGETHER]: Politics mainly -– oh, yes, politics –- there were politics in there –-

MILDRED RAINWATER: That's what Mr. Zimmerman would read, you know, was the politics. I think he was a pretty smart fellow to understand all that, you know, what he was reading and he enjoyed it so I think that it must have been an interesting paper and give you a lot of information.

MATTIE RAINWATER: It kind of made you think of the Market Bulletin. Something like that.

GEORGE STONEY: And did you –- what -- did you take the Newnan paper?

MILDRED RAINWATER: No, we didn't have the Newnan paper back then, we just had the Atlanta Journal and Georgian. The Georgian paper is what we always bought. They'd bring it to the house every day.

GEORGE STONEY: I knew a fellow who wrote for the Georgian, [Tarleton Culyer] He was a columnist. You probably read him, but you don't remember

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yeah, I – I don't remember that name.

HELFLAND: Uh, you told me last week that -– uh –- you had enough time when you working eleven hours, to sit together outside.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, yes.

HELFLAND: Could you tell me about that?

MILDRED RAINWATER: At lunchtime.

HELFLAND: Was that at lunchtime?

MILDRED RAINWATER: At lunchtime we would sit together, I think that's when we did.

HELFLAND: You mentioned to me that you could sit in a group and talk and all and one of you could run back to the frames, check on the frames and come back.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, yes. Yes, the work would not be fast, you know. It was not very fast work like it was in later years, and we'd get all the machines running, you know, with the [bobbins field] up in the -– starting 'em off and they'd run and we'd go sit down and have a chat with a few friends and then watch to see if the ends had broken back and if they had, we'd run back and tie that up and start it up again and go back and sit down and chat with the crowd. But we enjoyed –-

MATTIE RAINWATER: But after this bee-do business come in –

MILDRED RAINWATER: You didn't have time.

MATTIE RAINWATER: They didn't have, if they thought you had time to –- to turn over and see about the other feller's job. They'd just increase you, a little bit more to do.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you think that had anything to do with the strike?

MATTIE RAINWATER: Yeah, they had to deal with a little bit more on the job.

MAURINE RAINWATER: That was after the strike they started the bee-do system.

MATTIE RAINWATER: If they'd seen someone sitting around, well, they'd check on 'em 'cause they didn't need to sit around, they needed to work.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I guess that when they raised the pay, they had wanted us to work harder, you know because they wanted to get all they could out of the job and they'd make more money out of what we were doing, out of production.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, I want each of you to tell me how long you worked in the mill and when you stopped.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I worked -- let me think a minute. I went to work at sixteen and then I married at thirty. So, that's about fif –- how many years? Fifteen? No, well, let's see

JAMIE STONEY: Fourteen

MILDRED RAINWATER: Fourteen, fourteen years.

GEORGE STONEY: And then did you work afterwards?

MILDRED RAINWATER: No, I never did work anymore. I married and moved to this house and I've been here ever since.

GEORGE STONEY: What about you?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, I went to work when I was –- I guess about -- I'd say I was fifteen and I worked until I was seventy-five years old and retired. I worked at the plant, the same plant, of course it was different -–

MILDRED RAINWATER: Companies

MARURINE RAINWATER: companies that I worked for, but I worked fifty years in that same plant.

GEORGE STONEY: When you retired, what did you get?

MAURINE RAINWATER: You mean, what pay that I got? Well, I made pretty good. I 00:18:00made around two hundred dollars a week, of course they taking out tax on that, but I was making about that when I retired.

GEORGE STONEY: And, did you get a pension or anything?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, I didn't get a pension, but they had a –- they had a little saving. I don't remember exactly what they called it, but when I retired, I got all that in a lump sum, which was about seven hundred dollars that I got. So, but I didn't get a pension, you know, every month. I got that in a lump sum.

GEORGE STONEY: What about you?

MATTIE RAINWATER: Well, I believe they must have taken out each week. Seemed to me like they took a little bit each week and saved it for you, until you got old enough to quit or quit.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, how much did you start accumulating?

GEORGE STONEY: You started working when you were –

MAURINE RAINWATER: Oh, in East Newnan? When I was fourteen and a half years old.

GEORGE STONEY: And you worked—

MAURINE RAINWATER: 'Til I got married. I was twenty-seven

MILDRED RAINWATER: But, you worked after then, too. How many years did you work, at the plant?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, I didn't work in East Newnan. I moved.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I know, but in LaGrange? How many years did you work in all?

MATTIE RAINWATER: I lived down there forty years, so, I don't know, I'd have to get me a pencil and paper.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Forty and then—

MATTIE RAINWATER: When I quit, I was sixty-two.

MILDRED RAINWATER: You worked forty years, down there. Is that right?

MAURINE RAINWATER: Yeah, at the spinning plant. I'd run winders awhile and then I went to the sewing room. That was -– I was sort of improving a little bit. You know, (inaudible) dressed up in the sewing room.

GEORGE STONEY: What did you get paid, at the last?

MATTIE RAINWATER: Well, I got some -- they saved it for me. But I can't remember.

MILDRED RAINWATER: What were they paying by the hour?

MATTIE RAINWATER: I can't remember.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Minimum wages?

MATTIE RAINWATER: But they give me the money and I take it and bought that ring right there. I was rich. I think I give about a hundred dollars for it. No, I don't know how much they –

MILDRED RAINWATER: How much did you make an hour? Minimum wages?

MATTIE RAINWATER: I don't remember, but anyway, I made more money than they did.

MILDRED RAINWATER: She got better pay than we did, ought to be –

MATTIE RAINWATER: Because I lived in a big town.

HELFLAND: So, the Rainwater sisters, tell me about -– use -– we don't know your last name, yet. So, tell us about the Rainwater sisters and their reputations in the mill.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We had a good reputation, one of the best and everybody, you 00:21:00know, thought lots of us, thought lots of us and the whole family. We were not any drunks or anything like that. There's nobody in our family that was drinking, because our parents didn't allow that. We didn't even play cards. Mama didn't even let us play cards or anything of that sort. We could not play setback and she saw a deck of cards, she found some in my brother's pocket one time, when she's gonna send his clothes to the dry cleaners and she just put them on the fire and he got to looking for the cards and they happened to be –- he borrowed them from somebody, you know but mama had burned them. (phone ringing) That might be my daughter calling from the hospital.

GEORGE STONEY: You were gonna tell us about -– uh -– control in the mill village. What happened if people started drinking or they found that you had been –-

MATTIE RAINWATER: Well, Mr. Wood wouldn't allow you to just be bad people. And my [sister's wife] moved to Lagrange, my baby sister, they tried to put her on the third shift and she just -– she always wanted her way so -– no, she wasn't working on no third shift and so mama called me. She said, "Come and get her and see if you can get her a job in Lagrange. She's gonna have all of us fired." So, I come and got her, I went to the bossman and I told him that she was sick and I was gonna carry her to Lagrange, to a doctor, and he said, "they must have mighty good doctors down there." I said, "well, they 00:23:00do." So, she went home with me and never come back to Newnan any more. She lived with -– in Lagrange and now's she's in Union City, up there.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, she – she is high strung, anyway. She didn't let nobody mistreat her.

MATTIE RAINWATER: Well, Mr. Bobbs, he would have made us move if – I mean made them move -- if she hadn't quit work on the third shift. Because they were kind of like policemen, they made you do what they said to.

MILDRED RAINWATER: They were real strict. If you didn't obey by the rules that they had, they would make us move off the village. They'd let us all go. So, we tried to obey the rules as best we could. But, Mr. Wood, he kept everybody, 00:24:00you know, going straight. He'd patrol the streets at night and he saw that there were no carryings on, you know.

GEORGE STONEY: How would he do that?

MILDRED RAINWATER: How—what?

GEORGE STONEY: How would he do that?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, somebody told me that he put a sheet around him and they thought they saw a ghost going up the railroad one night. It was Mr. Wood with a sheet around him. And –- but – he didn't let them know that he was going to do it. He would do it on the sly, I guess you'd say. He –- he was gonna watch and nobody was going to stay on that village that was going to do the right thing. We had a good place to live, as long as he lived, we had a good place to live.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok. Now, is there anything you haven't told us that you would like to?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Oh, I can't think of anything, unless you thought of something.

GEORGE STONEY: No, I think you've been very, very helpful.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, I hope so.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Well, I hope--

GEORGE STONEY: You've given us a very nice picture of what it must have been like for

MAURINE RAINWATER: We're looking forward to see this on our (fam) some of these days.

GEORGE STONEY: Well, I'll give you my card and we've got your address and we hope –- we'll let you know when it comes.

JAMIE STONEY: Do you think sisterhood helped get you tough times and problems, leaning on each other and everybody helping each other out?

MAURINE RAINWATER: I didn't understand your -—

JAMIE STONEY: Do you think your sisterhood, you know, all –-

MILDRED RAINWATER: We all stuck together, and nobody – we never had any trouble with anybody because all of us stuck together. They knew better I guess, because we took up one another, nobody said anything against us.

GEORGE STONEY: And you have five brothers to look after you too, didn't you?

MILDRED RAINWATER: That's right.

MAURINE RAINWATER: Five brothers and six girls.

GEORGE STONEY: Isn't it interesting that you haven't mentioned your brothers all this time. Tell us something about your brothers.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Our brothers were older than us. There was -– one –- one of the brothers that was younger than Mattie and all the rest were older.

MATTIE RAINWATER: He wasn't younger than me.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Herman?

MATTIE RAINWATER: No, he was older.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, it was so close, I thought he was. They never lived around us much, because they were older. We always thought lots of them. We looked forward to seeing them, you know.

MATTIE RAINWATER: Well, you know, they didn't work the mill.

MILDRED RAINWATER: They was farmers.

MATTIE RAINWATER: They didn't like lint heads.

MILDRED RAINWATER: They were farmers, most of them were.

MATTIE RAINWATER: Now, Herman was a Barber.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yeah, he was a barber, here in Newnan.

MATTIE RAINWATER: -- and Houston, he was –-

MILDRED RAINWATER: He was a barber for a while in Miami. He moved to Miami, Florida thinking that work was better down there and pay and everything, you 00:27:00know. So, that's where he died you know. He lived there until he died, raised his family there. He had a son that was a judge in Miami and, he had another son, then he had a daughter, that's –- still lives in Florida, but not in Miami. I don't know.

JAMIE STONEY: Ok. Whose picture is this on the wall, here? Directly behind you, above the light switch. Back there,

MILDRED RAINWATER: That's my daughter.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh-huh

MILDRED RAINWATER: That's my –- her name's Laurie.

GEORGE STONEY: One more thing. I think that these ladies have pictures of themselves when they're young. Do you have any pictures of yourself when you're young, here?

[break in video]

MILDRED RAINWATER: This is Francis Buoy and that was —- uh -– Gale. I 00:28:00can't remember her first name, Gale and that was me. [break in video]Mauldine on here. There's Mauldine and I'm on here. That's Alice. She died.

UNKNOWN RAINWATER: You're gonna carry me home? I believe my door's open.

MILDRED RAINWATER: There I am.

GEORGE STONEY: Alright now, Jamie.

[break in video]

MILDRED RAINWATER: And that's the library.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh-uh -- yeah –- still.

MILDRED RAINWATER: We were all out on the street in town.

GEORGE STONEY: When we first came in we asked for the library and that fellow was sending us up to that building, until we found a new one. Let's see how that's going to work.

MILDRED RAINWATER: I don't know how old I was.

GEORGE STONEY: Wait a minute, Jamie. We want to get sound on this.

[break in video]

JAMIE STONEY: Why don't you just indicate which ones are who.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Which one did you want?

JAMIE STONEY: Ummm – just indicate

MILDRED RAINWATER: Indicate me?

STONEY: Yeah, just speak to -- name each person that you know.

MILDRED RAINWATER: Uh – this is Mildred Rainwater and that's Allie, I don't know – I can't see it well enough.

GEORGE STONEY: Maybe you could sit down right here.

MILDRED RAINWATER: This is Allie. No, that's Mattie Rainwater.

JAMIE STONEY: Ok.

MILDRED RAINWATER: And this is, (Maudeine) Rainwater, and that's Mildred Rainwater and –- any of them that I know.

GEORGE STONEY: Where are you?

MILDRED RAINWATER: This is me right there and that's Allie Rainwater, my sister Allie and this is Velma Hubbard, Velma Nix.

JAMIE STONEY: In the polka dot?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Yes

GEORGE STONEY: And, now, tell me about the picture. What is the picture?

MILDRED RAINWATER: It's Sunday School class picture at East Newnan Baptist Church.

GEORGE STONEY: When do you think it was taken?

MILDRED RAINWATER: Well, I must have been about nineteen, I guess or twenty, something like that, and you subtract that from the age I am now, is that the way you do --