Jake Gray and Esther Gray Interview

 JAKE GRAY: Well—

GEORGE STONEY: Ok sir.

JAKE GRAY: The gentleman is absolutely right. We did have an overproduction, and finally this county was making fine combed yarns, which means you were making 80's 2-ply, 100's 2-ply. Then come along nylon. It was all going to the mercerizing trades, which I mean the mercerizes made it nice and shiny and made it pretty as it could be, as long as nobody ironed and (inaudible) the hell out of it. They didn't need the shiny cotton yarns then. Rayon was shiny and pretty. And as far as the organization, they'd have an organization. They'd have a meeting. They'd all agree, "Well, tomorrow the price of 30 ceiling(?) will be, say, 85 cents." And then you'd look around and you'd see some fellahs getting up and walking out of the meeting and they'd run and call the customers and say, "You'd better buy as much yarn today as you can buy, because tomorrow 00:01:00it's going to be 85 cents." And they were cutting they own throats. And they did that right along.

GEORGE STONEY: Were you a member -- you weren't a member of the Southern Cotton Textile Association?

JAKE GRAY: My father was, but he saw it. He knew what was going on.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk about that a little bit?

JAKE GRAY: Well, they was just as guilty as the rest of 'em. They wouldn't let anybody get to they -- they called that Hampton Company, then, "You'd better buy a bunch of mercerized yarn today because tomorrow it's going to be so-and-so price." So they taking a nickel a pound off their yarn right off the top. And as far as that goes, during the '20s, as my father used to tell me, they would build a mill practically ever week. That's where the overproduction came. And then people'd get mad as hell if you didn't call and tell -- let 'em take 00:02:00(inaudible). Finally caught up with 'em and they wished they hadn't taken (inaudible). But they would actually get mad and call you up on the phone and curse you out if you didn't let 'em have stock in the mill(?).

GEORGE STONEY: Ok, Judy—

JUDITH HELFAND: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: Any questions?

HELFAND: umm

GEORGE STONEY: Hold it just a minute.

[break in video]

JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

JAKE GRAY: Well, just you merely sent people up in the mountains and bought 'em a ticket if they wanted to come down here. And they came down here on the train. You met 'em at the train and took 'em to their house. They built villages. Every mill had a village. Firestone still has a village. They don't own the village, but the village is still standing -- that was Loray Cotton Mill. Then Manville-Jenks, and then Firestone. Firestone bought it from (inaudible) and as a matter of fact today Firestone's got that mill on the book 00:03:00for one dollar, including all those houses, 500 houses.

GEORGE STONEY: Now those agents that you sent up to the mountains, what were they telling them?

JAKE GRAY: They'd tell 'em they had a house, a room in a house and a job for 'em. They were very receptive to that.

GEORGE STONEY: Were there any special sections that you sent people to?

JAKE GRAY: Yeah. They went up around Blowing Rock and around up that way in the close mountains, as close as we could get here.

GEORGE STONEY: What about people from around here close?

JAKE GRAY: You mean working?

GEORGE STONEY: Uh hum.

JAKE GRAY: Well, some of 'em, of course, were in the mill to start with, were bringing this others in. Plus that's why we had to send 'em -- we run out of people. Some people thought it was very degrading to work in a cotton mill. 00:04:00That, you got to recognize, too. Called them lintheads and called 'em every damned thing, but it really wasn't. It was a pretty good job when you think about it.

GEORGE STONEY: Well now, why did the people think that?

JAKE GRAY: I don't have any idea, but they did. They -- they thought it was on the degrading side to be associated with work in a cotton mill. It wasn't like being a professor at Chapel Hill, let's say.

GEORGE STONEY: Got it.

JAKE GRAY: It wasn't a prestige job.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you or your father do anything for the people in the mills like having swimming pools or --

JAKE GRAY: We had community houses. Every mill had a community house, a meeting place. They did their own entertainment. We also had -- every mill had 00:05:00a nurse and she would take care of the health problems, hopefully. I'll never forget one time a doctor here in Gastonia named Dr. Garrison had a hospital, Garrison Hospital. And he called my father one day and he says,"Ledner(?), we got a man up here I'm ready to send home, but I ain't going to send him home till he pays his bill." Daddy said, "Well keep him. You'll have to feed him." Let him out in 15 minutes.

GEORGE STONEY: Now we've heard a lot in some places about brown lung. Can you talk about that?

JAKE GRAY: Well, I -- I -- that brown lung, what do you call -- what is that (inaudible)?

GEORGE STONEY: Brucellosis?

JAKE GRAY: Yeah. We never heard of that until we went through -- I've seen mills so dusty you couldn't see one machine to the other and never heard of 00:06:00brown lung until somebody collected some money on it, and then you've got real trouble. Then OSHA made everybody try to clean up, which was a total loss. We didn't -- the mill was really pretty clean. You like your mills clean because the stuff runs better and everything else, and cleanliness would preach all the time, "Keep the mills -- keep the frames clean so they run good, make your job easier." There's not a day we don't talk about cleanliness. People want the mills to be clean so they can make better yarn and everything else. We never heard of brown lung when the mills was so bad. As I say, somebody collected 00:07:00some money on it and all of a sudden you get sued by everybody.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok, now, hold it just a (inaudible). Anything else in your –-

[break in video]

JAKE GRAY: We showed you on that plaque. The mills were considered the parental people. They were father images to the -- all the help, as you saw by that plaque there that I had that said, "Happy Birthday to Papa Gray"? Well, we were considered -- all the employees -- a woman'd get pregnant, come and ask you -- the first person she come to is the man that owned the mill she was working for to give her the money for an abortion. And we did. We took care of it.

GEORGE STONEY: Hold it just a moment, let's see if we can get—

[break in video]

ESTHER GRAY: It says, "Happy Birthday to Papa Gray from your family at New Dawn."

GEORGE STONEY: Ok Jamie this is going to be a little tricky.

JAMIE STONEY: Can you hold it?

GEORGE STONEY: Ok see if you can hold it.

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible) upside down?

ESTHER GRAY: No, no.

GEORGE STONEY: Can you read it Jamie?

JAMIE STONEY: (inaudible).

GEORGE STONEY: Oh sure that's good. Alright let's start on his face and he'll—I want you to start talking then about the mill owner as a father figure and then we go down on that.

JAKE GRAY: Alright.

ESTHER GRAY: Tell when the girls got in trouble how they came—(inaudible)

GEORGE STONEY: Alright.

JAKE GRAY: Well, we were considered father figures and all their problems they came to us with, and we generally helped them as much as we could, regardless of what the problem was. And they had a lot of problems, but we always helped them 00:09:00as much as we possibly could. All depended on how successful you were as to how much help you could give 'em.

GEORGE STONEY: What kind of help did you give them?

JAKE GRAY: Money, which is the only help that anybody needs that I know of. And usually if you got enough money, you can get out of anything. That's what my son, the lawyer, says. "If you give me enough money, I can get you out of anything, any damned thing you want to get out of! Murder, whatever!"

GEORGE STONEY: Okay. One of the things that I've been quite amazed at is particularly among the older women they talk about how much fun they had in the mills.

JAKE GRAY: They did have fun.

GEORGE STONEY: And even though their supervisor was strict and all of this -- I'll tell you a joke that one of them told us and see if you can match this kind of thing. The Rainwater sisters over at Newnan, Georgia, three of them, they said they were working in the mills in the '20s and the mill supervisor was 00:10:00evidently a very strict guy. They liked him, but he was strict. They said he was coming after them for wasting toilet paper. So one of them went in and tied a string on a corn cob and put a note on it, saying, "Use this cob and save your job." (laughs)

JAKE GRAY: That's right. That could have happened. They had a lot of fun. We had all kinds of things happen. I'm trying to think of what that damn crazy (inaudible) used to do, she did everything—but oh it was fun. I made my little mill, and I owned outright Gray Mills, it was more fun than a barrel of money. Every time I got an order I'd go out and tell all the people what kind of order we got, what kind of yarn we're going to make, because they never knew 00:11:00what kind of yarn they were going to make. We'd be making one kind of yarn one day and anoth-- the next day we'd make something else. We might change three times in one day. I's making a whole load of yarns, different blends. I made one 5-way blend and I have no idey what in the hell they did with it! I never got -- I made just sample and that's as far as I went with it. Had five different fibers in it and it couldn't possibly have been worth a nickel.

ESTHER GRAY: Was it requested?

JAKE GRAY: Yeah, by outfit up in Sanford, Maine, good old Sanford. Burlington Mills bought that plant. When they (inaudible), I saw the inventory, they --Burlington was fussing about how good old Sanford had all these crazy things and that bin was still on the inventory. They never even used it and I think I charged 'em -- I know I charged them about $15 a pound for the damned thing. 00:12:00But I didn't care. (inaudible)

GEORGE STONEY: Now what effect do you think it had on the workmen that you'd explain to them what they were doing?

JAKE GRAY: Well, a great effect because they got a great kick out of it.

GEORGE STONEY: could you start off saying, "That if you tell them what there doing—"

JAKE GRAY: Yeah. If you'd go out and tell 'em that you had an order that was going to keep you running for the next six months and so forth, that'd give 'em a lot of security and made 'em have fun. They enjoyed it. I've hired a lot of people and told 'em right off the bat, "Now one thing you got to understand here, we're going to have fun in this job. It might not be all pleasant, but we're going to have fun." Some way they'd have fun. I had a fellah one time working for me was the best drawing hand I ever had in my life, but he drank 00:13:00whiskey all the time. He'd set his bottle right on top of the damned draw frame. Well, when I told him one day, I said, "Well, Mr. Green, I want to say one thing to you. You just as good a doffing hand as I've ever had, but would you do me a favor? Put that bottle under the damned draw frame and drink it whenever you want to, but I don't want to bring somebody through this mill and see that bottle of whiskey setting up on top of the damned draw frame, the highest damned thing in the mill." It'd be just like putting a water tank in the little mill. He had his bottle of liquor sitting up there and I said, "I know you drink it." Said, "Go on and drink it. I've got no objection, but just put it under the mill -- under the frame." So he did that and we got along fine. He still remained the best draw frame man that I ever had. Got more production in a minute than most people did in two days.

GEORGE STONEY: What about religion in the mills?

JAKE GRAY: Some of the superintendents were very, very, very tough on it. And if you didn't go to church, they'd fire you. But we never had that. We talked religion, but I was never that hard on anybody this missed going to church. (inaudible), the fellah that ran that mill 'round here, he was real hard and we had a superintendent, H.D. Whitener up at the Myrtle Mill. He was real bad on it. And there, we did have a strike one time and it turned out bad for 'em, too. They struck and so Daddy says to H.D. Whitener, says, "Don't you even go to the mill. If they want to march around, let 'em march. Don't go in. Lock 00:15:00the doors and get away. Don't even be available." So he stayed away and finally we weren't doing any negotiating, so they come up and business was kinda bad. And so they were striking about some superintendent overseer they had they didn't like. So they came to Daddy and said they wanted to negotiate. And Daddy said, "Uh-uh. Frankly, I don't care whether the damned mill runs or not, we open it up or not." He said, "Business is bad. Now "I'm on strike!" Well, they come back and said, "Well, we'll do anything you want to do now." He said, "No. I ain't ready to go yet" and he just sit around and he went on strike. So he turned the tables on 'em. So they went back to work on his terms. All those things were -- they happened.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok now cut Ja—

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HELFAND: -- and I think that, tha's--

JAKE GRAY: That wasn't unusual. All people that learned the mill business started and had to start. You had to know something about what you were doing. And so my father started me in the worst position. You know, he put me in the dust and told me to clean out the dust house. It was a horrible job. Dust was about that high and so I decided I wasn't going to stand there with a rake and pull all that dust out and get it all up my nose. So I went and got a water hose and turned the thing on to the spray, wide spray, and went down the dust and I just rolled the damned stuff up. And he came by and he said, "I knew damned well you'd find some way to get out of this work!"

GEORGE STONEY: Now when did this -- when was this picture made?

JAKE GRAY: Nineteen hundred and seventy-two. 1972, I think.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you show it to the camera please? And describe what we see.

JAKE GRAY: You're seeing here people learning how to put up an end on open-end spinning. We knew nothing about open-end spinning. I didn't know how to put up an end, and here we are setting up a mill, we got to train every person to put up an end and we don't know how to put it up ourself.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay. Now do you have any pictures of yourself in the '30s?

(shots of ads and photos)

[Silence]

(sounds of newsreel in background, inaudible conversation)

JAKE GRAY: Textile workers ready to go do (inaudible)!

ESTHER GRAY: (laughs) Just like him.

JAMIE STONEY: The gentleman standing up?

JAKE GRAY: I don't know him.

GEORGE STONEY: What mill is that?

ESTHER GRAY: That's the Parkdale, I think.

GEORGE STONEY: Let's go back on that so you can identify that gentleman. When you see him, just lean forward and touch the screen.

JAKE GRAY: We did that.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok.

[break in video]

GEORGE STONEY: Just when he comes through.

ESTHER GRAY: (inaudible) mill worker.

(sound of newsreel)

ESTHER GRAY: That one.

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

JAMIE STONEY: What was his name?

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

HEFAND: Why do you think he was watching these folks?

ESTHER GRAY: Oh, he just gets into things that happen, that go on.

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

GEORGE STONEY: You can turn it up on the bottom.

MAN ON NEWSREEL: We come over here this morning to help you (inaudible) manufacturing company. Which is the same, from the same chain of mills as Parkdale.

ESTHER GRAY: That's not right.

JAKE GRAY: That's completely erroneous. Smeyer was an independent mill and so was the Parkdale. There wasn't no connection whatsoever.

ESTHER GRAY: (inaudible)

MAN ON NEWSREEL: -- A union local here. I know you can have a good union local. 00:22:00We just talked to the superintendents, he (inaudible) I've come out here to (inaudible).

(phone ringing)

MAN ON NEWSREEL: (inaudible)

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

ESTHER GRAY: I don't hear that man in here.

MAN ON NEWSREEL: I went back—I went back for another conference with the superintendent and he asked me how long we'd give him to (inaudible), which we realized that we have to give up time to raise your wages and give up (inaudible), because we want to work again.

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

MAN ON NEWSREEL: we want better conditions when we work again. (cheering) I told him we'd 00:23:00give him time to take the weight off of his rollers, (inaudible). He's asked me if we will give him to ten o'clock, and I told him yes! He said he'd stop off at ten o'clock. (cheering)

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible) superintendent.

ESTHER GRAY: Yeah (inaudible)

JAKE GRAY: Well, you always took the weights off the rolls, because if you didn't it would flatten out the rolls and make it bumpy and it'd make bad yarn. Over the spinning frames(inaudible) That's Parkdale, all right, but they may have shut down, but they wouldn't give a damn at that time because 1934 business was so bad they didn't care whether they was running or not. That's why the 00:24:00strike was so ill-timed (inaudible) joined the union where they took out any dues.

ESTHER GRAY: They still don't today, do they?

JAKE GRAY: No. They still don't have a union. See, the Eagle, but it's all gone down.

ESTHER GRAY: Now torn down.

(sounds of typing and inaudible voices on the newsreel)

ESTHER GRAY: (inaudible)

JAKE GRAY: That's the dirt road.

ESTHER GRAY: That's Firestone.

JAKE GRAY: That's Firestone right (inaudible). There's the office there. I don't recognize anyone.

ESTHER GRAY: And they don't seem to be marching.

JAKE GRAY: They just swarming like a bunch of bees

ESTHER GRAY: Look like they're changing hands, ah, shifts to me. JAKE GRAY: That's what it looks like it is.

ESTHER GRAY: It's just changing hands.

JAKE GRAY: That's all they's doing there was changing shifts. They ain't striking. They just changing shifts.

ESTHER GRAY: About 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible) I don't know whether that'as the correct time or not.

(inaudible voices on the newsreel)

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

ESTHER GRAY: Is that the Firestone Mill there? (inaudible) And where is this?

JAKE GRAY: I don't have any idey where it is.

ESTHER GRAY: I don't think that's the Firestone.

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible) mill.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you know how many people were in the flying squadron that came to your mills?

JAKE GRAY: Oh, I'd say 10 or 15. They never did get organized. That's what happened to 'em. They never got a single mill to be -- they -- they wanted (inaudible), but they never got one mill to do that.

ESTHER GRAY: That's not Gastonia.

JAKE GRAY: No, that's not Gastonia. They let it go at that. That's what they 00:27:00did, they let it go at that. (inaudible)

ESTHER GRAY: Yeah. He was superintendent for 11 years.

JAKE GRAY: Forty.

ESTHER GRAY: Forty?

JAKE GRAY: Yeah, 40 years.

(sound of newsreel in background)

ESTHER GRAY: (inaudible)

JAKE GRAY: Yes.

ESTHER GRAY: That's Gastonia.

JAKE GRAY: Where is that?

ESTHER GRAY: That's Gastonia, up at the -- that's the (inaudible) Church right there. See it?

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

(sound of newsreel in background)

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

ESTHER GRAY: Well, that's the only one we recognize.

JAKE GRAY: Yeah. (inaudible)

ESTHER GRAY: (inaudible) of cars. Is that what it's supposed to be?

JAKE GRAY: Uh hum.

MAN ON NEWSREEL: The great textile strike spreads here (inaudible) Gastonia, North Carolina.

(cheering on newsreel)

ESTHER GRAY: That's down by (inaudible).

MAN ON NEWSREEL: Over 200,000 are out in the southern states where already lives have been lost and many wounded. At the first reports of bloodshed in the Carolinas and Georgia, President Roosevelt appointed a special mediation board --

JAKE GRAY: (inaudible)

MAN ON NEWSREEL: Mass meetings and strike orators help to fan the flames. (inaudible)A mile of mills lie idle in lower Massachusetts with the workers crowding the streets.

[break in video]

ESTHER GRAY: Well, we didn't see anything.

GEORGE STONEY: Well, I think you did very well. Now could you describe -- the strikers very often used picker sticks. Could you describe why they would use the picker sticks and what picker sticks were?

JAKE GRAY: Picker sticks? I thought picker sticks were on looms. We had no looms in Gastonia.

ESTHER GRAY: Did at Kramerton.

JAKE GRAY: The Kramerton had looms, but we had no looms in Gastonia, haven't 00:30:00today. The picker stick is a piece that carried filling through the loom.

ESTHER GRAY: Makes the shuttle go through the loom.

JAKE GRAY: A picker stick also (inaudible) like a shuttle to go through the looms.

GEORGE STONEY: Why would they use that as a weapon?

JAKE GRAY: Because it was a good hard piece of wood.

ESTHER GRAY: And sharp.

JAKE GRAY: Sharp, too. Very sharp.

GEORGE STONEY: So they would be available?

JAKE GRAY: Oh, yeah -- in the weaving mills.

ESTHER GRAY: In the weaving mills.

JAKE GRAY: But down here they would probably use, if they used anything, which I don't know that they ever did, never heard of it -- they would use a regular spindle off a spinning (inaudible).