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Spencer Mill Village
Spindele, N. C.
September 28, 1938
I. L. M.
ELLIE ROBERTSON
She lives in one of the better -kept mill houses
located on Spindale St. Her yard is clean, her porch
lined with flower boxes. A lacy, luxuriously -fronded
fern graces the front entrance. Not fel' from it an
enormous begonia droops with waxy red blooms. There
are petunias end marigolds blooming about her doorstep.
A big -leafed vine shades half of her porch. The vine
makes o cool nook for the swing in which she occosionly
spends en hour or so during the summer time. She loves
her home end she loves to stay in it.
She cares very little for picture shows and she
has never cultivated an interest in other forms of
amusement. Her husband likes srucre dances end goes
to them. She stays at home with the children. The
children, like their mother, have little interest in
picture shows except when Shirley Temple is on. The
oldest girl became frightened at a terrific fire scene
in a picture when she was six years old. She was
unaccompanied by on older person, and was with a child
from across the street. Badly frightened she rain out
of the chow and home to her mother. Her mother says
it was perhaps a good thing that she got scared then.
She has never given her the trouble some children give
their mothers in wanting to go to more shows than they
can afford.
Ellie is industrious and devotes much of her time
to washing, ironing, cooking, and sewing for her family.
Bow in late September she and the children are digging
a pit for keeping the flowers during the winter months.
There are two pieces of furniture in Ellie's house
of whioh she is very proud. One is a big -cabinet radio
and the other is a GE frigidaire. She keeps a clean
house and a certain amount of order despite the many
china cats, dogs, and other gewgaws which adorn the
place. She becomes irritated at the thought -that the
mill company is so slow in repainting the houses,
particularly the interior. "My notion is the superinten-
dent is just a cheap guy and he don't won't to spend any
more money on the houses than he can help," she says.
"He likes to save all the money that's made for the
company. They've promised me pome new back doorsteps
for six months and I haven't got lem yet. It's been
talked that they are goin, to sell all their houses
end we'll have to rent 'em at a sight higher rent. If
they do that, they'll be bound to raise wages some or
there'll be plenty that caint live on what they make.
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It would be hard on us and Jack gettin' one of the
best wages in the mill."
Elite's husband makes $30 a week. She thinks he
boa done so well because he's stuck to his work, always
putting work first and never thinking of such e thing
as asking for a day off. And too, he has elwsye been
bandy with machinery. That, she thinks, had a lot to
do with his getting to be second hand in the weave room.
They were married when she was eighteen and he was
seventeen. They had been neighbors always, living on
mountain farms not far apart up in the Chimney Rock
section. Elite's father owned about a hundred sores
of land, a large part of it in mountain pasture. But
there were acres down below where they raised corn,
beans, potatoes, cabbage mor4then wee needed for
home coneumption. llie's father took the surplus to
market and brought back cash which he saved for tax
money.
Everybody worked on that farm. Ellie herself
could hoe before she was seven. She remembers long,
back -breaking days of fodder -pulling, been -picking,
and hoeing.
In the winter Ellie attended the near -by country
school until she had completed the.seventh grade. Her
father had gone to school two months. "But he's a
sight better scholar than I am,* Ellie goys. °Bobody
r "r
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could fool him at figgers and he always keeps up with
what's in the newspaper.*
Ellie and Jack moved to the mill as soon as they
were married. Jack started off in the weave room and
made good. It Pao 1919 and wages were high. Ellie
and Jack boarded that first year and began buying their
furniture on the installment plan. They had a bedroom
suite paid for when they started housekeeping et the
beginning of their second year.
They wore married three years before their first
child was born. The fourth end last was born during
the big strike of 1934. *Strikers from the mills down
below come here and took charge," flue explains. *They
was against the stretch -out that had just come on.
They stopped the mill for awhile and plenty here in
Spindtle that joined lost their jobs. I remember like
it was yesterday leyint in there in the bed and watchini
fifteen or twenty Spencer workers march up end down the
street carryin' the United States flag and yelling out
to the rest of the workers to join in a fight for their
rights. They never got no new members end finally
they auit. Jim went back to work as soon as the boss
men got in charge and opened the mill up agin. He's
never missed many days the thirteen year he's been here.
I
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"I've knowed people though that's been willinl
to work and somehow couldn't get along. I know a
woman that had saved and bought her own house, and
took care of her sick mother too. Her husband got out
of a job and she was cut down to one day's work a week.
Her mother died and she didn't have money to bury her
with. That was one Friday night beck in the summer.
Up to late Saturday they didn't know whether they was
goin, to be able to bury her or not. Some of the
neighbors went around end took up a collection to pay
the grave diggers and buy the lot. Then this woman
made arrangements with the undertaker end they got her
mother buried Sunday mornin'. I heard the other day
she was losin' her place end I expect she has held it
long as she can.
"A collection come hard beck then because so many
people wasn't gettin' full time. I've been glad that
Jim's got to work so steady. Up to now we haven't
had to draw any rocking chair money. That's what
they call the unemployment money, you know. Of course
nobody don't know in these times when they'll be laid
off. Jim' 11 work as long as he can get work though.$