Document text
December 29, 1938.
kra. Georgia Lunsford (white).
288 :Aate Street,
'oest AsrAeville,1'i C.
Laundress
Anne iinn Stevens, writer,
Idwin :bjorkman, reviser.
LiRS. Gif.ORGIA LUbSFORD
No names changed.
Worker; Anne Stevens
December 29, 1938
Asheville, iorth Carolina
LUNSFORD
MTS. Georgia Lunsford
288 State Street,
West Asheville, N. C.
"When I was three years old," said Georgia Lunsford, "I
went to work in my father's blacksmith shop. My brothers
had left home and were working, in Tennessee. So my sister
and I took time about turning the wheel that worked the
bellows. I was so small that I had to stand on a box.
"We lived then in a farm houL.e at Haw Creek. The farm
belongA_ to my father, but he rented it to a, Negro and worked
in the blacksmith shop next door. When anyone says to me
today, 'Since you was brought up on a farm, Mrs. Lunsford,
you must know right smart about farming,'. I says to them,
'No, I was raised to be a good blacksmith.'"
Georgia Cordell,as she was known theniwas born in a
farm house on what is now the site of Lake James, N. C. But
whiie she was still an infant, her family moved to Tennessee.
'After the death of her mother in Georgia's third 'car, her
father settled down at Haw Creek in Buncom.be County.
Georgia shows quite markedly her Irish descent. She is
the black-hairedblue-eyed, rosy -checked Irish type, with
long black eyelashes. AS a young girl, she must have been
quite prettye, jzzigic=s=ft==i332=0±=trk:;2=± Now in the middle
forties she looks somewhat jaded, thouh she still puts up a
good appearance when "fixed up."
t/
After my mother's death, my father married again," con-
tinued Georgia. "My step -mother treated me very cruelly.
As soon as I was old enough, I went to the Haw Creek School
in the morning, and stayed with my father in the blacksmith
shop in the afternoon.
"When I was thirteen, I decided I could do better for
myself; so I run away and got work in Mrs. Israel's boarding
house on Victoria Road, Asheville. In the mornings I went
to the Pease School, on what is now the campus of the Ashe-
ville Normal and Teachers' College, and in the afternoons
I worked at Mrs. Israel's.
"Mrs. Israel give me a room and board and a dollar a
week. I though I was rich! Her boarders was all T. B.
patients, but that didn't mean a thing to me,then."
After Georgia had worked in the boarding house several
months, a teacher in the Pease School got her into the dor-
mitory for under -privileged children, and found a place there,
too, for one of Georgia's sisters. When two years later the
sister died of pneumonia, Georgia was so unhappy that she left
school and returned to Mrs. Israel's boarding house as a gen-
eral house -worker. she now received room, board, and three
dollars a week. In a succession of boarding houses, her work
and Day was the same.
-44e He had had been *a drinker but
4.47+41Cp-4„. 4,-14,„,
For three years, also, she was nurse maid in the home
of Tudge Fraziiir Glenn, Sr. When the Glenn children had
whopping cough, she would be awakened at two or three
o'clock in the morning by a tap at her door, to hear Tudge
Glenn saying; "Georgia, the children are crying for you."
Then she would sit in the nursery with a child on each
knee, and try to soothe them as she struggled to keep awake.
"Years afterward," she says, "When my own children had
whooping coushII remembered that experience."
When she was still in her teens, mk an evening of
A
Georgia met T. L. Lunsford,
to whom after several months of deliberation she was married.
e Er
He
owned a home in a desirable neighborhood on Pearson Drive,
Asheville. The family for whom Georgia was working at the
time approved of him. All Georgia's friends considered her
marriage fortunate.
But she had been m,rried only two weeks when he went on
a drunken spree, and "took to staying out nights." The Clarkes,
for whom Georgia had worked last, offered to give her back her
job and counseled divorce; but Georgia had been taught to con-
sider divorce wicked. She decided to "stick it out."
N.C.-4-
"If I had divorced him right then," she says, "I wouldn't
be in the fix I em now."
In the next fifteen years, Georgia had born seven children:
a daughter and six sons. Her husband)though "getting around
thirty-five dollars a week," drank heavily, wasted his wages,
and was a poor provider. But let Georgia resume her story.
"'While we was living on Pearson Drive, Lunsford was getting
five dollars a day working in the gas room of the Carolina
Power and Light Company. But he spent most of his money on
women and drink, and gave me hardly none. I had to take in
washing to get along. I made the children's clothes out of
their father's cast off clothing. I used to make the boys'
blouses out of his shirt tails when the neck and sleeves of
the shirts had wore out. I even made their socks out of the
tops of his socks when the feet had wore out.
"I used to pray every night to be brave enough to leave
him. But I was afraid to. He had MB cowed. He had an awful
temper, and he was jealous. If a man so much as looked at me,
he accused me of being unfaithful to him.
"I would look ahead and plan to leave him as soon as my
youngest baby was two or three years old, VII that time I was
pregnant again.
•.1 ---couldn't have stood living with him, though, if it
hadn't been for the children. They were all I had to live
for.
"When Lloyd, my next to the youngest, was born I was
terribly ill. And when Jack, my youngestiwas born I came
near dying. The doctor told Lunsford I must never have
another child.
"Miss Luss, a neighbor, was a Christian Scientist. She
used to try to pursuade me to join the Christian Science
Church. She said as how her pa)who was sick, and mean to
his family, and close with his moneylwas changed by Science
after she had prayed for him for years. He got well, left
off his cruel ways, and was good to his folks.
"I saw, too, how she was helped by Christian Science
when she broke her arm. The healer just tied a rag around
the break, and prayed, and read the Bible and Mrs. Eddy every
day. After a while the bone really did knit all straight
and clean.
"So I went to the Christian Science Church for six months,
and sent the children to the Christian Science Sunday School,
I did get tired, though, hearing of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy all
the time. It wastMrs. Mary Ba-cer Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddyt
'til I was sick of her; but if Christian Science could make a
better man of Lunsford I was all for it.
"But it seemed that the more I went in for Science, the
worse Lunsford got. He even took to cursing Christian Science.
Then I seen it was no use; so I give it up.
"How I came finally to leave Lunsford was this: One
night he brought in five gallons of home brew and got dead
drunk. The next morning I tried to wake him up to go to
work, and the children tried. But it wasn't any use. Late
in the afternoon he woke up. When he saw how late it was,
and that he had lost a day's work, he blamed Bob, the next
to the oldest boy, for not waking him.
"To punish Bob, he made him bring out, one by one, the
fifty jars of fruit and Vegetables I had canned during the
summer. I had bought most of the material with my own money.
Then he throwed each can often the porch and smashed it. The
smaller children, who didn't know any better, laughed, think-
ing it was a game.
"While he was doing this, I poured what was left of the
home brew into the sink."
"Are you all through?"
With that he raised his arm to
strike me. Then Joe,
Ott./
eldest boy, grabbed the poker from the kitchen stove and
tried to hit his father over the head.
"You let my ma alonet he said, tor I'll kill you.'
"With that Lunsford pushed Joe offen the porch. It was
just Providence that kept the child from fa]7,ing into the
broken glass.
"By that time one of the neighbors had telephoned for
the police. When Lunsford saw the neighbors had set the
law on him he ran off.
"Then it seemed to me the strength I had been praying
for come all at once. It was like a great hole had opened
up in a high wall, and I walked straight through it.
ftI put jack, the baby, in the goat wagon, and I tied a
rope on the Jersey cow, and we set out down the street, Edith,
my oldest, she was fifteen then, leading the cow, and I pull-
ing Jack in the goat wagon, and the other five boys trudging
along.
nitwas eleven o'clock at night, but I started out to walk
AL7
four miles to my sister's over4Bingham Heights. It wasn't
funny at the times 4ut many a time since I have laughed to
myself at the picture we must have made.
"It was bright moonlight, and there we was walking in the
middle of the street, the goat wagon creaking and rattling, and
the cow going clipperty-clop, clipperty-clop, over the pavement."
Bat the next day Georgia sam* back to Pearson Drive, aft4-
A
aided and abetted by her neighbors set up housekeeping for her-
self and children.
"I seen," she said, "that if my boys was to be brought up
to be decent men, it was up to me. What ideas of life would
they get from their father?"
A neighbor, Mrs. Atkinson, owned a house for rent in the
neighborhood. She allowed Georgia tp live in it, rent free.
She and another neighbor, Mrs. Huff, canvased their friends
for contributions of out -grown clothing for Edith and the
boys. Mrs. Atkinsonfs "rich sister up -orth" contributed
clothing for the whole family.
The head of the Associated Charities, helped
Georgia find work. Georgia soon found plenty to do nursing
T. B. cases and maternity cases sent her,bir For
A
t_lis work she received from seven to ten dollars a week. The
patients wee for the most part on charity/and limn. paid for
by a church or by the Associated Charities.
74'4,
Edith, G.eorgi-64-s fifteen -year old daught7,kept house and
looked after the boys/ with the help of interested neighbors.
ene- 2.to,„,..,7,ac
AM$w. having been on duty on a case all night, Georgia
6
was having her breakfast at a cafeteria when an acquaintance
hailed her.
"Have you seen the morning paper, Mrs. Lunsford," she
asked.
Georgia had not seen it.
"It says as how J. L. Lunsfordts house on Pearson Drive
burned down last night. Be he your husband?"
Georgia's heairskipped a beat. The house she was liv-
ing in was next door. jamn:i2±3:fiiiehl
rr
But on second thought she camer. If anything had
A
happened to tawm4 Mrs. Atkinson or some other of the neigh-
bors would have telephoned.
She hastened home to find the children
safe. But witetr..,
aro&-w-c-letzor,"•—• 4.'?"-ir 4
Lunsford had moved is t
A
and was helping Edith get breakfast.
A a.41
"Later, when I could get him to myselfAaway from the
children, I sent him packing," -sail-said. "All he wanted
A
was for us to support him."
lilbacatdaIla4 He had lost his job with the Power and Light
Companytbut he collected Nt.ttkpatv-kuadizGutinsurqnce on the
house. Of this Georgia obtained from the court hne hundred
eem.er.
dollars?thael Lunsford was ordered by tlie Ja4gbe to pay
A
15540111;541 toward the support of the children.
hx,(7- Zge^ri oar.. --,i4 ovd.opy
But Georgia could not collect it. In some miabc4
4.as.7ad
4
borrow,' the Aagd back from the judge.
had started started a trucking business, )6rom the profits Git=1;47;gt.
a- 4r
he was to pay4monthlyAt1i the support of the children.
"The idea they were working on was a good one," continued
Georgia, "They was to take a truck load of apples down to
Ha=smi a friend
Florida, sell the apples there, and brin back a truck load of
oranges to be sold in Asheville.
AiTley sold the apples Apia&Elowsixlapo all right /‘/Iii,4116
auz-Ze.
they had to celebrate by going on a spreel Ttqr=meed all
the money, awl- Lunsford wri-cked the trek by his drunken
driving."
Georgia now had a better job. *he was employed to assist
in the infirmary of the Asheville School for Boys, at a weekly
wage of twelve and a half dollars. She rented a four.,,roam0
cottage et=tdrim=tizi±ptetzmtizatittgadiettel. not far from the school
and installed Adith and the boysothm==
A
"They shifted for themselves as best they could," she
said.
But ill fortune dogged her. Warren the middle child fell
4,4-ee
out of a treeeall ruptured a kidney, ifs developed convulsions.
Georgia got leave of absence from the school to nurse him. And
in the midst of this calamity,y/bao4.4Qame. her husband from Florida,
penniless and jobless, and expecting her to support him.
So when she learned of a call for a woman to conduct the
laundry at the Crossnore School, seventy miles away, she immed-
iately applied.
The manager bring
XE,
4--gne 4-g. /0 4. iave-rie
the six boysif)
ffe-
-41L-44
Lki-e
deilars
uitJ1.1. L11.
4.4.41C
at) f
he sold most of the furnitureA rented a truck for
fifteen dollarser 41114 Vith a load of bed -room furniture which
.she had been encouraged to take
4
of caballed vegetables and fruits of her
two cows, a lot
own canning, six boys,
and a shepherd dog, she started for_Crossnore_.2
truck driver lost the road.
"We arrived
in the morning?
Ehtitit-me-a66-
at Crossnore." A -1J qww,0a.Troat four o'clock
"The boys had piled everything into the truck
for me the afternoon before.
for the canned stuff, I don't
some sausage there, too, that
Crossnore teachers confessed,
We must have looked a sight. As
know where it went. There was
I never found. Some of the
after they knew me better, that
they had found it and fried it for their own breakfasts."
The Crossnore School for underprivileged children is
situated
some
on a rocky, wooded mountain side at an1.titude of
hundred feet.
Tiae
A
uildings at that ti-rie,13
crude ,.._and
smoky, draughty structures/ built by mountain
labor. ah-ly-eile-4ermItetay, fer high lipahool girls by
contributions from the D.A.R„ was new and modern. The plant
under a former management had gone deeply in debt, and the
equipment had been allowed to run down.
Several buildings, more or less poorly heated, housed the
Altamont Consolidated Rural bchool. The teacher's for this
were employed by the State on the salary scale set by the
State. Buses brought in children rrom the surrounding dis-
tricts, and the coursSe of study conformed to the btate sche-
dule.
In addition, two hundred young people between the ages
of six and twenty years woe housed in the dormitories.
Besides the teachers provided- b the State, the teaching
force was supplemented by so-called volunteer workers, who
taught Bible, weaving, sewing, shopwork, and regular public
school subjects in those grades that were over -crowded. The
volunteers were in most cases young college, normal, and Bible
school graduates. in search or experience, or fired by love of
adventure, or by missionary zeal. They were given room, board,
and fifteen dollars a month in cash. As this was in the early
upheaval oi the depression, 193 ly,>, unuy took what they
could get.
In addition to these volunt,Jer teachers, there were some
eight house mothers, and several other occupational workers who
received room, board, and ten dollars a month. As all*
these volunteers were paid from contributions sent iA by
churches, patriotic organizations, as the D.A.R., sales
from the weaving -room and voluntary contributions from
friends of the manager, the pay was casual and uncertain.
When by a grape -vine telegraph a re-)ort went the rounds
that checks had been received at the office, there was a
stampede among the volunteers, and those who reached the
office first were -Qaid off, as long as the money lasted.
The manager of the school gave her srvices without Day.
Donations of clothing were divided among the children,
scholarships were distributed to the neediest, and children
large enough to be put-on the work lists, were credited to-
ward their board. 4,ven the six -year olds set and cleared
tables, and washed dishes.
The fare was coarse, but fairly well-balanced. Meat
was served the children but once a week, but beans, peas,
and milk made up the protein deficiency. The cheaper vege-
tables and canned fruits were plentiful.
The atmosphere was entirely democratic. No distinctions
were made among the workers whether they were graduates of
Holyoke or Barnard out for adventure, or house mothers like
Aunt Lennie, a mountain woman with a fifth grade education.
Re-CreRtIon was- provided by occasional amateur dramatics,
cross_country hikes, _ballad singing and for the older boys
a4a.cl_ejr1q, nla-Lashianed square dances every Saturday evening.
'But to continue Georgia's story.
She was assigned to the Little Girls' Dormitory. There
she had charge of twenty little girls on the first floor. She
saw that they got up and dressed themselves for a seven o'clock
breakfast, did their various household chores, and got off to
school on time. At odd minutes she mended their clothes. On
Sunday she saw that they were bathed and dressed appropriately,
brushed, and marshalled on foot in neat lines to Sliunday/Chool
in rain Ple--41-11mta snow cr-rtl* tils the Presbyterian Church
on a hillside one mile away.
liess--2 deiGe.
The rest of the time she "ran the laundry" with the aid
of shifts of high school students who tiold have o-tbamw6she
been in study -hall.
Tiorame7was the bedding and clothing for two hundred students,/
Sift forty or more workers and teacherso_-wffwi. the supplies for
the hospital.
The hospital's laundry frequently heeded disinfecting, se
did the bedding and clothing of that dormitory or dormitories
when every now and then ineberieliced house -mothers let scabies
_
or impetigo (caught from pupiles who came in on buses to the
public school) gat a headway.
a-44
a younger house -mother, O'he was given se, room then in the
k A
basement of the Teacherage.
"I was told," she said, "that I could keep my younger
boys with me there if I liked, because there was an outside
entrance t-1ough which they could the
entrance was through the furnace room
teachers.
outsi,4,4
next door. Since the engineer had no key to the outer furnace
room) \W he came through my room every morning to get to
the furnace.
basement hall and the stairs to the first floor were
uhlighted/and Iftdark as pitchi/even in broad daylight. Being
so close to the furnace room, the bedroom was impossible to
keep clean.
"Toe said, 'Mother, I wouldn't stand for this;' but I told
him, 'In two months now you'll graduate from high school son.
Let's wait Itil then. If I complain now, I'll lose my job."
IF 3 r
So Georgia continued the laundry work until May alsol:Toets
•P-sciae47-4-06, AL,ft, 44, fa7
,04,-
&erettrertitytt. 4che had been wt+.101 Crossnoretwo years. Early in
-it51;r-,---7
May she and the six boys, one cow, and the shepherd dog
trekta back to Asheville. 14-'---
Toe and Bobcork jou the
&le,e
AL
Postal Telegraph Joe wEs nineteen then, and Bob sixteen.
Between them they supported the family. Titelr-errek worked from
seven o'clock in the morning till seven in the evening, but
74.
since Toe was quicker Mtelem--41e44 he made nine dollars a week 4,-44
erAlLes4
Bob marlte....u6vaalar...i-a-auswakp. A soliwei, friend Rle-d-rftwr,
A 1417 1-01 1,/;Ta a-e•-ot-
who had a good job la-4owa paid timmla seven dollars a week for
A
room and board. On this weekly income of twenty-three dollars
they lived comfortably.
Later Joe got a job at Enka at twenty dollars a week. The
four younger children were in school., To be A. €-.-L4=
1/ 4
try,r, e At. 4 a=tit /1/--,P'
4;.". '')-v-••p444;
hoysIth-LbAra. Like all beginners,Awaslffia on probation
and worried considerably over the warnings he received tell-
ing hi l he was "falling below production' But he speeded up
his out -put, and finally was given a permanent position. Bob,
meanwhile, continued his work with the otl For
several months the family suffered no mishaps. They were
united, and doing well.
"Come April," said Georgia, "the weather was bad for days.
The roads were that slick, I worried all the time about the
boys on their bicycles. I grew more and more afraid of an
accident. /s,
'One night at nine o'clock, Bob come in all wore out.
'Ma/ he said, feel like I'm getting flu. I ache all
over.'
"I went to help him undress, and get to bed. As he
took off his coat, he felt something hard and bunchy in
an inside pocket.
'Look here, Mal, he said, pulling out a small package.
'Here's a package I forgot to deliver. This is money I've
got to take to a Negro woman to night.'
'You aren't fit to go out again tonight I told him.
"Warren spoke up, 'Lend me your wheel, and I'll take it.'
"Now Warren had never been well and strong since he fell
out of that tree and ruptured a kidney. Once in a while he'd
go into convulsions. When he did, it was usually around nine
or ten o'clock at night t io I said to Lloyd, he was the next
to the youngast; You go with Warren in case he should get
sick.'
"The boys set out with the package. Somehow I felt un-
easy about them, knowing how slick the roads were. Ten o'clock
come, and they still hadn't come home. I worried more and more.
"Then the doorbell rang.
"Bob got up and went to the door. An orficer stood there
leading a bicycle.
"/Son, is this yours?' he asked.
"Yes,' said Bob.
"'Who did you lend it to? said the officer.
"'My brothers, Lloyd and Warren, answered Bob.
"'Sor0 said the officer, 'there's been an accident. Both
boys was killed.'
Georgia hardly knows what took place after that. Somebody
gave her a shot with a stimulant. Neighbors came in and helped
her get to the hospital where the boys had been taken. Lloyd
had been killed instantly. Warren was alive but paralyzed.
The accident had happened on Clingman Avenue. A car full
of young people joy -riding, weaving from side to side of the
slippery street, struck the boys, who were riding close to
the curb.
For six weeks, Warren remained in a plaster cast at the
hospital. Then Georgia took him home, still in the cast. Little
by little he got back the use of his legs, and could get around,
but he will never have the full use of his hands and arms.
A lawyer took over the case for Georgia and collected five
hundred dollars damages, fifty dollars of which went to pay
his own fee. The remainder partially paid Warren's hospital
bills.
"After that," said Georgia, "I was so broken up that I
couldn't go on living in the same house. Lloyd was the best
looking and the sweetest child I had.
Nari4x9-13-14.4.-cistatik I was afraid for Bob to keep on work-
ing. So the next fall I sent him, Warren, and Alvin back
to Crossnore, and kept only Tack with me.
Mr.
Hudgins, an acquaintance, heard and was wanting
to move. iMrs. Lunsford,' he said, II know just the house
for you. I'm moving out of it. It's an old farm house at
the end of State Street, West Asheville. It has a four acre
farm attached to it, and it rents for only five dollars a
month.'"
So Georgia moved into the big two-story stucco house on the
hill -top. On the outside it is quite dilapidated. Tha stucco
has falen off the walls in great patches. Many window panes
in the second story have ANAlia40.4411„. The wide piazza; and the
front steps are full of holes. But,as Georgia says,it looks
better on the inside. The faded green plastering is
A
Georgia has no need for the rooms on the second floor. The
combined dining and living room has a good coal heater, and
the kitchen range, pots, and pans are in good trim. The
bedrooms down stairs are bright and cheerful:"
r
Great oak trees shelter the house in summer, and beyond
the street, the row of neighboring brick bungalows/ and. freshly
painted cottages have pretty gardens.
"It/s a good neighborhood,2,"says Georgia. "The neighbors
understand how things are, and are friendly. Me and Jack
live here all winter. Warren, Bob, and Alvin are back at
Crossnore for the school year. Bob gets his living there
by playing on the football team. Warren works in the print-
ing office and pays his expenses that way. He is really
good at setting type.
Bob will graduate from high school a year from how. Then
he can get a job at Enka. He'll be old enough then. He couldn't
make more than seven dollars a week now, anyway. He works in
filling stations in the holidays, and helps me run the farm
If
in the summer.
Georgia, herself) works in the sewing room of the Eugene+
Rankin School, and cuts out scores of garments a week. She
gets thirty-six dollars a month.
"Joe isn't living with us any more," she says. "He sup-
ported the family for two years, until he was twenty-one. Then
his health began to fail from his work on the 'Graveyard Shift'
at Enka. His feet swelled from standing so much. He got very
nervous. Dr. Brooksher said he had developed a serious kidney
trouble and must give up the work at Enka. He had been treated
for kidney trouble before, when he was at high school at Cross-
nore.
"So he give up the Enka job. He lost his car, too, what
he had paid two hundred dollars on, because now he couldn't
keep up the payments. Besides, he couldn't see why his
brothers couldn't get to work, too. He said they was de-
pending too much on him.
"So Joe went to work with the Periodical Sales, Philadel-
phia. He said he had never been anywhere, and he wanted to
see the world. He's been away up to Niagara and to Canada.
But he went broke in Philadelphia. He says his employer
cheated hi-i out of fifteen dollars. I sent him money until
he could get another job. He worked in Philadelphia a while
as orderly in a Jewish hospital, but he didn't like that much.
So now he is working in a garage and filling station in New
Jersey. But he doesn't help us none. He barely makes his
own expenses. When he's had his fling, I think he'll come
back. His habits was pretty well formed when he left here."
When the boys come homefrom Crossnore in May, the family
takes up farming on the four acres. "We raised corn and po-
tatoes enough last summer to take me through the winter,"
says Georgia. I had a vegetable Tarden and put up one hun-
dreWifty cans of fruit and vegetableh. There is an apple
orchard on the Amgo.utoo* farm. When the boys went back to
Crossnore, I harvested the crop myself."
In the field behind the house, nine stacks of fodder
bore witness to Georgia's work. There is a lean cow grazing
in the field. A flock of leghorn hens occupy the chicken
yard. "I sell eggs, milk and butter, sometimes," said
Georgia. Tack now ten, and a pupil in Eugene Rankin School,
helps me with the cow and chickens.j
I love farming. Some of the old widowers around here say,
"'Mrs. Lunsford, why don't you divorce Lunsford, and marry again,
you'd make some man a good wife.'
XI -tell them the only man I marry must be one who can give
me a hundred acre farm.
"No, the house hasn't a bathroom and all the watei that's
heated must be heated on the range. But my good neighbor
across the street let's me bathe at her house. And when the
boys come home from Crossnore, they don't feel the lack of bath
tubst, this is as good as they get there. They don't like the
looks of the house, though."
Clothing the three boys at Crossnore is a problem, now
Joe no longer helps, and they are too big to be clothed from
the contributions in the Crossnore attic-. Bob has never had
a whole suit of clothes. He wears slacks and sweaters like
the other Crossnore boys. ;Ind how those three boys wear out
shoesl
I/
"None of the boys, Georgia declares) have their father's
temper. None of them has ever taken a drink; not even of beer.
440--J1
Joe is the only one who smokes. All belong to the Nierrretr*-
MOM% Presbyterian Church, even ten-year old Jack."
Georgia is proud of belonging to the 1yurard Read Presby-
terian Church. It is a new and impressive building.
By means of the farm Georgia is able to keep a balanced
diet for herself and the boys, with green beans, canned fruit,
milk and butter, and eggs. But when the boys come home, how
they do eat! She fed them three dozen hot buttered biscuits
in one day, during the Christmas holidays.
She realizes that the boys will never fully understand
the hardships through which she has lived.
"But," she concludes, "I like it here. There's plenty
of good air and sunshine. We aren't crowded up as we'd be
in town. The house needs a lot done to it. But the land-
lord can't be expected to fix it up at the rent I pay. And
what with insurance, and coal, and shoes for the boys, I
can't afford to patch it up. But where could we find anything
else as good for the same price.
1 I pray for is to hold my WPA job in the sewing -room
until Bob graduates from high school and gets a job at Enka.