Document text
November I, 1938.
Miles. T. Mathis, Dessa May Mathis, Jackie Mathis,
1212 Louise Avenue,
Charlotte, N. C.
Robert V. Ailliams, writer.
THE MATHIS FAMILY
Names
Dessa May Mathis
Miles T. Mathis
High Shoals
Henry Ledford
Olin
Kings Mountain
Jack
Lancaster, S. C.
Charlotte
Allen St.
Walter
Ivey's Dining Roam
Z.)
ClAwed Names.
Betsy Jane Cathar
Leslie Cathar
Long Shoals
liark. Branner
Seth
Bixton
Ben
Worcester, S. C.
Queenstown
Derby St.
Charles
Lowry's Dining Roan
dc.;44.4-
1 ise Avenue
Ch a te, N. C.
Noy er 1, 193/1
R.
The justice of the peace pronounced them man and wife and
for good measure threw in *Whom therefore God hath joined together
lifo*.z-7"
let no man put asunder." and :ales were so young and
nervous that they hardly noticed that, but years later they thought
of it end were kind of glad.
4Alee was seventeen, but to fresh down to the
plains fro n the Great Smoky Mountains, he was something to look
un to. Her sister was there in Nigh Monis to live with, but she
4111 -*4-
pnd planned. to get married son sowas
4004
pi...44+44es asked her becalee of that as well as because she liked
hin
It was Sister's letters telling how fine it was to work in
the cotton mill that brought Deee4e to
Shoals. Bee,: in the
4
rountains it wasn't much fun. Her fther, Mettrr-Sedford., worked
Ell the time on his frJir, but von so he 11-7A to keep selling it
off, piece by piece, until it got down to about thirty acres when
it hrd been two hundred. There were ten children and six of them
were little, so Illeeele thought she'd better get out. The family
felt it would be nice for her am.H helped get her ready. "Reckon
they thought there'd be more to eat for the rest of 'em," Dessie
always says.
Little did she think that next year at sixteen she would.
2
be marrying a fine man like t4144 and living in a town with
mere than a thousand people in it and stores end a oicture snow
end entemobiles and neiehbors. Tee hardest thini to take in was
that she vs being paid to wort.
e
Ales had also been raised on a farm, but not n slfenty one
hanging to the side of P mountain like DeeedwEe. It wee in
Lincoln County, in pretty rolling country, and it would have been
fine to wort if only *iles0 frther, 414e, had net been so biggity
in his ideas and tried to buy it instead of being willing to rent
or to work it on shares end net have the burden of ownership.
eee
Olin bought it in 1919, and 4iles says thet every little bit they
ea went into that blasted fare and there never was enough of
anything. Re and hie twin brother were the only boys among the
nine kids so the work was heavy eeelenty.
Allem does hate a. farm.
That one killed his mother. Reek -breaking work heA to be
carried on the Whole tine ell the babiee were coring, and he
always tried to help her whenever he could but the time he could
take awae from his own chores wasn't enough. Re loft school in
the sixth grade to have more tine. Re saw that his mother was
felling ad that 014n couldn't pay for doctors and medicine for
e
trying to eay the interest on the farm loan, so he went to irligh-
Shoals to get t: job in the textile mills. Re earned A.2 a 'leek
and seat most of it back for her but then it VSA too lets for
medicine. Tour weeks after he found wore his mother died.
44 144 I
Soon afterwards he met Demete. She was sweet and he was
lonely and sad, and they both hated the farm beck home. They
each made $12 a I/sok and that was the Lord's own plenty in 1140
Shoals in 1927. This was the first tine either had ever been
real happy.
But not long after the wedding, part of the mill shut down
and Mile* was out of job. Things were not as bad as they might
be while Beeeige was still working. but Miles felt only half a man
and didn't like it. He went to Iimet-Neum4erin with a recommendation
2,,t k.> c:
from the High Shoals superintendent and got work in the-fteem4s44411.
Soon afterwards bombe joined him and then things were slow for the
next three years. Pint 4Alee would be out and then his wife. They
managed to get by, living in one furnished room, but at the end of
the third year in Kftre-Meeata4a they were both pi:0Mb out of work.
There was nothing to do but to get out and find another job and the
two of them hitchhiked back to 1140 Shoals. In a little while
3040440 had pot ten a few hours a week and later Hiles was put on
part time.
They said in 191 that oros)erity was just around the corner
e
but 4Alee and Deesle couldn't find it. 1932 was just less work at
the mill. That year the boy was born on April 14 and was called
I t
441144 after the foreman of the mill. Mae, was facing blackness
those days, and a letter from his twin brother, who had also left
0 040
the farm, telling that there was work in Lememe4ior, S. 3., was the
best news he got in 1934.
4
Ten months of steady work in Ieneeetor at $15 a week did
help some but as suddenly as he had gotten it the work there was
over. Shut -down.
So in 1935 Mlles, beet, and the baby took the last few
dollars and their little old belongings to Checle44e. Desetele
sister was living there out on Allen Street and they went to that
little crowded house until Mlles could gat a job.
'Eaght years had gone by since they had stood before the
j. p. in iLigh Shoals and now they knew that mill life could be
as har,4 as the farm. But they never once would hear of going
bae,,: to the country. No more farms.
M4144 now had eight mill years behind him. That got him
r 0 0
a place at-tne-Chada4ekoNorktus-fit-117-ptont-#4, in the weave
room as a weaver, earning $18 a week. That was good, but it was
better when after a while -,Dee,441 also vent on at $12 a week.
with thirty dollars coming in every Saturday they set out to get
home to themselves for once.
They rented one of the company houses, in a lone row of
gray frame things set on brick pillars, all alike. The rent,
lights, and water came to seventy-five cents a week. Down pay-
ments brought in fine furniture from a "downtown" store. Behind
the house was a half -acre garden plot with a nice brick out -house
at the far end. With a house to themselves, their own furniture,
a garden of their own, no landladies, no more living with kin-
folks, and no more tarnished rooms, 1936 in Oberkette was finer
than iftgh Shoals in 1927.
DelesSie had always wanted a nice bedroom suite with the new
kind of springs and mattress. At the furniture store she chose
one the clerk said vas FRollywooe style. It went in the front
room right off from the front porch. There wasn't e living room
so that room had to be the sittine- room too. Just inside the
ee-se-
door beside the bed they put the radio that 4.6.44 loved. She
t
turned it on when Selee woke ue and never turned it off again
till they hit the bed at night. Swine songs were all right but
best of ell were the old-time fieeline tunes. To the left in
front of closed-u fire elece 'he covered tnh made a good
itleet. For the for side of the roon they found e nice dresser
tkvet ?vete, covered fleetly with hendmade scarf, and lit
rocker in the other corner. She liked to keep the frilly cur-
tains orisn and ti 4 and the rose-colored reyoe bedspreae seloth;
the bright flowered. rug WPS too pretty to let. get dirty. The
,-e
two sneller rooms were the eitchee ene efeteeteeleebeeroort, where
they out en extre be for co -'en. For the kitchen Nelse msde
e csbinet and worktable end stool. He :leintee the icebox ereen
ene white ene: hune over it e frerec7 eicture of the Lone Ranger
thet •.hey all liked to Infer et.
The tenth yer ef merriege fnune ther doine veil, not like
DeeelkteLe sister, the one they ha e stsyeA with when they came to
elterle44* five years before. :Roth the eirl end her husbeed were
out of work, end for vel months they end the lived on '7
6
a week given them by tieliote and Miles. Kiley made friends and
was so daffy about paying bills that he had good credit.
On January 23, 1937 his father. 014m, after a short sickness,
„e e
died. There was no insurance and it fell to M4lee and his twin
to stand the expense of the funeral. M4Les went to the grocer,
and without a word the man endorsed a hundred and fifty dollar
Citizens Loan Bank note for him. Through regular permeate of
four or five dollars at a timE the note was paid off. Lots of
times titer that they borrowed twenty-five or fifty, not only
for sudden calls but for such things as new clothes for the whole
/40 -at i;
family or for a bus trip to the LeAteed home way back in the
mountrAns to see Deee4sta folks.
4.40(
It was a treat to the old ones to see little Jackie. Out
--e
of the ten Ledford children only one, the youngest boy, had stay-
ed home. On these trips there was always news of We14er, the
oldest, who had been wounded and gassed in France during the
-4orld 'oder. He had since been -,laced in an insane asylum over
in Tennessee and his health had always been a deep worry for the
whole family.
4in
44 -lot loved the trips up to sole man Ledford -Le." There was
always hunting, and a day or two of good fishing, when, at times,
the fishing quiet was broken by a good argument on politics. The
Led4Orde had always been hot Republicans in spite of the fact
that the whole neighborhood were Democrats. M4lee could always
stunp his father-in-law by pointing out that six of the bettgoatd
kids had "seen the light and turned Democrats." FUrthermore, he
liked to tell the old man, if 'Hoover had stayed in office four
years more all the old fellow's Democrat sos-in-law"s would have
e I
ha' to send their wives bret: home to eat. Old i.e4ferd would
rnsver thrt with a lot of noise Find sometimes lead the way to
the stash.out up in thr hay loft, though no one could ,A,er call
either of them a drinkinr man.
Once )41414 was takinr a weelcend fishing trip to Myrtle Beach
with four other workers. With tw, hundred miles to cover the
driver went too fast and the old CPT fell to pieces on a curve.
?Ulan was the only one hurt rmy ways bad aid his injuries weren't
mucn so he soon act well. Mut at first he thought he was dead.
Only half himself frov the shock, he could hear faint -like whisoers
saying, "Re's dead. He's dead. Tio's dead. He's dead."
"That," he stye, not bein57 funny, "is the only time I ever
wished I'd joined the church. SorotImes we c,o to the Church of
God, the one they cell the Tqy Boll,rs. They iT;ot 301u:thin'.
I don't know exactly what it is, but they got it. e never join,.
ed though. About therm other ohilrohes, I don't now. y folks
was all Bebtiso and Dee44414 was all .•ethodiss, but I don't ;mow.
I don't ,:now why we Aon't ns7er to the-' churches. 1 don't
"rn
14
His e,os look m-zleA whe he talks tbout it.
t
Wklee never ves r big van but he liked athletes, specially
wmstlers and boxers. Re saw an advertisement in a cowboy rigaga,
zine of a corresoondence course in How To Be a Nan, and the
picture that went with it was of a man the like of which he had
never seen, a man dressed in nothing but a, littlr: fur -piece and
laid over with a set of muscles that bulged like all get -out.
Reianswered the advertisement and was offered the course
for $35. That was too much so he gave it u- and didn't answer
the letter. Soon came another saying he could take the course
for $30 if he would enroll at once. He couldn't afford that
either, and more letters came, each offering the whole course
for 5 less than the one before, providing he would enroll at
once. When the offer got down to $5 he feared that would be the
last and sent a $5 bill to the company.
He was hard bent on studying How To Be a Han, and memorized
the rules carefully. He did all the things they said about
exercise, posture, breathing, and pure thoughts. He lair down
to Delmrie an unheard-of new rule of two green vegetables a day,
and cut his coffee down to two cups at breakfast.
When he started he weighed 135 pounds and in a few months
e
he had got WO to 170. Tiese4e always had been small and thin,
but her skin improved and she was a. lot prettier, and she said
she somehow felt pearter. They decided Clat if too much coffee
was bad for n, grown man they'd better quit giving it to Jeekte.
at all.
t
It got so Mlles could ltc anybody
the weave room, which
g good thing, he thou -ht, becausethe head man ought to be
the beet nem. Be was a fixer then, and instead of operating the
loom, as an expert mechanic he kept them in reapir. Ae had been
reised to 4a a weak more than anybody but the boss!"
i. little while fter the promotion isea4 was laid_ off when
one kind of meehiee was thrown out. Aiimpel-new Immo were 2:00
pal to 10:20 pa, leaving him the morning hours free time. To mks
6rteet
up for Beee4ele lost wages he got the still village agency for a
nutual Burial Association, getting 250 coxaissiot for eecl policy
he sold. le the first eight months with the company he sold more
thee 500.
eeloseAM wanted to go bee& to work, but they wouldn't take
her. Ale* said the "aill" wouldn't let her, that "they* thought
there would be too much money in the family and they would want
to pick up and go.
he was kind of prowl of that. It as a compliment froe the
bosees.
".hey're pretty goot fellers," he alweys says. "Lot L one
of ter thet don't call as by u,y first name. :.very year twin
41
,L471-.Wd
they have the big lunch meeting at Beetiam Dieine Boon I set right
at the table with 'se all and the;' don't act like but Yhat
one of lcm. 11123.41. fellers!'
2414a has been to the big lunch reetin, only once, becauee
it was only in the past year that be wae promoted tc fixer and
az a weaver ho wouldn't have bee- asked to go. The invited list
starts with fixers and ends up with the President.
e../
Seeele started to school in 1938. Besuisim education, like
-10
Milan', ended in the sixth grade, and both are determined that
Ya--elete- ht -411 finish high school.
"My kid's not gonna be no weaver,* A4les says.
him. kriatint."
sNo mill for