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Caberrus Mill
Concord, N. C.
September 26, 1938
M. L. W.
JONES I. FREEZE
In 1886 Concord was e village with e red mud main
street, a few stores clustered about a scuere, and one
cotton mill, the McDonald. However, at that time young
J. W. Cannon, e partner in Cannon -.Fetzer Drygoods Store,
was building another cotton mill. Among the workmen
on this job, as bricklayer end carpenter, wee a stolid
*Dutch" farmer from the Gold Hill section of Cebarrus
County. His name was Freese.
Today two of this man's sons have been with Cannon
Mills longer than any other employees. I talked with
Jonie, the younger son, who hes worked in the mill for
forty-nine years. At fifty-nine he is wiry, healthy,
young looking. He awns his own home, a comfortable
two-story bungalow on Corbin Street. The house is
specious and furnished in better taste than many so..
called middle class houses in town.
"I don't know whet good hit'll do you to talk to
me," Janie said modestly, "for I ain't done nothing
much." But he wee really pleased that he had been
sought out and once he started talking he forgot his
shyness.
*When gr. J. W. got ready to open up his mill beck
in 186* he didn't have but thirteen houses for his hands?
That don't sound like many nowadays when many a house
jest has one hand in it, but Mr. J. W. figured if he
hired big families, he could get enough hands in them
thirteen houses to work his mill.
"I reckon that's howcome he wanted us. Anyway
he wrote my father a letter asking him to move his force
to the mill hit was ready to start work. My sister
had that letter, but when she was a -cleaning up sometime
back, she burnt it up. 1 sure hated that; I'd a -give
most anything for that letter.
"I won't never forgit that day in the fall of '86
when we moved in to Concord. We started out before
daylight and hit wee way after dark when we got here.
Hit don't look like :could teke that long to come
sixteen miles, but beck then there jest wesn't anything
you'd cell a road; why two teems always went together
so if one got stuck the other could pull it out. I
was six year old whenever we moved and whet I mainly
remember about that trip is hanging my heed over the
side of the wagon so thet I got my chin bumped under-
neath when we hit the pine log road.
"Soon as the mill opened my father and all the
younguns that wee old enough commenced to work. There
3
was nine of us younguns, five girls and four boys and
everyone of us 'oeptin one got their start in that same
mill hit's the one they cell plant number one now.
I was too little to go to work right away, but whenever
I was nine oliten I began. At first I doffed. I got
ten cents a day for working from six o'clock in the
morning to five minutes until seven o'clock in the
evening. Course you keep e-goin' up, so I went to the
spinning room and on to the weaving room. Then they
put me to fixing looms. I've always been a good hand
to fix any kind of machinery and after while they made
me the overseer of the shop. Well, I stayed at that
till fifteen year ago when they give me the job I've
got now the overseer of the yard. And believe me
hit a a job too! I have to weigh ever bit of cotton
goins in end out and see to the loedin' end unloadin'
of it. Thy jest today we handled close to 500 bales
that's somethin's let me tell you, end the worst part
of it is bossing the Riggers that handle it. You have
to talk to 'em like you're e-goin' to kill 'em or
they'll ley down on you and not do e lick of work.
I've got so I cam talk jest as mean and hateful as
anything oh I don't mean it, but I hEve to git the
work out of fem.
"Since the cut I'm not D-makinl but 5&t hour.
That sounds like a lot more than what I started out
at, but money don't go nowheres anymore. Back when
WES a-gettin, ten and twenty-five cent a day you
could take your money to the store end have homething
to show fer it. "Ihy my ftther, before he died, had a
pile of gold pieces he had saved from way back yonder
when we used to git paid off in gold money. t. body
could sere then, but it takes everything you make now
to live.
"Education? Don't ask me about that 'cause
never did have none to amount to anything. They didn't
have no city schools then like they has not. Kr. J. W.
had a school that run in the daytime for the young'uns
too little to go to the mill and at night for them that
worked. Well 1 went to his school some before
commenced to work and et night fer while too, but it
didn't amount to so much.
Joule's Family
y wife, she come from Harrisburg. You knowld
old J. L. Harris who used to be sheriff, didn't you?
Well, he was her frthsr. She looks stout enough to
pull a freight car, but she ain't been EQ well here
lately. i4 youngest girl, Katie, just finished ..igh
school last year so I'm having her to stay here at
home and help with the work. No sir, I don't went no
Nigger girl around the house, I can't stand to have
sem ?bout. There never was but one Nigger whose cook-
ing I could eat, tnd she's dead now. She was all right.
When she fixed something, all you had to do was set
right down and eat it.
"'e've got four children in all, two of lem is
boys and two is girls. My boy that's married and lives
down near St. Stephens with his wife's folks, he works
in the hosiery mill. My other boy works down here at
the state Theatre. Christine, that's my oldest girl,
is E cashier at McLellsn's Store, but she's anxious
to go to work in the mill. Well, you know, there's
lots of 'em in stores not that feels that-e-wey about
it because they can git better pay in the mill and
don't have to work sech long hours. If you we to
ask we, I'd take the mill any time, cad if my children
wants to go into the mill, I'm glad fer 'em to. Hit's
jest as good work as anything they can get to do and
won't hurt their good name none. Course mill people
are jest like anybody else, there's some that's no'count
and shiftless and it's no wonder they're looked down on.
Attitude to Employers
tell you hit's a pleasure to work for a
company that treats you like the Cannons does. I've
knowld all of 'em well. kany's the time back yonder
that I hitched up Mr. J. L's buggy for him, drove him
up town or down to the mill, and went to the Postoffice
to get his mail. Charlie and kartin is the boys I
know the best and they've turned out the best. Why
I consider Martin Cannon jest as good a friend as I've
got in this world.
"I've got t pioture of Mr. J. W. in with my
insurance policy I'll show it to you if you'd like
to see it. Yessir, he was a fine looking man and e
good in too. liee this insurance policy? He give
every hand down at Oebarrus then one of these, and
if I was to die tomorrow, my wife would git 4500.
There ain't but four or five of us has these anymore
because they took the policies away from all the hands
that walked out during that big strike some years back.
"Yes, me and a few others kept right on going to
the mill all the time they wee having the strike. It
took nerve too to walk in that gate with all the crowd
standins there hollerinl et you. They'd call us all
kinds of names, but I didn't say 8 word back to 'em
that was the best way to do. The mill wasn't running,
but e ot r;ur pay fer going there.
*Planty of sem thvt .,,,alked out vias sorry they had,
some of 'em didn't want to go out in the first place
but they was threatened. -1.ou couldn't begin to it me
to join one of them uniohs. Al they want is the dues
they can git from you, and you don't never know what
they do rith the uaaey because they won't give a report
on it. I reed in the paper not long ago where they
wanted some union to show its books and it wouldn't
do it.
0ln this lest strike every mill here and up at
Kannapolis kept D -running all the time and no hands
quit. I jest wisht you could've seen Kannapolis.
Law it looked like a war, guns and soldiers all about.
The mill 13.(1 a airplane flying around to watch all the
main highways and when it seen a. bend of cars (flying
souader) starting out from some town, it *would fly right
low and drop a note down to let us know what was coming.
At our mill we never was bothered oj anybody. The
funaiest in happened up at 1:annapolis when one of
them scuszons rant there. You -mop the mill owns the
whole town. 4511, the siteriff was oi the lookout for
these folks from out of town and every tine they started
off the main street hit's a state highway the
sheriff would say 'This is private property, you can't
cone on it.' So that souadron couldn't do a thing
but go up and down main street till they got so wore
out they jest give up and went back home.*
Politics
"What party do I belong to? Well I served two
terms on the City Board of Aldermen so you know I'm
not no Republioan. I think what the government's
been a -doing is all right. I tell you what's a fact,
I believe weed e had a Rebellion back when Roosevelt
come in if the government hadn't done like it did.
A men jest couldn't hardly keep going when Hoover
was in; you can't live on no dollar a day like he
said to do. You know, there's a sight of folks down
at the mill has changed over to being Democrats in
the last couple years.
"You take when they had that NRA, Mr. Cannon
made us keep all the rules to the letter. If a man
worked overtime one day, I had to allow him that much
time off the next. Mr. Cannon is mighty particular
about all each rules."
Recreation
"I like to read the paper and listen to the radio
right well, but I don't care a thing about the moving
picture show. Why I reckon I ain't been to see one
let's see, hit's been five year or more now. The State
Theater give me three amnia passes for fixing some
machines for them and I could s'gone to the show,
without paying a cent, any time I took a. notion to
for three years, but I never did use them passes a
single time; I wore 'em out jest carrying 'em around
in my pocket. Nobody else couldn't use them because
they had my nsme written across the front.
"When I git off from work I like to piddle around
the house. There's most always something or other to
be fixed at some kind of work to do about the yard.
I wisht it was light now so you could see my back yard
for hit's a lot bigger and prettier than the front.
This summer I run lights out there, fixed a pulpit
end benches that I keep down under the back pert of
my house, and every Sunday evening hit was pretty
we had preaching down in my backyard. It's mighty
aloe.
"I'm the sexton up at the church (St. Andrews
Lutheran, in mill section). I git 310 a month for
-10
cleaning up, running the furnace, fixing the organ if
it gits out of order, opening the church and ringing
the bell whenever they're sa-going to have a meeting,
but I declare hit's more trouble to me than what I git
out of it. If they oould glt anybody else who could
run the furnace right, I don't reckon I'd keep the job,
but them young boys they had been getting to fire it
just nearly 'bout ruint it."
Jonie's House
"Yes mem, this here house is mine; I saved up
to build it and I planed it myself. Well now, I
like these big roams too I was determined that
when I built me a house I was going to have plenty of
space about me, so when I planned this one, I mode
it like I wanted hit to be. If there's anything I
despise it's to be ecrouged into little bitty rooms.
My wife and the girls see to keeping the rooms fixed
up this s -way that there music box (piano) is a
real old timey one my sister bought somewhere.
I've got an electric refrigerator that cost me
$200.00 that's a lot of money end I hated to put
it out at the time, but law, now I wouldn't begin to
take what I paid fer it. I jest wouldn't be without
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it since I've got used to it. Something else I like
mighty well is my automatic hot meter heater. Hit
keeps the meter hot ell the time, ell you have to do
is jest open any tap end you've got hot water right
not, day or night.
"I would sure hate to go back to living like
folks used to. Didn't nobody have things then the way
we do now, living wasn't as good. There's a lot of
people feel they can't git along without a automobile
and some of 'em can't so well. I don't have one fez
I ain't got no use for it; I walk down to the mill,
to the church, or uptown when I'm obliged to go.*
eU I've ware enjoyed talking to you and I hope
you'll come back agin when my wife's here fez I know
she'd like to talk to you.
"I'll just walk ecross the street with you. I
told Paul Hidenhour I would come over some time tonight
end work on his stove fez him. Cold weether'll catoh
us soon."