Document text
Approximately 2,700 words
5 C
SOUTH CARCLIaNRITERS' PROJECT
LIFE HISTORY
TITLE: t% I'M NOT LONESOME
Date of First Writing December 1, 1938
Home of Person Interviewed Yrs. Fannie Miles (white)
7lotitio'ls Home Mrs. Nary Moore
Street Address 815 Gibbes Street (Olympia Mills)
Ple?- Columbia, South Carolina
C-3ounation Textile Worker
Na-le of Writer /lathe T. Jones
-ame of Reriser State Office
"Get down off the lady's lap, Dickie," Yrs. Moore commanded the fox
terrier. "Dickie's my pet," she explained in defense of his conduct. "He's
the only company I have all day till four o'clock, when Polly camas in from
work. We're all plumb crazy about him, and when he's clean he's so purty,
white all over with teeny black dots. He's dirty now with smoke and dust.
Come over here and lay down by me, Dickie.
"I useter not mind staying by myself, but since I can't see to sew or
read or do anything much, the days seem mighty long to me. I have indiges-
tion spells. The doctor says it's my nerves. He give me this box of pills
and this bottle of medicine. But they ain't doin' me a speck o' good, and
they cost three dollars, too. Sometimes I lie here all night by myself and
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wonder if I'll be alive when they get up in the morning.
tt-,
lost my eye tiro years ago. Doctor says it's cataracts and glaucoma.
I had to stay in the hospital three weeks, but my doctor didn't charge me a
cent. I can still see a little out of my left eye, but every day the speck
of light gets smaller and smaller. I'm fifty-eight years old,though, and I
guess it's about time my old body was wearing out. Don't you reckon it is?
"I can't do much but sit here all day long and think about my past life.
Us children used to have a good time when we lived on the farm in rorth Car-
olina. There were ten of us, and we didn't get no education hardly. But we
had a blue -back speller, and we used to look at the pictures in that.
"We always had plenty to eat, but nothing else, much. We had rabbits
and chickens and eggs and fish. We caught the fish out of a little stream
right close the house. My mother and father done the field work, and we
had to do the house work and the cooking. My father hated to plaw the gar-
den, but Ma always saw to it that re had plenty of vegetables. Haw we hated
to have to hoe those cabbages and beans and potatoes.'
"I WES just nine years old when me moved to a cotton mill in Darling-
ton, South Carolina, and I started to work in the mill. I was in a world
of strangers. I didn't knew a soul. The first morning I was to start work,
I remember coning downstairs feelin' strange and lonesome -like. My grand-
father, who had a long, white beard, grabbed me in his arms and nut two one
dollar bills in my hand. He said, 'Take these to your mother and tell her
to buy you some pretty dresses and make Tem nice for you to wear in this
mill.' I was mighty proud of that.
"I worked three weeks learning to weave, and then they paid me twenty-
five cents a day. That was big money to me. Course, when I learned to weave
good, I got twenty-five dollars a week.
"John was the only sweetheart I ever had. He Was older than me and
drank whiskey; so my parents didn't want us to get married. But when I
VW twenty, me and him run away. One Saturday evenin' we went to the court-
house and got married. Then we went on the train to Newberry. And Monday
mornin' we both started to work in one of the mills. We came to Columbia
after three months, and my mother was real glad to see me again. We started
housekeeping, but we couldn't save any money. We moved about too much.
tr-
tor twelve years we moved from pillar to post. We lived in Augusta,
ard six different towns in South Carolina. Those days you could get a job
anzruhere at cne dollar and ten cents a day. But our money all went in mov-
ing. I certainly think it was mighty bad. John couldn't see an'inch from his
nose, and I told him he went backwards 'stead of forwards. Some places he
done well, if he had only let well enough alone. But he always thought
there WRS sonethin' better ahead. He was a pretty good sort of a man, too,
just thought he knawd it all. His worst habit was gambling. Sometimes he'd
win a little, and then he'd lose more'n he'd won. When Jack was a baby, I de-
cided I just couldn't keep dragginl the children around. So John got to where
he'd go off without me. Sometimes he'd send money to help us along and some-
times he wouldn't. Finally he quit camint home at all. I worked, and the
children soon got big enough to work some.
"LeRoy Was the oldest, and the first work he done was to deliver packages
for the mill drug store. 1:-e Was a smart child and kept working his way up till
he was making a good salary at Bryan's Printin' Office. We was purty
good then, till LeRoy got killed in an automobile accident. Two cars come to-
gether one night and LeRoy WRS throwed out against the sidewalk. He died right
away. Never even lived to get back home. It nearly killed me and Polly, the
may he got killed and all. That left me with two little children, Polly and
Jack, and nol-oly to heln me support them.
"Polly got married the first time when she was just sixteen. Harried
a man from Illinois. :le had been in the Navy four years. I begged her not
to marry a plIlmb stranger like that, but she just would do it. You know
how young neople are. well, sir, he surprised us all. He learned to run a
section in the mill, and he and Polly came right here to live with me. They
paid me six dollars apiece for board every week. And if I ran short of money,
he'd give me his whole check. He shore was good to me. One night, after he'd
been here about six years, he went away, without a soul knowing a thing about
it. And we never heard a word from him till a telegram came from his aunt,
saying he had died in Arkana, Texas.
"After he left, Polly learned he had posed as a single man, you under-
stand, and had been run out of town by the father of the girl he had been
going with. When the baby come, everybody said it looked exactly like Bill,
and it did. I went to see for myself.
"Polly hated that thing for a while. But long before she heard he was
dead, she had another beau and was doing some heavy sporting. As soon as
she heard gill was dead, she got married to Robert Smith. He's a carpenter
and makes about ..)1.5 a week. Polly works in the mill and makes Z)12.50. So
they make a very good living.
"They cane right here to live, and both of them is good to me. Polly
comes in from work on dark, rainy days and comes straight to me and kisses
me. She says: 'Mother, I know you've been lonesome here all day by your-
self. I've been thinking about you all day long.' But I say to her to keep
her from worrying about me, 'Why, Polly, I'm not lonesome. Why do you think
I'm lonesome? Don't I have the radio to keep me company? I've had a good
time here all by myself. I'm only thankful I don't have to go out in the
Z.'
cold and rain.'
"They have a V-8 coupe and take me to ride lots. I can't see much
now, and I'm awful nervous. But I don't say a word to them about it. They
go to the movies about once a week, and they like to play rummy and smut.
They both like to read, especially on long winter nights. They had one book
called 'one With the Wind,' and they read through and through that one.
/IT beg 'em to save some money to build 'em a house with, so they won't
be always moving like we done. But they won't save much. They want a hone,
and I think they want some children, too. Polly didn't want any before. She
was young and wanted to have a good time. But she'd be glad now.
"Jack don't throw smay his money, I'm telling you. We're sure proud of
him. And he ain't had half a chance, neither. When his father gambled all
his money away and stopped sending us any, Jack quit school, and him only
thirteen years old. It was a shame, but he wasn't doing much good in school
anyway. So he got him a job in the mill, sweeping. He made one dollar a
day, and that helped support the family. That summer, Jack said he learned
what hard work was like. And it wasn't long till he felt like he wanted some
more education, and he couldn't think of nothint else. But he couldn't stop
work, it looked like. So, when he heard about a night school they WM having
over at the Olympia schoolhouse, he decided to try it. For four years, he
worked all day and studied at night.
His teachers helped him powerful all
along. By that time, he was doffing in the mill and makin' thirteen dollars
a week. He saved every cent of it, too, except what he paid for his books
and clothes. lie paid me six dollars a week board, and that was a help to me.
Then a friend told him about this Textile Industrial Institute, in Spartan-
burg. If he'd go there, he could study two weeks an' work two. He decided
to try this. They took his money for his expenses out of his check. He
stayed there three years, and they tell me he done mighty well. He'd come
home in the summertime and go right to work in the mill here. Then he went
all along to Miss Wil Lou CITay's Opportunity School at Clemson College. Jack
Has written about that school and it's been in a book. Let me get it for you
to read yourself what all he said about it."
In a two -page article from the Journal of Adult Education, written by
Jack, he described the school as a college vacation school for those who have
gone beyond the eight grade in public school, but who wish to keep on learn-
ing. -"There I had four glorious weeks of college life classes that were
actually interesting, afternoons of play and work, evenings of study. My
fellow pupils were eager to learn, and our teachers seemed to delight in shar-
ing their knowledge and experience with us. I liked that school so much that
have zone back every year since five years as a pupil and three years as
a visitor or office helper. --Self-reliance and individual and community
improvements are stressed in the Opportunity School fanily. Such friendli-
ness, courtesy, and straightforwardness prevail there that few go back to their
comnunities and homes without having the watchwords of the school, 'Better cit-
izenship, and a better South Carolina,' stamped indelibly on their lives.'
'Jell, sir, it's just funny to me, but it seamed like the more he learned
the more he wanted to learn. So he started right in at the University of South
Carolina. He studied till eleven o'clock every night and got up at four o'clock
every morning to deliver The State, a Columbia newspaper. And do you know I
never had to call him a single time in them two years. Made all his expenses,
too. I:ever owed a cent when he graduated. And he graduated with distinction,
too. He still studies over there in the summers, working on another degree.
Here's two medals he won, and he's got one on his watch chain. They're all
so purty.
I wish he'd wear all three of 'em, 'stead o' leavin' 'em shut up
in this box for nobody to see. And do you know he's teaching English in
the high school in Greenville? Somebody asked the head man in the school
haw he's getting on,and he said, 'Moore is the very best.' And I believe
it, too.
"I can't talk proper. I make mistakes a plenty, but Jack has helped
me lots. Some children make fun of their mothers. But Jack doesn't. He
tells me about the way I talk and tries to help me in every way he can.
Some children are so 'sassy' and give their mothers so much trouble. Jack
has never been that way.
"We sure do miss Jack. He didn't come home for Thanksgiving. He wrote
me a letter
lie sends me
He tells me
and said he had to save his money. But he's camin' Christmas.
a check for eight dollars every month soon as he gets his money.
to hire somebody to stay here with me, so I won't be so lonesome.
But I'm getting on all right by myself yet. I buy me a quart of milk every
day. Jack says I really need that. IIVB bought me same—emaaima=mild these
nice new shoes you see I've got on and some other things I needed. I take
a little snuff along. Jack and Polly tell me it's all right to do so, if it
keeps me from being so lonesome. I save a little, too, and pay a little along
to the church, though I can't go none hardly now. The children don't want me
to go out much. We all belong to the Whaley Methodist Church. Jack was the
youngest member ever served on the Board of Stewards in our church. I wish
I had enough money to buy Miss Wil Lou Gray and my doctor something real nice
for Christmas.
"I made Miss Gray a tulip quilt when I could see good. I thought it
wasn't good enough to send her, but Jack said, 'Mother, Miss Gray will like
anything you send her. You don't know haw she is.' And so I let him take
it 'round there. I'm certainly glad she liked it. I'm saving one of my
E..
prettiest begonias for her Christmas present and one for my doctor who was
so good to me.
Jack owes all he is to Miss Gray. Not long ago he wrote
me, 'If it were not for you, Mother, I'd say Miss Gray is the best woman
in the world.'
"Polly's fixed up the living room nice, and it's to be Jack's room all
by himself now. She's put all his books in here, too. These fine curtains
with blue balls on the edge ain't new, but Polly borrowed some stretchers
and fixed 'em up nice.
Mffe like our little home here. Several years ago, that was a lovely
little park and playground across the street, with that little branch run-
ning so cool and meet through it. My children played over there, and I al-
ways felt that they were safe when they were in the park. But people abuse
everything, don't they? Young couples began to stay there late nights, and
the first thing we knew, the company just let the park grow up in weeds. But
we are glad not to have houses in that space. We don't feel so cooped up. I
do wish the railroad company hadn't put that big fill right to the left of our
house.
"It was a wonderful sight when my hydrangeas and zinnias and everything
was in bloom, and my roses on the fence. You see all this shrubbery? Jack
rooted it every bit from limbs he'd get at the university and from all about
wherever anybody would give him a piece. He can root anything, and it grows
so nice. I stuck these out. Thought I'd try my hand since Jack is gone. I
love the sunshine. Ain't it grand to sit out in it? I sure have enjoyed
having you come to see me."