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SOUTH CAROLINA WRITERS' PROJECT
LIFE HISTORY
TITLE: ALWAYS 1LOWERS
Date of first Writing January 7, 1939
Name of Person Interviewed Charles L. Sligh(white)
fictitious Name Jason C. Noye
Street Address 1707 Heyward Street
Place Columbia, S. C.
Occupation florist
Name of Writer S. L. Scruggs
Name of Reviser State Office
“Ily wife jokes me about my wearing a fresh red carnation on the
lapel of my coat every day, by saying I do so to show my customers that
I practice what I preach. But she knows it's my love of flowers that
accounts for my habit." And Charles L. Sligh smiled and looked at his
bouquet.
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"Oh, well, why not a life story?" mused W. Sligh. "But mine has
been the life of a plodder. It is not in any sense a spectacular career
to date, nor yet one with sinister climaxes. My relations have been ex-
ceedingly friendly with sheriffs and policemen, which is equal to saying
that mine is the life of a country boy who came to town and lifted himself
into a little business by tugging at his own bootstraps.
'I was born on my father's plantation in Newberry County, South
Carolina, on May 17, 1884. There I spent my childhood and early youth. In
The autumn and winter I attended the old field public school, and in the
spring and summer I worked on the farm, hoeing corn, chopping cotton, setting
out yellow yam sweet potato plants, and,in short, all such tasks as arise on
a country plantation. Father and the entire SIisirfamily was industrious, and
our farm was a good one, but crops were just as uncertain as any business
I know about. Beginning in 1888$ there were several lean years on our farm.
"Sometimes our cotton was cut short by lack of rain just when the plants
needed moisture. And in other years there was too much rain, and the plant
would bush, but bear few bolls. Cotton was our chief money crop, and if
it failed, we were pressed about paying taxes, or buying clothes and shoes.
And other crops such as corn and potatoes failed because of weather conditions.
One example may illustrate the point. The summer before we quit the farm, a
great wind and hail storm cane along when our corn was just beginning to
tassal. After the storm passed, father and I went to see how the crop had
stood it. The sight sickened us. Much of the corn had been broken, and the
rest, though still rooted and whole, was as flat as a pancake.
"Sorrowfully we viewed the ruins of a crop which had looked so vigorous
and promising the night before. Nothing could be done about it so late in
the season. Toil, money for fertilizer, and hopes were gone with the wind
and the hail. The Irish potatoes, too, were short, due to lady bugs on the
vines. In fact, that year, every crop was cut by drought, rain at the wrong
time, or storm. We were a blue family as winter began to approach. Debts
began to press us for payment, and we had nothing to sell to raise the amounts
we so badly needed. The old joke about letting the other fellow do the worry-
ing is not funny to the man who wishes to treat his fellow man in the same
spirit as he would have the other fellow treat him.
"The situation I am describing was our experience in 1898, and similar
lean years had been pretty common to farmers in Newberry County. Weather
conditions are one of the gambles the farmer has to deal with any year. The
disaster of 1898, though, is typical of average seasons.
"That winter I heard my parentsmeriously discuss the subject of quit-
ting the farm. One night, as we were seated before a rousing wood fire,
rather said, 'Mama, I have been thinking of leaving the farm and engaging in
something that is less uncertain about making a living.'
"Llama replied, without stopping her knitting, 'But, Papa, there is a
hazard to most everything. I'm reminded of it by an experience I had when
I was a little girl. IN had a water mill, and ground corn and wheat for the
neighborhood. We could hear the water falling over the embankment from the
house. One day, after a long rainy spell, my mother told me to run down to
the mill under the hill and see if everything was all right. I did. The mill
was not there, and I was so excited I ran all the way hone and shouted:
"bother, it's all gone but the dams"
"After the laughter suosided, following Mother's story, Father rejoined:
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'But, Mother, I'm not aiming to engage in the mill business. Instead of that,
I think a well-conducted grocery store in a populous co-Inunity ought to sup-
port our family. I think I know a locality in Columbia where the trade
ought to be brisk. If I were running it, my plan would be to trust in God,
but all others should pay cash, or the goods would remain on the shelf.'
"That plan sounds safe,' said Mother, 'but I wonder if we can sell
the farm for enough cash to pay our debts and still have sufficient money to
get properly settled in business at the capital city.'
"The 6ligh farm was up for sale the next day. That satisfactory coun-
sel around the old home fire had convinced every one of us that change of
base was a proper economic step. As soon as our crude 'For -Sale' sign was
up, a buyer came to see us. There was at that time a man in the community
who owned vast forests of timber and great acreage, and he always appeared
to have money. He said he heard the aligh farm was for sale and he decided
to ride over and take dinner and discuss the sale, adding, 'I hear you're
quitting the farm to practice law;‘
"Father replied he would 3ell the best farm in Newberry County for a
fair price, but he saw no reason to put in the comedy about him quitting
the farm to practice law. Dinner interrupted the bargaining, and afterward
the investor and Father sat and smoked and dickered until nightfall. Mean-
time, the visitor's horse had twice been fed. 4upper was served, and soon
the visitor put up a sum of money, to be forfeited if he failed to close the
deal at the court house in Lexington next day. The price Father received
for the farm was, perhaps, less than it would bring today, but it was con—
sidered a pretty good price then.
"Soon afterward,the:liigh family was busy packing and loading the house-
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hold goods, and in selling hogs, horses, and cattle. In the month of
January, 1899, we were in Columbia, searching for a house to live in and
a building to open a grocery store in. I think we reMained at a boarding
house only two weeks, before we began the game of living in a big town and
doing business where competition in all commercial lines was keen and brisk.
'Father was pretty long-headed, and he was also determined to succeed.
He never failed to tell a customer that he was not financially able to ex-
tend credit and that his safety required that he either keep his goods or
pocket the cash. Operated on this sound principle, the store boa_4an to pros-
per. The Sligh family lived, to a great extent, on foods from OUr store.
And the cash sales were usually sufficient to pay for our goods and to assure
a surplus for clothing and other4amooasary:_meads,
"The three big, over -sized boys and their two sisters had plenty
of good, wholesome food) but we had practically no spending money, like most
of our boy and girl acquaintances had.
"We boys helped father at the store and picked up small change at other
tasks elsewhere when we got a chance. The grocery store, with plenty of
competition, just wouldn't support the family in any sort of luxury. And I,
for one, was not prone to complain to father about my lack of spending money.
The struggles we had on the plantation, and later in Columbia, may have been
blessings in disguise. Anyhow, when we began to scratch for our own living,
we knew the importance of money, and none of us wasted it.
"My two brothers are now doing pretty well. Toole is manager of the
Studebaker Automobile Agency in Columbia. Our kid brother, J. E. Sligh, is
an engineer of the South Carolina Highway Department. My two sisters are
both happily married. They are Mrs. H. C. Tate, of Hendersonville, North
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Carolina, and Mrs. P. A. Hodges, of Columbia.
"My business brings in an income of about $2,500 a year. Only the
other day my oldest brother, Toole, was reminding me about how I acted when
I began my first job at the Stork greenhouses in Columbia, in 1904. I be-
gan work for fifty cents a day. The duties of the job included keeping the
heat at a certain temperature in the winter and giving the proper amount of
moisture to certain expensive flowers. All told, I think I earned my
fifty cents a day.
"It takes years of physical and mental labor to gain sufficient knowledge
of flowers to make any sort of success in the florist business. The flower
is a characteristic feature of the highest group of the plant kihgdom. Flowers
of commerce are produced from flower buds, just as leaf shoots arise from
leaf buds. These two kinds of buds have a resemblance to each other as re-
gards the arrangements and the development of their parts. Flower buds, like
leaf buds, are produced in the axial leaves, which are called bracts. This
is what I mean by the statement that it is no easy job to acquire proficient
knowledge of the florist business. For eight years I studied, experimented,
and worked at the Stork greenhouses. Even then, I knew little about flower
culture. The constant bending of one's back in this work, however, makes
one feel at night like he had put in a day's work. My wages increased at
Stork's as my efficiency progressed, but I never did get as much as probably
,G4141 would today. I was proud of rly three dollars that I had earned the first
week at Stork's. Over the years there, I carried away on several Saturday
nights more than three dollars, but I never got the same thrill from them.
The fact that a youngster can earn money is always thrilling to him at the
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start; at least, that was my experience.
'In 1911, the idea came to me that, to succeed, a man should own his own
business, even if it were nothing but a peanut stand. So I quit at Stork's
and began to look around for something I could make a living at. I had heard
Father say many times that a shoemaker should stick to his last.' I had
given eight years of my life to flower culture, and I decided to follow the
old rule about 'sticking to the last' by beginning a florist business in a
small way. I had no ready cash to speak of. I was fond of the girls and a
great deal of my wages had already faded along that trail.
"One day I explained matters to a friend. He loaned me $20 to aid me
in the starting. And I began business in a cubbyhole space in Thomas' Drug
Store, for which I paid him three dollars a week rental. The Thomas Drug
Store was in the 1600 block of Main Street in 1912. The success I had at
the start pleased me. I soon paid my friend his 420, and sales were so good
and regular that I lived and increased my business. The cubbyhole space was
now too small for me, and I rented a six -dollar space
at 1430 Main Street. In a year or two the space again
I leased these quarters in the Imperial Hotel, where I
"Orders for flowers arrive regularly from hotels,
at Miot's Drug Store
became too small, and
am doing business now.
hospitals, funerals,
and weddings. These are frequently very expensive designs. In addition to
these sales, there are orders from many private social gatherings and banquets.
This normal demand increased tremendously in 1917, soon after troops began to
mobilize at Camp Jackson for training. By the spring of 1918, when there
were between 40,000 and 50,000 men and officers at Camp Jackson, the influenza
epidemic was taking a heavy death toll. The demand for flowers frequently
was so great that all the florists in this community exhausted their supply
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daily. Pi.ices of everything were very high then, and I made money rapidly.
"This florist business is one of the few industries that goes right
along, I might say, regardless of economic conditions. The reason is that
deaths, marriages, and hospitals function right along whether business is
dull or brisk. many floral designs are ordered by patients at three hos-
pitals here in Columbia. Also couples who get married don't count the cost;
and when death knocks at the door, even if the family is a humble one, flowers
are in demand. The florists kaleidoscope discloses a regularity"of sales
unknown in some other business channels.
"'Married? Yes. But not until late in life, 1925. It took the a long
time to learn a trade, and a longer time to win a wife. Between the ages
of 18 and 40, J. often fell in love with a pair of pretty eyes, a classy form,
or a charming manner. But I never pressed a case to a climax, until I met
Miss Eva Greishaber, a pretty girl of German parentage. She captivated me
completely. And what a courtship we had for some years! I thought I knew a
good deal about women, but I didn't. I guess I don't know enough about them
yet to hurt me.
'Miss Greishaber and I fought it out for many years before she sur-
rendered. She and I would attend theatres and dine together. We would attend
church, or picnics, but she appeared always ready to let it go at that. One
January day, Eva came to my flower store, where we joked and talked for some-
time.
As she got ready to go, she said she
buds. always told her she could pick her
"I went ahead and fixed up a beautiful
it to her with my most courtly bow.
had come to buy half a dozen rose
choice here without pay.
and costly bouquet and presented
She took it, smiled sweetly, and departed.
Shortly afterwards, I was busy at the desk enc.', discovered a $10 -bill. I told
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her about it and she laughed. Then she said: 'You are so careless I wonder
why you don't go broke.' The money obviously was hers, but she wouldn't
take it. She knew the value of resebuds in January as well as I did. It
was in late summer that year that I fully made up my mind to either win Eva
as a wife or lose her altogether.
"I thought of several plans but finally descarded them all but the
sympathy route. So I dolled up in a new suit, with a very fresh red car-
nation on the coat lapel, and skipped around to Eva's home. She greeted
me enthusiastically, as usual. After we were seated in the parlor, I began
to tell her what a dismal failure I was. Among other things I said: 'I'm
ashamed of myself, and I'm going out to Texas and carve a fortune there. If
fail there, as here, I can still walk to a bridge and jump, saying as I fall,
"Here goes nothing2"
"Eva bud listened with sympathetic eyes and a sardonic smile. As I
finished my foolish talk, she said: 'Charles, you are ill, I'm afraid. What
sort of a fortune do you expect to gain in Texas by talking like a parrot
and acting like a monkey? For years I have passed up chances of marriage
with other young men and have stuck to you alone. Now you threaten to walk
out on me. You know you are the only man I have ever loved and so what---'
"The scene that followed has been hazy to me since, but I'm told I
grabbed Eva in my arms and poured out my heart to her in love. The very
next day, August 17, 1925, we were married. de bought a pretty home at 1707
Heyward Street, Uolumbia, and we reside there now. de have continued to be
pals, just like we were in the days before our marriage.
"I am a member of the National Florists Association, and through this
orgainzation the business code is ironed out so that we serve each other about
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as efficiently as the international postal system does. For example, some
one in London, England, or Winnepeg, Canada, or Seattle, lashingten, wishes
to send a floral design to some one in Columbia. They notify me in code,
and I fill the order.
"Mowing the greater expense of producing flowers, I have preferred
to purchase them. I buy from the Shandon Greenhouse, a local wholesale
florist concern. It furnishes me most of my supply. But in case I desire
a special design that the local dealer doesn't have in stock, I get it from
similar dealers in Florida, New York, or Montreal, Canada. Express service
generally answers, but if greater speed is needed,the package comas by
airplane.
"For many years I have been a member of the Elks Lodge (B.P.O.E.) in
Columbia. I am also a member of Richland Lodge No. 59(A.F.M.) and Scottish
Rite bodies in Golumbiatand of Omar Shrine Temple at Charleston. My wife
and I are members of Ebenezer Lutheran Church.
"So my life has run through more than half a century, with plenty of
struggle, but with -pare satisfaction of knowing that I have meri414 the
good will and respect of my neighbors and business associates as I passed
along."
L&CB