Conversation About the Depression Years Note: This chapter has been included primarily for the children,
grandchildren and great grandchildren of Mrs. Lillie Irene Hall.
Not many people remember what it was like during the depression,
but Lillie Irene Hall lived through the entire depression period,
day-by-day, week-by-week, and year-by-year. I wanted to have her
talk about the depression and tell her descendents what it was
like to live during those years in the hope that it would never
be forgotten. After listening to her, I sincerely hope that it
will never happen again.
1. WHAT WAS IT LIKE DURING THE DEPRESSION? We were living down
near the mill village when the mill shut down. Ernest was working
for Bushman Meats and made seven dollars a week. Our house rent
was only $2.50 per month. Ernest received meat and sausage from
Bushman's so we didn't have to buy meat. All we had to buy was
dried beans, corn meal, flour and stuff like that. We couldn't
buy clothes, but I did manage to keep our insurance paid up. When
the depression started to hit us, the mill would stay open for
a while and then close. It would start up, and we would go back
to work for a two or three weeks, then it would shut down again.
All the mill s didn't start up, just parts of it. It would stay
open for a while and then play out again. Then, some more of it
would start, people would go back to work for two or three weeks,
but they wouldn't get over a day or two per week because there
were so many who wanted to work. Then, the mill would shut down
again. It shut down many times during the depression.
2. WHAT CHILDREN WERE BORN DURING THE DEPRESSION?
I had four children during the depression, Snooks, Charles (1928)
D. L. (1930) and Joan (1934)
3. IN 1931-32, WHAT WAS IT LIKE? WHERE WERE YOU LIVING? D.L. and
Joan were born at Mason Turner in the same house. Then we moved
across the road and lived there for a while. We moved from there
to Cobb County.
4. WHERE WAS ERNEST WORKING WHEN D.L. WAS BORN? He worked as a
mechanic for Roy Dodgin.
5. HOW MUCH DID HE MAKE? Nothing, he just helped Roy out. And Roy
would pay him for some of the jobs that he did. For example; if
someone came in with a flat tire, Ernest would fix it and get
paid for it. Whatever work Ernest did, he got paid for it. Roy
didn't pay him anything; during those days, we were from hand
to mouth. Ernest ran up a bill of $122.00 and I didn't even know
about it. I thought Roy was paying him. He wasn't even getting
a salary, but that was the only thing he could do back then.
6. WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO EAT DURING 1930? We HAD BEANS, BREAD, AND
MILK. For breakfast we ate milk and gravy and bread, and for dinner
we ate beans and bread. We didn't get any meat, I'll tell you
that.
7. WHAT ABOUT CHRISTMAS? We didn't have Christmas. Nobody did.
8. DID YOU HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE? A Tree! No! No one had Christmas
at all. That was one year nobody got anything because all you
got was a little piece of paper. Telling you what you could buy
and what you couldn't buy. Money was killed, you know. Hoover
killed the money.
9. WHAT DID BREAD COST? Back then; I think a loaf of read cost
5 cents. You could get beans for a dime a pack.
10. DID YOU BUY MEAT? No, we didn't buy any meat. We couldn't
afford it.
11. WHAT DID FLOUR COSTS? I don't remember but it was very cheap.
I know milk was 5 cents a pint, and a quart cost a dine.
11. DID YOU HAVE AN ICE BOX? Yes but no ice during the depression.
Nobody bought ice.
12. WHAT WAS YOUR RENT? Our rent at Mason Turner was $2.00 per
month. Down near the Mill Village, it was $2.00 per month; but
when we moved to Cobb County, we had to pay $3.50 per month. Now
the depression was just pulling out, kind of, when we moved to
Cobb County, because they had starting paying with money again
and the Mill had started up. Ernest got an old Buick car and drove
back and forth to work in it. It was an old car when he got it.
I think he paid about $5.00 or $6.00 for it.
13. HOW MUCH WAS YOUR ELECTRIC BILL? We had no electric bill. We
used lamps. The first lights I ever saw were when we moved into
this house in Cobb County and that was in 1941.
14. SO YOU DIDN'T HAVE ELECTRIC LIGHTS IN 1941? On 14th February
1941, we moved over to Watkins Rd and that was the first time
I had ever had electric lights.
15. WHEN YOU WERE LIVNG AT MASON TURNER, WHAT DID YOU HEAT WITH?
We used wood. We had a pot-bellied heater. I had oil stove to
cook on and a pot bellied heater to heat with.
16. HOW MUCH DID OIL COSTS? About 5 cents for about a half-gallon,
I think, but we used wood to heat with. I would leave the babies
with the old lady who lived across the street and Snooks and I
would go down in the woods to drag up wood for the heater. We
pulled it from a lake called Blue Lake.
17. WERE THERE PAVED ROADS AT MASON TURNER? No! There were dirt
roads everywhere. There were no paved roads at all.
18. IN 1930, WHEN DADDY WORKED FOR ROY DODGIN, DID YOU HAVE A
CAR? No, everybody walked.
19. HOW DID YOU GET MEARL FOR CORNBREAD? We did all of our grocery
trading in Cobb County at a place called Barnes Store on Bankhead
Road.
20. HOW DID YOU GET BACK AND FORTH TO THE GROCERY STORE? Granddad
Hall had a truck. Ernest would load up about 37 people on the
truck and they would all go over and buy their groceries. Just
the men would go; women didn't go buy groceries back then.
21. IF YO DIDN'T RAISE MEAT, HOW DID YOU GET IT BACK THEN? People
would buy sausage from places like Bushman's Meats. They were
meat distributors because stores weren't equipped for meat then.
They had people who would run a slaughterhouse and they would
kill and cut the beef. People would buy enough to do for about
one day, unless they had plenty of ice.
22. WHAT DID MEAT COST IN THOSE DAYS? If you bought a dollars
worth it would do you a week. If you had somewhere to keep it.
23. WHAT WAS THE MOST EXPENSIVE THING BACK THEN? I'd say shoes.
I remember before I married, shoes were about the highest thing.
When you bought a pair of shoes, they would last you for a long
time. Over at the mill village store, I think shoes costs about
$3.00 for a pair.
24. WHAT WAS THE MILL VILLAGE COMPANY STORE LIKE? They handled
the best quality of everything.
25. DID YOU BUY ON CREDIT? No, you bought by books. You would
draw a book for your work and then use it to buy things in the
mill store.
26. HOW LONG DID YOU WORK? I worked all along throughout the years.
I made $14.96 per week, and then use it to buy things in the mill
store.
27. SO FOR 54 HOURS PER WEEK, YOU MADE APPROXIMATELY $ 15.00 and
Ernest made $11.00? Right and the highest he made until recent
years was about $18.00 per week. We raised seven kids on that
and paid for rent and everything else. If we had not had a garden
we would have starved to death.
28. WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR CLOTHES? We didn't get any clothes.
We would wear a dress to work for one entire week, and the next
week we'd wear another one.
29. WHEN YOU WORKED, WHAT DID YOU EAT FOR LUNCH? They had a big
company truck that went around and picked up everybody's dinner
every day. The truck went all over the mill village. Those that
lived out of the mill village had to pack their lunch. So when
I was working, I'd cook my supper at night for dinner, the next
day. We'd put it in a basket.
30. HOW DID THE LUNCH SYSTEM WORK? They had two trucks, and they
went around to every house in the village and picked up lunch
baskets. The names were marked on the handles of the basket.
31. WHY DIDN'T PEOPLE JUST CARRY THEIR LUNCH? The trucks picked
up the lunches when we worked ten hours a day. Everybody would
go get their basket right before dinner. When they cut down everybody
to eight hours a day, they would shut down the mill for thirty
minutes to eat, and we had to make it up on Saturday morning.
32. HOW MUCH DID OTHER PEOPLE MAKE IN THOSE DAYS? Ira Lee made
$5.00 a week when he was sixteen years old. He made fans for ten
hours a day and until 10:30 PM on Saturday. But before the depression
they were making $20.00 per day.
33. DO YOU MEAN THAT THEY WERE MAKING $20.00 PER WEEK? No! Some
people made as much as $20.00 a day before the depression. They
went in one day making $20.00 a day and the next morning they
made 50 cents an hour. That is how fast it happened. It happened
overnight. People were living high on the hog when the depression
hit.
34. YOU MENTIONED THAT ERNEST WAS A DORPER AT THE MILL. WHAT IS
A DORPER? They take all the spools off and put new one s on. They
would start at one end of the mill and go to the other, and then
start back. I made as high as $29.96 a week in that mill when
nobody else was making it. Do you know how? Well, I went in there
and I just said I could make as much as anybody else could and
I did it. There was an old woman in there, and she ran eight frames.
I watched her and asked how much she made. To make that much money,
you got to run reverse or left handed filling. I asked Aubrey,
the foreman, to put me on those frames. I said that I could run
them as good as she could. After a while he put me on them and
I ran them. Aubrey was my buddy; I could and did go to him with
my troubles. Now running eight frames did keep you busy. But if
you're going to work, you might as well work as long as you're
down there, and not stand around. I could stand around on six
sides, and I knew I could do it.
35. IN 1930 DID YOU HAVE A RADIO? No. That's not what hurt people.
They didn't know about the depression until it was too late. There
were radios, but people didn't have the money to buy them. I didn't
know of but one radio anywhere around. Uncle Bud had one, and
it used earphones. You put the earphones up to your ears to listen.
You had to hold them up to your ears and only one person at a
time could hear. You know when Dempsey, I believe, first did his
fighting? Uncle Bud bought his radio then. Everybody around there
would come to listen. Uncle Bud would listen then hand it to another
person and it went all around the room. It was just a little square
thing with wheels and things on it.
36. IN 1930 WHERE DID SNOOKS GO TO SCHOOL? He walked about a half
a mile one way from our house to Mason Turner School.
37. WHERE DID ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE LIVE IN THOSE DAYS? They lived
in a place called Browntown. Browntown was located near a place
called Larrytown.
38. DID THE BLACK PEOPLE WORK AT THE MILL? Yes, they did jobs
like sweepers, and they cleaned bathrooms. All the cleanup women
were colored.
39. WHAT DID BLACK PEOPLE DO DURING THE DEPRESSION? They dug ditches
and tried to get a job just like everybody else did.
40. WHAT DID THEY DIG DITCHES FOR? During the depression, when
you worked for the WPA you dug ditches. What the ditches were
for I don't know.
41. HOW DID THE WPA WORK? When you worked for the WPA, you got
a piece of paper. With that piece of paper you were able to buy
stuff, but you couldn't buy coffee or anything like that with
the piece of paper. They used paper because when Hoover time came
they killed the money. There was no money anywhere. Also you couldn't
buy cigarettes with the paper. Back then people didn't buy cigarettes
anyway. They rolled their own. Some people even bought machines
to roll the tobacco in the paper. There weren't many tailor made
cigarettes. Back then, women didn't smoke either. Mostly, only
men smoked. Now there were a lot of people who used snuff. Everybody
who worked in the mill used snuff. The doctors required mill workers
to use snuff. If you worked in Whittier Mill, they made you use
snuff because with snuff in your mouth you had to keep your mouth
closed, and that protected your lungs. Also people didn't talk
much while they were working to avoid breathing in the lint from
the cotton mill. Also the doctors advised that people wash their
hair with salty water each night after work.
42. WERE THERE ANY INSIDE BATHROOMS IN THE MILL VILLAGE? No. Everyone
around there had outside toilets. The mill village had outside
toilets and each toilet had a tub underneath it and there was
a work crew of colored who came around every week to empty and
clean the tub. The colored people would empty the buckets into
a tank on their truck and hose down and clean the buckets. That
was a dirty filthy job, believe me.
43. DID THE COTTON MILL BUILDING HAVE INSIDE BATHROOMS? Yes, there
was one for each section of the building, but you had to walk
quite a ways from your work area to get to it. Usually there was
a line waiting to use it when you got there. That's where the
colored women worked, in the restroom.
44. WHAT DID YOU USE FOR BABY DIAPERS? We used mostly anything
we could find. The cheapest kind of cloth we could find was what
we used for diapers. There was a hard twill kind of cloth for
sale and we bought it. I have seen babies end up with gingham
aprons and everything else.
45. DID YO GO TO THE DOCTOR MUCH BACK DURING THE DEPRESSION? There
were doctors available but not many people could afford to go
to them. Also, there didn't seem to be as much sickness back then
as now. People lived on vegetables from the garden and didn't
get many colds or sore throats as they have now. If you got a
cold, you took lemon juice or ginger tea.
46. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU GOT PNEUMONIA? They would put you
in the bed, because they didn't know what to do with pneumonia.
People died with pneumonia back then.
47. DIDN'T THEY HAVE ANY IMMUNIZATION SHOTS? No. I had seven kids
but the first shot I had was when Joan was a baby. I had to have
a shot to prevent blood poisoning after I had a miscarriage. By
the time I got to the doctor, the bay had been dead three days
and the doctor wanted to give me a shot but I wouldn't let him.
I went back home, became sick that night and the doctor had to
come and give me a shot for blood poisoning. Then, he took me
back to his clinic and took the baby.
48. DID YO GO TO THE HOSPITAL TO HAVE YOUR BABIES IN THOSE DAYS?
No, all of my children were born at home. The doctor would come
to the house when I went into labor. I never saw a doctor from
the time I got pregnant until the baby was born.
49. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR DENTIST DURING THE DEPRESSION? When we
had a toothache, we would hold turpentine in our mouth around
the tooth to deaden the nerve. But turpentine will really blister
you believe me, because I have been blistered many times. Most
of the time however, people used camphor for a toothache. I always
found the strongest thing I could find, usually turpentine, to
put it on the tooth to deaden the nerve. Sometimes it would be
three weeks before I could eat after I put the turpentine in my
mouth, but that's what I did.
50. WHAT ARE SOME OTHER THINGS YOU REMEMBER ABOU THE DEPRESSION?
One of the funniest things was when people got the seven-year
itch. I had never had the itch before in my life, and I didn't
know what it was. If you had the itch anywhere on your body it
would crack the skin open on the tips of your fingers. You always
saw people scratching from the itch during the depression. Marie
got the itch one time and gave it to us. There is only one way
to get rid of the itch. You have to burn all the bed clothes or
clothes that you come into contact with. The only thing that will
cure the itch is sulfur and lard, and everyone who had the itch
had to grease up with sulfur and lard, and everyone you had to
wear the grease and lard and the same clothes for nine days and
you couldn't take a bath during that entire period. On the ninth
day you take your clothes and bedclothes and burn them. Since
I knew that I could not afford to burn the clothes for my entire
family, I figured out another solution. I studied about what I
was going to do. First, I went and got a can of red seal lye.
Next, since I was always one to save my meat grease, I used the
red seal lye with meat grease to make some lye soap. Instead of
burning the clothes, I soaked them in the tub with the lye soap
in it for about two or three days. So, I never had to throw away
anything.
50. WHAT IS THE RECIPE FOR MAKING LYE SOAP? First you save meat
grease, skins and trimmings from hogs. Take as much water as the
amount of soap that you want and put it in a pot. Then, you put
your neat grease and skins in the water and bring the mixture
to a good boil. Then, you pour in the can of lye. Be sure to avoid
breathing the fumes from the mixture; we would always tie a towel
around our faces when we stirred the mixture. You have to stir
it continuously. After a while the mixture will begin to thicken
and you pour it into a wooden trough. I would just mail some boards
together so that I could form small bars of soap. In other words,
you pour the soap into the wooden trough, and then the mixture
hardens slightly, you cut any size bars of soap that you want.
We used lye soap just like you used the soap that you buy today.
Lye soap was what we used to wash our clothes, the skin on my
fingers would crack and bleed; it was horrible. Overalls were
the worst clothes to wash. You had to rub and scrub them and it
took days to get your wash on the outside clothesline. But the
lye soap made it easier. I made Ernest get me a big block of hickory
wood, and we would beat the clothes with a stick to help get them
clean. But everything was boiled; we never wore anything that
wasn't boiled. That was the only way that you could kill the germs.
We boiled everything. Some of our quilts were so heavy after washing,
and you had to lift them and hang them on the clothesline.
51. DID MANY PEOPLE HAVE PHONES? No. I never knew of any phones
in anybody's home. Only the stores would have a phone; but there
was only one phone at Mason Turner. Also, the cotton mill office
had a phone. I never knew of many people making telephone calls.
52. DO YOU THINK PEOPLE TODAY SHOULD KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO
LIVE DURING THE DEPRESSION? Yes, people had it rough back then.
If children today could only see how we suffered during the depression
days; at the time, however, we thought we were having an extra
good time considering how poor everybody was. I guess people just
accepted things the way they were, and made the best of them.
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