JIM LELOUDIS: Well, let's begin by talking some about your family and your childhood, how you

came to Charlotte. ALICE P. EVITT: Well, I was so small, I can't remember. My father was a carpenterHe worked and my sisters worked in the mill. Back then you could go in the mill. I'd go in there and mess around with them, they'd spinnin'. I liked to put up the ends and spin a little bit, so when I got twelve years old, I wanted to quit school. My daddy didn't want me to quit, and he said, "Well, if you quit school, you've got to go to work." So I just quit and went to work. JIM LELOUDIS: Did people in the mill village ever get together and do things together on Christmas or Thanksgiving? ALICE P. EVITT: They never did here, but before I was married when I lived in Concord, I'd play the organ and the fella lived right there, he'd pick the guitar and they'd dance. But no outsiders didn't come in. They enjoyed it. I never did dance, never did learn 'cause I'd always play the organ and I couldn't get a chance [laughter] . We'd enjoy that. A lot of times on Sunday, I'd play the organ. A crowd of us'd get together and we'd sing. JIM LELOUDIS: Would that be in your house? ALICE P. EVITT: Un-huh. We had a organ and they'd always come to our house. All through the week nearly every night they'd be in. Girls'd come in and we'd enjoy it. JIM LELOUDIS: Do you remember any of your favorite songs you used to play? ALICE P. EVITT: No, I don't. I enjoyed 'em all. JIM LELOUDIS: Do you remember the names of any of them? ALICE P. EVITT: Yeah. We used to play a lot of them. But, I hadn't played since my mother died. Every time I'd go home, they'd had the organ, she'd want me to play, "The Old Rugged Cross," and I'd play it every time I'd go home.

JIM LELOUDIS: You said you went to school until you were twelve. Did you go to school in a school that was mostly mill children? ALICE P. EVITT: Well, when I went at Hardin it was and they was mostly. . . . I went over there to thatthat was the Calvine millthat was a college. All kind went there. Most of the places they was mill people. I went to North Charlotte, they had a house there. They had it in a house. They didn't have a school, and it was just mill children all that went there. JIM LELOUDIS: You said you went to work at twelve. ALICE P. EVITT: That was 1910. JIM LELOUDIS: Did you feel like you were grown then? ALICE P. EVITT: Well, I just felt like I wanted to work. I didn't want to go to school. JIM LELOUDIS: When did you consider yourself to be grown? ALICE P. EVITT: I went to goin' with my first husband in 1913. I went with him three years 'fore we married. I went with him till I was seventeen years old. JIM LELOUDIS: So you started courting at about fourteen then. JIM LELOUDIS: So you were living in Concord at that time. He was living across the street. Did you have any children after you were married? ALICE P. EVITT: No, we never did have any children. But we raised a lot of children.

JIM LELOUDIS: How do you mean that? ALICE P. EVITT: I had a sister and she married a man. He was bad to drink and she had some children. At first, she married a manhe was a good manshe had three children and he was just as good. He wanted me and my husband to take them children 'fore he died, 'cause he knowed back in them days, she wasn't able to take care of them. I raised them three. After that, she married a feller, and he turned out to be an old drunk. She had three by him, and she just quit him and stayed with me most of the time. We took care and raised them. So we raised a bunch of kids. My daddy had a stroke. I kept him. He had a stroke four years was in a wheelchair. I kept my daddy. JIM LELOUDIS: Were you still working in the mill then? ALICE P. EVITT: Yeah. My husband, he wasn't doin' no good. He was kinda sick, and I couldn't quit and let him do the work. After my daddy died, he did get plumb down and went in the hospital and had cancer on the liver. He didn't be able to work no more. That's why I couldn't quit and just stay right with him. I would of if I could of 'cause that's one thing I'd always dolook out after my mother and father. All my sisters and brothers was the same way. We was all crazy about them. I'm just thankful. JIM LELOUDIS: It must have really been something to work in the mill and do your housework and raise six children the same time. How did you do it? How did you manage it? ALICE P. EVITT: I did though. I had to get up every mornin' at 4:30. My husband was good to help me. Them kids was good. They'd mop for me. 'Fore my daddy had a stroke, he stayed with me. He'd boil beans or bake cornbreadwe loved cornbread a lothe'd do a lot of help me with my cookin'. We just got along. Always say where they was a will, they're a way, and it seemed like it did. JIM LELOUDIS: I also want to talk about your work in the mill some. When we began, you said you went in at twelve, but that you were going in the mill before that. ALICE P. EVITT: I went in there and helped my sisters and learned how to put up ends on spinnin'. That's why the first day I went to work, I could run two sides12 a side, 25 a day. I run them awhile and then I took

three. You just had to build yourself up. I got to where I could run some placesall the mills ain't alike, but machines that don't run as goodsome places I could run sixteen sides. Of course it kept you goin' to go around to all them sides. In some places, I couldn't run but twelve. I run twelve at Clinton. That's the most they run there. I made a $1.44 a day on them twelve. That's a lot of walkin'. Them spinnin' framesyou know anything about a cotton mill? JIM LELOUDIS: Yeah, I've been through one. ALICE P. EVITT: You know how a spinnin' frame is. You'd walk around twelve of them and keep them and clean them, and you've got a job. Out here, I'd run four speeders, and they'd put a spin on five. When I quit out here, we was runnin' five. That's a hard job because a hard end would come through. It could just tear down everything if you don't get to it and stop it. If you don't keep them goin', you don't make nothin'. The clock's on the end of the frame. When they stopped, you not makin' anything. When I quit out here, I was makin' nineteen dollars a week. That wasn't much. They make much as that in a day now. That's what I was makin'. I was runnin' by the hank. I was runnin' frames. JIM LELOUDIS: Why did you go up and visit your sister? Did you go to learn the job or to visit? ALICE P. EVITT: All my sisters were at home then and a-workin'. They'd let you go in there seven, eight years old. I'd go in there where they's at. My mother worked. She spooled. I never did learn spoolin'. I learnt to spinnin'. I'd go in there where they's at and I learned to put up ends. That's the reason I could take two sides the first day I went to work. JIM LELOUDIS: How did you get that first job? ALICE P. EVITT: Well, they's scarce of hands back then. You could get a job anywhere. They used to move us to get my two sisters to work still? They used to pay our movin' bill to get us from mill to mill here in Charlotte. JIM LELOUDIS: Do you remember any other times that you or people in your family quit? What happened that made them quit? ALICE P. EVITT:

Back then, the boss man would get on you for nothing. Out to Highland Park, they was awful bad about that. My daddy was about to get in trouble'bout to whoop one of them bosses about gettin' on my sister so much. He'd get on her she'd go to the bathroom. He'd holler and go on at her that way, and he didn't allow men to do like that. We quit then. I wasn't workin'. They quit. He was about to get in trouble. He was about to whoop him, or try to whoop him. They'd do all them spinners that way. After I went to work in there, they knowed my daddy, they never did holler at me or nothing like that. But they would then when it was just. . . . They'd be right mad at them, hollerin' at them. Back then, the bosses, they just thought they could boss you around and make you do as they say do. They would them that would listen to them, but we never did listen to them, cause my daddy told us not to. So, he knowed we wasn't goin' to do nothin' wrong, but he wanted us to do our work right. They was just mean to people back them days. I never had them be mean to me that way. When I wanted off and couldn't get off, that wasn't bein' mean, they just needed me. JIM LELOUDIS: What type of things would they fuss at you about? ALICE P. EVITT: I don't know what they would do. Maybe your work'd be runnin' bad and you couldn't keep it up good. You'd be workin' as hard as you could, and it would get all messed up. Some rollers choked up on it and you couldn't help yourself. It wasn't your fault, and they'd just raise cane with you about it. People doin' all they could do, that's all they could do. They thought they could do more than they could do. They'd get on 'em and holler at them. You could hear them all over the plantmuch fussin's that madeyou could hear them holler at people. I never had one to holler at me like that. I guess they would of, but I never did. But I sure did hear 'em holler at t'other people. Of course, they don't do that now, but they did then. JIM LELOUDIS: Did they have real strict rules? You said they tried to run your sister out of the rest room. ALICE P. EVITT: A lot of them go in there and they'd talk. Their work'd be goin' bad. They'd go to the door and holler at 'em make 'em come out of there. That's all I knowed they'd do because they never did holler at me. But I heard my sister and them tell about 'em hollerin' at them. I heared 'em holler at other people. JIM LELOUDIS: Do you ever remember people getting hurt in the mill, or nearly hurt? ALICE P. EVITT: Yeah, I knowed of them to slip on the floor and get hurt. I got a scar on my arm where I fell out here in this mill. I was stooped over doffin' my frame down that way, and I fell. There was a casin' off of my

speedermetal, big old casin'and the corner of it cut my arm. I got cut out here. That's when I was runnin' speeders. JIM LELOUDIS: I was thinking of a story a woman told me about another woman getting her skirt caught in the belt. ALICE P. EVITT: Oh, I'd get my apron tore off of me in the speeder roomwhen I was learnin' to run speeders. I'd get my apron tore off of me two or three times a week. They'd wind me up, and I was just lucky I managed to stop 'em and didn't get my arms in them. Them fliers would break your bones. JIM LELOUDIS: Did it scare you? ALICE P. EVITT: Yeah, it would scare me. Sure would. Sometimes I'd be a-cleanin' my gear and get my brush hung in there and tear down the whole frame ends [laughter] . Back then they didn't wear pants like they do now. Your apronthem big fliers flyin' around that waythey'd grab you and just wind it plumb up. I always managed to get it stopped. I know one ladyI didn't see her get it donebut she said she wore wigs and she'd get her hair caught and it pulled her whole scalp outevery bit of her hair. She had to wear. . . . JIM LELOUDIS: It pulled. . . . ALICE P. EVITT: Pulled her hair all outevery bit of it. She said pulled the scalp off that way. I don't know what she meant that way. JIM LELOUDIS: What was it like in the mill? I've never been in one that was running. What did it smell like? What did it look like? ALICE P. EVITT: It just make a lot of noise. That's why I never did go to the weave room. I worked all but the weave room. It makes so much fuss and clatter, I never did work in there. JIM LELOUDIS: You told me you hated it.

ALICE P. EVITT: I worked everywhere but there. Everything run and makin' fuss. You have to talk loud to people. A lot of people learn to talk loud, they don't never bring it down. They just, where they're at, they talk loud. Out here, when you worked out here, ever who worked side of you, you worked side hand. You help each other. But they didn't do that nowhere else. But out here, we worked together. We didn't stop for dinner. The feller worked next to me, I'd run his frame, so he'd go home. Then he'd run mine till I could come home and get dinner. We'd always pick a time when we didn't have no doffin' or busy job on us. We had to doff and creel, and we couldn't do that and run all them frames. We'd work it together and work out each other's right time to go. JIM LELOUDIS: Was it real hot in the mill? ALICE P. EVITT: Oh, it was awful hot. You'd come out of there, your clothes was plumb wet. Awful hot. Over to JohnstonI worked over there somethey had air conditioning, and it helped a lot. Didn't have it too cool, but it helped a lot. Out here, they didn't have anything. All the windows that was open was right where you was workin'. You'd open one. That didn't let much in. All that stuff a-runnin' machinery makin' heat. It was bad. Terrible hot out here. JIM LELOUDIS: Well, that about covers most of the questions I had.