Mill-Village Boy

I saw my first light, had my first meal, and got my first hugs and kisses in the last house on E-Street, in the cotton mill village called North Canton.  It was a bad time, a time of the Great Depression.  But my Daddy had a job, as did his Dad and most of my uncles (and some aunts) at the cotton mill in Canton, Georgia.  They made blue denim cloth.

Canton was, at that time, a small town of perhaps 2,500 people, the county seat of Cherokee County, about 40 miles northeast of Atlanta.  Nearly everything revolved around the mill, the main source of income for the county’s residents.  It had been founded many years before by Mr. R.T. Jones whose family continued  its operation.  The mill work was very hard and the pay was very low but few people complained.  The workers for the most part only had grade school educations.  They were generally God-fearing, honest, hard working, dependable, family-oriented folks.  They were very grateful to the mill owners for giving them the opportunity to be productive and to be able to provide for their families.

Most families bought their goods and groceries from the North Canton store, owned by the mill owners, who also owned the department store in Canton.  And most lived in the mill village, built and also owned by the Jones family.  All of the houses were white, clapboard construction. They were built on brick pillars, above the ground a foot or two.  Without insulation and with heat provided only from coal-burning fireplaces, they were often very, very cold places in the winter. One of my early memories is of my Dad holding a quilt in front of the fireplace to get it snugly warm for wrapping around me, as preparation for being put into an ice-cold bed.

The house of my birth accommodated two families, each side having a living room at the front, a bedroom in the middle, and the kitchen in the rear.  An indoor toilet was just off the kitchen but required going outside to reach it.  Most farm houses in the area were not as well equipped, having only outdoor facilities.  There was no shower, no bathtub.  For baths, water was boiled on top of the wood-burning stove, then mixed with enough cold water in a circular, body-sized galvanized wash tub for soaping and soaking ourselves.   Saturday was the day and it was a day I looked forward to....my weekly day to play in the “pool.” Sponge baths sufficed the other days of the week.

All of the streets in the village were named as letters of the alphabet.  Our house was at the end of E-Street, right at the edge of a forest of pines and hardwoods.  Mothers delivered their babies at home, assisted by female relatives or midwives.  With no telephones generally available, the doctor had to be summoned by someone who would drive to the doctor’s office or residence.

My birth, on May 12, 1933,  followed a difficult period of labor for my mother, Martha Clark Pettit, 20 years old, 4 feet -10 inches tall.  I weighed over nine pounds.

No baby was ever wanted more and loved more.  I was the first grandchild of my maternal grandmother, Odell Clark. My grandfather, Mack, said by my mother to have been a wonderfully loving and protective father, had died several years earlier, leaving three daughters and three sons to be raised.......and very little money.  There was no help available from outside, but families took care of their own when in need.  A generous and loving uncle took my mother and her family into his household, and provided sustenance until my mother and her oldest sister could get jobs in the mill, with an accompanying house in the village (rent $5 per month).  Mom was 13 years old, finished with formal education after seventh grade.

When I was born a few years later, my two aunts and the three uncles from my Mom’s side of the family thought I was the greatest thing since pinto beans and cornbread!  They took turns holding me, playing with me, kissing me, hugging me....protecting me, teaching me.  And so did my Dad’s brothers and sisters.