Rosemary T. Bollinger (nee Taylor)
How old were you when your father Robert Lee Taylor started his cotton gin business?
I was about seven years old when he bought the cotton gin. The gin was the only one around the area at the time, so farmers depended on papa to gin their cotton.
Did he open his cotton gin business year around?
No, it was only opened for about ninety days out of the year, but he worked eighteen hours a day. There was never any rest for papa until the season was over.
Do you remember how many employees papa had working for him at the time?
I think about eight or nine people. I really can’t recall the number of people because I was only seven. But I remember they were all blacks that worked for him.
Can you describe how the cotton gin looked?
See,It was a large tin and lumber building with stalls and it was huge and very dangerous. You could lose your life very easily while working in the gin. Papa never wanted to play around there because he was afraid of us getting hurt. We use to jump from bale to bale and playing all around the cotton gin, but I never got hurt while playing.
Where was the location of the
cotton gin and how long would it take to make a bale in the machine?
Papa had about ten acres in Porter Springs Texas where he opened his business. Many farmers from all around would bring their cotton to be ginned. I remember there were cotton houses all around where cotton could be stored. Most of the time farmers would leave the cotton because they didn’t have time to wait. I also remember clearly that it would take the cotton gin 40 minutes to make one bale at a time. That machine was operating non stop.
Was your papa successful at his cotton gin business?
Yes he was successful; he was always a business man and a hard worker. Papa always provided for the family well. We always had food on the table and we were thankful for that. When we were little papa had hired a black maid to watch over us and cook and clean. Papa seemed to take care of many blacks in the area by providing work for them. Our maid name was Roxy, and I can also remember Roxy having nothing, so papa built her a little home. He shared his success with many of the poor people in the town. Papa really had a heart for helping the blacks.
Did any accidents ever happen at the gin?
Oh, yes there was this black man that worked for papa that tripped into the gin while working with the cotton. That was a horrible death that happened. It really was a dangerous place.
How long did he keep his business open for?
Well, one day there was a worker who was smoking while working in the cotton house. For some reason he laid down his cigarette and the whole place caught on fire. Papa took a big loss on his business because he had to pay many of the farmers back their money because of the lose. He had no insurance at the time, so that was when he decided to close it down.
Was that the only business he had?
No before he had the cotton gin he owned a lumber mill for many years but that was before I was born, so I don’t really remember much about the mill. See, while he had the cotton gin, he also opened a water well business. The gin was only opened for about ninety days out of the year, so he needed a second business. I think it was in the early thirties when he started drilling. Papa bought this old truck with the drilling equipment for fifteen hundred dollars.
About how many wells did he drill in a month?
I can remember him drilling about three during the month.
How much would he charge for drilling a well?
Well it would depend on the job, but he did very well. I remember one night he came in late from drilling from drilling in Iola Texas. He had this brown sack full of money. He told my sister and me to count the money for him. I never counted so much money before. It was about two or three thousand dollars.
One of the things that I learned from my interview was occupations always change. This was a challenge- interviewing an old person, because they sometimes want to talk in different directions than from the subject. The cotton gin was the strength of our economy back in the nineteenth century. I think this was an interesting interview, because it was mainly about the cotton gin. I couldn't imagine operating this huge piece of machinery. Robert Lee Taylor, was a well known man in his area up until he passed away. One of the things I did not know about my great grandfather was he helped so many black people in his area, by providing work for them, lending money, and providing shelter. My grandmother said he was known as the man would lend money to the blacks. She can remember people always coming up to the porch asking papa for a loan. I have to say that my grandmother really did not show any emotion to this interview. I believe this has something to do with her mined. Her stories taught me so much about the family past and how they made their living. I also verified these stories with my mother to make sure they were correct and they were perfectly told. There were many benefits to doing this report, because of all the different things I learned about. The drawback to doing the report was her mined does not work so well anymore. I would recommend doing oral history reports as an effective way of learning the past.
The Handbook of Texas Online. Copyright © The Texas State Historical Association. The Handbook of Texas Online is a multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at University of Texas at Austin. Houston County, Porter Springs, and Iola are included in the oral history. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/ Last Updated: May 16, 2005.
Cotton Gin. Photographs of Arkansas and Arkansans from 1935 to 1940 by the Photographers of the Farm. Security AdministrationCopyright ©2006 Old State House Museum.
AIER Cost-of-Living Calculator. The calculator uses the Consumer Price Index to do the conversions. The source for the data is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The calculator converts the cost of items in American dollars from 1913 to the present. Organized in 1933 as a private, independent, scientific, and educational charitable organization, the American Institute for Economic Research plans its research to help individuals protect their personal interests and those of the Nation. American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), P.O. Box 1000, Great Barrington, Mass 01230. http://www.aier.org/colcalc.html. (2005).