Margaret Elizabeth Dennis (nee Newton)
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My grandma, Margaret Elizabeth Newton Dennis, was
born at home in Drexel, North
Carolina by Dr. Palmer on January 28, 1941 to Clyde Newton and Lara
Lydia Bridges Newton. She is the fourth child of five. Margaret lived in many
different places growing up. until she was about 18, her family switched back
and forth between Drexel and Casan, North Carolina. Although she never finished
high school, Margaret still managed to earn 23 college hours. On March 7, 1962
at the age of 21 she married Air Force Airman Ronald Keith Dennis (Keith), in a
Baptist Parsonage in San Antonio, Texas. Being the wife of a military man,
Margaret moved around a lot: two years were spent in San Antonio, Texas, the
following year in France, two years in England, back to San Antonio, Texas for
another two years, Drexel, North Carolina for a year, the Philippines for a
year, sixteen years in Devine, Texas, and finally settling down in Bigfoot,
Texas. During all of this time she had four children: the late Randall Hank
Dennis, Angela Kay Dennis (Carter), Laura Catherine Dennis (West), and Lisa
Antoinette Dennis (West). She has been a devout Christian with the Baptist
Community since childhood and is a registered Republican. Margaret had a very
interesting job in her late teenage years that is no longer in existence. She
was a looper in a men's hosiery mill and actually did the looping at the end of
men's socks to make the toe area as smooth as the rest of the sock. She is very
talented with her hands to this day and enjoys crocheting, knitting,
embroidering, and sewing.
How much education did you have? What occupations have you had?
I had some college, approximately
23 hours through Liberty University by mail.
When I was a child my family were
sharecroppers and then I worked my first job at the age of 18. I was a looper
Did you work because you wanted to or because you had to?
I had to.
I didn't really want to leave my son. I had a baby. He was not very old but I
had to go to work.
How many people were in your household that you were
helping to support?
My husband, myself, and my son.
What did you do with your son while you were working in the hosiery
mill?
There was a very wonderful lady that lived across the road from
my mother and we had known her for a long time and she kept him for me. It was
an easy walk. I could walk there and drop him off in the morning and walk back
to work and the same in the afternoon.
What is a looper?
A looper is a
person that takes a sock that has been knitted and there are so many different
areas that the sock goes through before it ever gets to the looping room but
everything is done except the toe of the sock and they couldn't do that part so
they had this machine, it had so many needles on it and it had all this thread
coming down and you have to take a sock and they've got little teeny tiny holes
around this toe that you have to put onto this machine. When you put it on the
machine you have to run your thumb around it and go and that machine goes around
in a circle at all times and you keep it going all the time. When you finish,
when the sock comes around, it comes off the machine; it's finished and the toe
is just like the rest of the sock, it looks like it's all one piece.
Describe a typical day at work.
We came in each morning and punched
our time clock. We got there at seven o'clock in the morning. Our day started
then. Someone brought our socks to us and we did dozens of sock per day, there
were so many for production. Our goal was to reach production, then you made a
dollar an hour when you were reachin' production and if you went over production
you got extra money for the socks that you went over but to do production is the
thing that we did. During the day we would go at about nine o'clock we had a
break, and we would have a trolley thing that brought sodas and snacks around
and you could buy that and you could go to the restroom and you could have
cigarettes because at that time smoking was okay, was legal in the bathroom and
we could take that break and then we had our lunch break which we could stay
there and eat our sandwiches or we usually went outside and smoked outside. We
came back in and punched our time clock in after lunch, started back working
again, worked for another hour or so and had another break, about ten minute
break and that was a bathroom break and then we would punch out at fifteen
minutes till four and we would go home.
Was there any specific schooling needed to do this job?
Yes the
factory itself offered a six month schooling to train you and I was trained and
I am proud to say that I was the fasted learner that they had and I leaned very
quickly and was put out on the floor extremely fast but they were very good in
giving schooling.
Was the work you did challenging to you?
It was very challenging at
first but it became very easy. I enjoyed immensely, I enjoyed it. It was
fun.
How were you paid?
We were paid by the hour but we had to make
production to get the hourly wage which was a dollar an hour. If we went over
production we got more money. I don't remember the pay right now; it's been a
long time. And I started out my training at seventy-five cents an hour and as
soon as I got out of training I made a dollar an hour. And we worked eight hours
a day, five days a week and we were paid every two weeks.
Describe the settings you worked in.
It was a huge factory in
Drexel, a great big building. A great big huge building with big windows and it
had windows over the top and we had vents and fans that carried stuff out, the
lint and stuff out supposedly. Real, real tall ceilings and noisy. Just a
factory. It was like walking in to a huge warehouse. Looping machines were lined
up in long rows with about three feet in between them but the machines almost
touched. There were side isles that were a little bigger for carts to pick up
and deliver socks to individuals. I was on the very last row and my Aunt sat on
the row ahead and two machines to my right. Behind me was the training room. It
was much smaller; a glassed in room that held about five looping machines to
train with.
Were there any hazards in the work
place?
Yes the lint was a hazard. It was probably the worst hazard
although the noise factor was supposed to be bad plus the lighting was not as
good as most people thought it should be and in later years the EPA went in and changed a lot of
the stuff in the factory.
Was this a popular or socially acceptable job?
Yes it was.
Did only women work in the looping section?
Yes [men could work on
the floor as managers but didn't work the looping machines].
What was the range of ages of the employees?
If they had openings
[in the factory] if you had your parental consent you could work when you were
sixteen and they worked through sixty-five [retirement age].
How long did you work as a looper?
Well I would have worked longer
but I was expecting and didn't know it when I first got the job and they
couldn't hire you if you were expecting a child and I worked for about eight
months there, about six months there not eight and later on I worked at another
factory but this one I worked about six months before I had to take my maternity
leave. Then I worked after I had my baby [out of her home]. They had a factory
down in the town [Valaese, North
Carolina, two miles from Drexel] I was living in that had, like to
make baby socks, to loop the toes of baby socks which was a lot more challenging
than the one I was working at before and I worked it probably six to eight
months.
Is there anything you miss about your job?
Yes I especially miss the
first one because the people that worked there were so very, very friendly and
it was like a great big family and I enjoyed the laughter and the comradery.
When and why did being a looper vanish in the work field?
It would
have been probably the end of the sixties, beginning of the seventies because
all of the minimum wage went up so high that it was not plausible to pay that
many people to work that many machines - this is what I was told - to do this
job. It was easier, faster - not nearly as comfortable on your feet - to sew it
on the sewing machine and so it cut way down. You could do a lot faster without
that particular machine [the looping machine].
What do you think about machines replacing your old job?
I think
it's awful. I think that we should go back and do good work. And do the good
work and make it comfortable and make it nice and I think it would just be
glorious if we had that now.
What do you consider to be jobs of today that will vanish in the
future?
I think the greatest majority of jobs will vanish in the future
and I think people will be so bored that they won't know what to do because we
have become so computer oriented and so everything is electronic and we have
robots to do this and we've already got little robots running around cleaning
our floors and we're gonna be so lazy that our bodies are not gonna work
correctly. Everything's gonna be wrong.
Is there anything you would like to add?
I would like to say that I
miss the jobs. I miss the fact that there were jobs for people who needed them
that they're not there anymore and there's no challenging jobs really because you
can touch a button and do the work. The only challenging jobs would be nursing,
doctors and even those are becoming electronic, you can use electronics to do
those too but that seems to be the only jobs we have. And I would like to also
say that if we would stop outsourcing all of our jobs to the other countries we
could get some of this back and we would have jobs for everybody in our country
and it would just be a lot easier and a lot better place to live.
This project was the funnest project I've ever done, hands down. It gave me the chance to sit down and spend some quality
time with my Grandma which is something I haven't gotten to do in a very long
time. We had so much fun trying to record it because we kept getting the giggles
and getting tongue-tied. I learned some things about my Grandma that I didn't
know before and oh how the times have changed. She was only my age and she
already had a job, children, and a husband. Her late teen years were spent
caring for her family and working to help make ends meet. And I thought my life
was hard! Although it seemed like a hard beginning, she seemed happy to talk
about her past with me because she really enjoyed her job. One thing I can take
from this interview is that jobs are a precious thing. I have to agree with her
on the fact that once the world turns computerized we will become even more lazy
than we already are and it is highly possible that we will run out of jobs. I
mean, how many people does it take to push a button?
Before this interview I wouldn't have even been able to guess what a looper
was. It is sad that we forget these things. This was the beginning of my
Grandma's adult life, my flesh and blood, and I never knew. Even the dictionary
has thrown the definition out and replaced it with "the thread holder in a
sewing machine using two threads". How many other people's grandma, mother,
aunt, or sister used to be that machine? We need to remember these jobs of old
because they tell us a lot about our family members. I regret not asking my
Great Grandma what she used to do to earn a living because now she is gone. Oral
Histories give us the chance to hear the story first hand and get details and
imagery we could never get from a history book. I think it is a wonderful way of
learning about and remembering our past and our bloodline.
The Town of Drexel, North
Carolina. Copyright 2006 Town of Drexel, NC.
http://www.ci.drexel.nc.us/ This website gives us a look into the
town of Drexel as well as useful links, facts, and information about Drexel.
"Human Resources and Skills Development Canada". 9442 Weavers,
Knitters and Other Fabric-Making Occupations.
http://www23.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/2001/e/groups/9442.shtml Last Updated:
2004/11/01. This website gives descriptions of various occupations.
"The Handbook of Texas Online" Joske's.
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/JJ/dhjqn.html
Last Updated June 6, 2001. This websites provides a detailed history of
Joke's.
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. http://www.epa.gov/ Last Updated April 21,
2006 This website gives the history of the EPA as well as links for
interesting topics, images, and organizations of the EPA.
Town of Valaese, North
Carolina. Copyright 2006 Town of Valdese, NC.
http://www.ci.valdese.nc.us/ This website gives us a look into the
town of Valdese as well as useful links, facts, and information about
Valdese.
Textile Industry in 1940. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Historic Landmarks Commission. 2100 Randolph Road Charlotte, North Carolina. 28207. The textile industry provided the economic engine that powered Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in North Carolina from the 1880s well into the 1900s. By 1940, textiles began to yield as the dominant force in the regional economy to banking, distribution, and a host of other diversified enterprises. Photo of Hosiery Mill Interior obtained from this website.
Stein, Jess. The Random House College Dictionary. New
York: Random House, Inc., 1979. This dictionary was immediately received with
widespread approval for its complete, authoritative, and up to date coverage of
the English Language.
