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Archiver > SCDILLON > 2003-05 > 1052164602
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Subject: Re: [SCDILLON] Cotton and the Dillon Mills
Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 15:56:42 -0400
Yes, a doffer takes full bobbins off spindles and puts on empty bobbins. I was a twister doffer, starting at 40c an hour, which was minimum wage, and going to "journeyman" doffer at 47 1/2 cents an hour in about three weeks. I worked night shift, often 12 hrs a day, and went to DHS in the daytime. I started work for Carolina Textile Corporation on my 16th birthday, having worked at Carolina Paprika Mills and operated a part-time radio repair shop, prior to coming of "legal working age".
"Sides" pertains to one side of a "frame", or a long textile machine. My mom could run just about any piece of machinery in Maple Mill but worked mostly as a twister hand or as a spooler. When daddy started work in the mill, he was paid 55c a week for five and a half days work. When I worked in the mill, house rent on the village averaged a dollar a week but we each had a good sized garden spot and many mill folks also raised chickens and some raised hogs. We had a hand-operated pump for water and an outside privvy (well stocked with Sears Roebuck catalogs and Grit newspaper's Story Section.)Many privvies had the proverbial latch string. We had no electricity and seldom locked our house doors. At night one could identify a person heard walking along the road by his stride, his limp, or the way he grunted as he walked along. Everyone trusted everyone else and those few who got into trouble were ostracized.
Some of the jobs in Maple Mill were Spoolers, Spinners, Twister Operators, Doffers, Sweepers, Card Hands, Warpers, Sweepers, Oilers, Packers, Pickers, Opening Room Hands....and others I cannot recall at the moment. I need cousin Wayne Stanton and my Aunt Boyce to jump in here and help me get my brain cells into gear.
To me, cotton mill work was enjoyable; probably the happiest days of my life. Friends one made on a cotton mill village were the kind that one keeps for life.
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